A Table Set for Black Brilliance at Art Basel Miami

The energy in Miami during Art Basel was electric—art lovers, collectors, and creatives descended on the city for a week of installations, conversations, and celebration. But tucked away from the glitz and spectacle, a deeper gathering unfolded. On a warm December night, Black artists, organizers, funders, and movement-builders came together for the Black Brilliance Dinner, co-hosted by RUNWAY and ZEAL, as an offering to the future of Black creative and economic prosperity in the South.

A single long table stretched through the yard, inviting each guest to sit beside someone they didn’t already know. String lights twinkled overhead, casting a soft glow. Dinner was served family-style, with platters passed down the table—an echo of home, of tradition, of breaking bread as a sacred act. We came not just to gather, but to build something new together. Before we even spoke a word about funding or the future, we were invited to cleanse our hands in a basin of water scented with Florida Water, an offering to clear the energy and signal that this was no ordinary dinner.

Led by RUNWAY’s CEO Jessica Norwood and ZEAL’s Allen Kwabena Frimpong, the dinner began with a libation ceremony—an honoring of the ancestors, the land, and the brilliance in the room. In a time where movement work can often feel transactional, this moment felt spiritual. It reminded us: we have gathered here as kin—to believe in each other and to build futures together.

That’s what the Black Brilliance Dinner was all about—gathering in celebration of Black imagination, Black investment, and Black futures. With Jessica and Allen heading the table, they spoke about the legacy of southern brilliance—how it has always existed, but has rarely been funded or centered in the way it deserves.

There is a quiet, persistent belief in the creative world that if you’re not in New York or LA or Oakland, you’re not really considered. That’s coastal supremacy at work. Too often, artists from the South are told—whether directly or through the lack of resources and recognition—that success means leaving home. That to get seen, supported, or taken seriously, you have to trade your roots for access.

But what happens to the artist—and the art—when the place that shaped them gets left behind? What gets lost in that journey? And what might become possible if creatives were resourced to stay right where they are? Because the fact is: Black brilliance is already rooted in the South.

This was the heartbeat of the dinner. In guided conversations throughout the evening, guests reflected on what is happening on the ground in the South. Folks shared stories of cultural organizing, land work, and creative entrepreneurship. Stories not just of survival, but of spiritual and economic thriving. Black communities in the South have always been building, always been innovating. But what they’ve lacked is resourcing—not ideas.

If Black creatives are the primary exporters of global culture—why aren’t they the ones building wealth and power off of it?

That question lingered in the air, and the conversation turned toward possibility. What could become possible if Black artists didn’t have to leave the South to access capital, resources, or community? What if being rooted was the pathway to brilliance, not the barrier?

It was in this exact spirit that we—at RUNWAY—made a public commitment that night. We announced our 10-year commitment to the South and introduced the beginnings of The ROOTED Fund—a long-term strategy to resource Black economic and cultural power at home. Not by parachuting in with top-down philanthropy, but by listening to the needs of the community and responding with reparative capital—patient, flexible, and built on trust. 

RUNWAY is always exploring opportunities to invest in activations that reimagine how capital can flow. We see convenings like the Black Brilliance Dinner as essential spaces for vision-making and power building. At the dinner, we peeled back the layers on how few funding mechanisms exist for Black creatives who want to stay in the South. Sure, there are grants out there—but our lens is different. We’re not just asking “what do you make?” We’re asking “what kind of economy do you imagine?” Our fund centers artists and entrepreneurs as economic visionaries, as future-builders, as creators and stewards of culture.

In fact, we launched the ROOTED Fund first in Chicago—a city often overlooked in the coastal binary. And we’re just getting started.

The Black Brilliance Dinner was a site of collective blueprinting for what our future could look like. A future where funding doesn’t come with erasure. A future where artists don’t have to choose between home and opportunity. A future where southern Black brilliance is at the center.

We remain rooted in the knowledge that Black creativity is not only a cultural force—it is an economic one. One that deserves to be resourced, recognized, and rooted exactly where it blooms.

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Learn more about our commitment to the South and the ROOTED Fund at rootedfund.family.