About Us
WE ARE
ART|unknown.
Founded in 2018, ART|unknown. is a black owned and female led global multidisciplinary creative group. Our mission is to uncover unconventional art in unconventional spaces to amplify black voices.
The ART|unknown. brand seeks to expand cultural, art, music, design conversations and communities. As the global dialogue on the utility of art to convey important messages in a post-pandemic world grows, ART|unknown. has a mission to contribute to growing data that argues art as a primary driver of social change. This is accomplished through harnessing the power of art while considering the 17 Sustainable Development Goals – or SDGs - as a central lens and measurement tool.
With values rooted in sustainability, social impact, authentic storytelling and community, the brand embodies the creative vision of founder and art historian Tayler Ava Friar (@tayleravafriar).
Meet Tayler Ava
Tayler Ava Friar is a writer, TEDx speaker, art historian, and global communications specialist with previous roles at The United Nations, World Bank, and Google. She is also the founder of ART|unknown. - a platform that explores the intersection of art, black voices and the SDGs.
With a deep commitment to reexamining histories from a decolonized lens, Ms. Friar is a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Cape Town. Her thesis is entitled “Black sexual politics and the erotic: The intersection of gender politics and sexuality in contemporary visual art in Africa” which has been partially published with Aix-Marseille University in Provence, France.
As a Creative Knowledge Resources Fellow, her interests include the politics of visual culture, womxn leadership, the decolonization of art, and climate action. Her most recent lecture series was entitled “Art, Theory, and Society” which focused on various histories of representation of the black female form from The Belle Époque to contemporary contexts. Ms. Friar is a contributing writer for Business Insider and has been invited to be a TEDx speaker in November 2022 in Mexico. Finally, she can be seen as a feature in Vogue Magazine’s November 2020 issue, speaking to the importance of black voices in the 2020 US elections.
In her spare time, she can be found in that cafe you never noticed, practicing kizomba, painting, or working on her yoga postures. She lives in between Paris and San Miguel de Allende, but is proudly from Oakland.