The Rubber Bands
A curatorial and creative collective based in Florida, Tayina Deravile, Sheree L. Greer, and Khaulah Naima Nuruddin collaborate to present interdisciplinary, cross-genre art projects that explore the intersections of visual, literary, and performance art.
Tayina Deravile
Tayina Deravile holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Central Florida and a Master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling at Nova Southeastern University. While attending graduate school, Tayina began her career in arts administration in Fort Lauderdale. She is currently the Gallery Manager at Girls' Club, the only private collection in the world that primarily exhibits contemporary art by women, and the Director of Arts Administration and Community Engagement at FATVillage Arts District, a nonprofit that strives to generate an inclusive art community located in the FATVillage Arts District. Tayina sits on the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce Cultural Arts Committee and The Association of American Cultures. She also has been the Special Projects Fellow at Prizm Art Fair, an art fair that happens during Basel Miami Art Week that exhibits international artists from Africa and the global African Diaspora from 2017- 2020 and Small Press Fair Fort Lauderdale since 2017. Furthermore, she is a co-partner in Estuary, an arts organization whose mission is to connect South Florida's African diaspora through arts programming. She believes in the unique healing power the arts can foster in mental/emotional well being.
Sheree L. Greer
Sheree L. Greer is a writer, artist, teacher, and publisher living in Tampa, Florida. In 2014, she founded The Kitchen Table Literary Arts Center to showcase and support the work of Black women and women of color writers and is the author of two novels, Let the Lover Be and A Return to Arms, a short story collection, Once and Future Lovers, and student writing guides, Stop Writing Wack Essays and Baddest Out of Your Friends. She created and ran Oral Fixation, the first Black queer open mic in Tampa Bay for nearly ten years and published an anthology of Black writers and poets, Oral Fixation Presents: A Collection of New Voices from Tampa Bay in 2015. Her work has been published in First Bloom Anthology, LezTalk Anthology, VerySmartBrothas, Autostraddle, The Windy City Times, Bleed Literary Journal, and the Windy City Queer Anthology: Dispatches from the Third Coast. With work featured extensively in print and online, Sheree has received a Union League of Chicago Civic Arts Foundation award, earned her MFA at Columbia College Chicago, and is a VONA/VOICES alum, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice grantee, Yaddo fellow, and Ragdale Artist House Rubin Fellow. Her essay, "Bars" published in Fourth Genre Magazine, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and notably named in Best American Essays 2019, and her latest essay, "None of this is Bullshit" was published at The Rumpus and featured in "Memoir Mondays.”
Khaulah Naima Nuruddin
Khaulah Naima Nuruddin is a Black, lesbian visual artist, curator, preparator, and educator who lives and works in South Florida. Nuruddin earned a BFA from The University of South Florida and an MFA from Florida Atlantic University. Nuruddin’s multimedia artwork explores the intersections of personal expression and social commentary by initiating public discussion of race, sexuality, and the social transfer. Nuruddin’s solo exhibitions include Not For Sale. Not Today. at Bridge Red in Miami and Destroy to Build. Passage. at Girls’ Club, Ft Lauderdale. With work featured in curated group exhibitions at Hollywood Art and Culture Center, Art Serve, Emerson Dorsch, Prizm - Art Basel, North Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, Little Haiti Cultural Center, and the Cornell Museum, Nuruddin’s work can be viewed in public and private collections including L.A Lee Mizel YMCA, Atlantic Pacific Communities, and Pridelines. A Broward Cultural Division Artist Support Grantee, the Friedland Project Grantee, and The Women in the Visual Arts Inc. Grantee, Nuruddin is an adjunct art instructor and a founding member of Rubber Bands Florida Collective. She currently serves as Curator and Exhibitions Manager for the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, where she organized and installed over 30 exhibits highlighting Black history and contemporary artists of color.