The Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center was founded in 1993 by a collective of jazz musicians, architects, poets, graphic designers, visual and fine artists interested in broadening their reach within the local Newark, New Jersey area and beyond. The Sumei Center hosts national and international exhibits, workshops for children and adults, lectures, cultural education, artist workshops, presentations, and programs and music from the many different cultures that make up our diverse country.

Our History

Havana/Newark
Sumei began as a jazz hangout for local jazz musicians and artists from 1992 - 1995. Our first major exhibition was entitled Havana/Newark, showcasing a group of Cuban artists living in Havana who were in need of a venue for exposure. Ben Jones, a well known African American artist brought these artists to the center and introduced them to Yoland Skeete. Yoland recognized the need for both exiled Cuban artists and artists living in Cuba to interact, and reached out to these artists by providing a forum for discussion and reconciliation. For the next five years, this exhibit became an annual presentation of multidisciplinary arts by Cuban and Cuban American artists. Artists living in Cuba were invited to visit and lecture on their specialties, and meet with curators and collectors. As a result, interest in Cuban art has grown to what it is today.

African Art as a Nurturing Force
Along with our Cuban artist program, African Art as a Nurturing Force, ran for several years. This exhibit combined artifacts from the Eric Robertson Collection of African Arts with the visual art works of Willie Cole, Ujima Majied, Yoland Skeete, and several local artists, poetry presentations of famed American poet Amiri Baraka, Yictove, and local poets and lectures by authors like Babatunde Lawal author of The Gelede Spectacle: Art, Gender, and Social Harmony in African Culture. Our exhibits included panel discussions, music, and dance. As a natural progression, the Sumei Center also hosted presentations of music and theatre from different cultures, and international art exhibits from Africa, the Caribbean, and other parts of the world. Today, the Sumei Center has expanded to offer workshops, artists in residence programs, artist promotion, and more.

Print Biennial
In 1999 with the death of famed Cuban printmaker and Sumei supporter Belkis Ayon, Sumei created the print biennial that has run every other year for five years. The exhibit has been jurored and curated by the print departments of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Newark Museum. The next print biennial will be announced in the spring 2011. This exhibit presents the works of master printers and emerging print artists printing in the traditional style. The biennial exhibition has become a standing program of the organization and the international print world.

Newark Chinatown History
Newark Chinatown existed from 1870's to 1970's.
In 2000, Sumei received a grant from NJPAC - Mellon Fund to begin research on the Newark Chinatown history. The following year a grant from The Council on the Humanities was received to continue research and documentation of the history of this community. During the following years this project grew with Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation support and Sumei commissioned the Chinese artist Ye Xun to produce models of what the old Chinatown looked like. Artist Ye Xun worked for one year to produce one side of the Mulberry Street area and then, with the help of another Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation grant, the following year he created the second side of the Chinatown street. This work and the artist's records and research have become a part of the archive of Newark Chinatown.

From 1999 to 2007 - Sumei and Verizon Foundation sponsored a reunion of the Newark Chinatown elders and a celebration of Asian American art and culture. Sumei has created a permanent exhibit of the history, research, and artifacts of Newark Chinatown.