Solange Knowles is set to be honored with the 2022 NYU Global Trailblazer Award for Creative and Artistic Excellence on March 8, International Women’s Day, The Amsterdam News reports.
The singer/songwriter is receiving the accolade for her work within her multidisciplinary platform, studio, creative agency, and curatorial project, Saint Heron. Solange uses Saint Heron to amplify the work and creative expressions of Black and brown artists through a range of innovative projects.
In addition to the award, Solange will also take part in a conversation on innovation and women’s leadership as part of the NYU Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity and Strategic Innovation launch of the NYU Women Lead: A Global Leadership Accelerator and its Global Black Women Leadership Initiative.
The event builds off of the NYUWomxn100 initiative
that “celebrates the lives, pursuits, innovations and achievements of womxn of transgender, non-binary and cisgender experiences.” This trailblazing event will also be made free to the general public. Those interested can register HERE.Solange’s award for Saint Heron comes nearly one year after announcing the brand’s transition into a creative agency. Initially launched in 2013 as a digital hub for cultural conversations, Saint Heron’s mission was always to preserve, collect, and uplift stories that amplify Black and brown voices.
The new phase of Saint Heron took viewers on a literary and visual retrospective of the Black family through a series of temporary digital exhibitions.
Saint Heron is a process. It is a moving, living, and breathing evolution. It is a spirit,” Solange told ArtNet at the time. “Like most of my projects, it started with a question, and in the process of answering, newer questions and calls to action arrived.”
“I needed to find my community, and there was no space or outlet that embodied the nuances that represented the people who surrounded me and the space we took up in the world,” she added. “And so I thought, I’ll just create it.”