Think you have what it takes to be a designer? EDUN LIVE, Bono and Ali Hewson’s ethical t-shirt clothing line, has been assisting and increasing employment and trade in South and East Africa since their company began in 2005. Every EDUN t-shirt produced is made from 100% African organic cotton. Now, you have a chance to join the Grow to Sew  movement by showcasing your artistic talent and supporting a good cause.EDUN LIVE is looking for ‘green-themed’ entries that will make their blank cotton tees pop with color and creativity. The winning design will be printed and sold at the VIRGIN MOBILE FESTIVAL, held in Baltimore, MD on August 9th & 10th. The winner will also receive an EDUN LIVE wardrobe valued at $1000, and 10% of the proceeds of all t-shirts will go directly to EDUN LIVE’s initiatives in Africa.The contest closes on July 24th, so get your creative gears grinding and enter your designs here.

Frustration. Anger. Resentment. Confusion. These are just some of the emotions that suffuse Karen Parker’s World. In his new exhibit, Douglas Kolk creates a personalized narrative of a young person’s struggle to come to terms with her sense of selfhood. Long concerned with the questions of identity, Kolk’s mixed media collages and paintings have attempted to portray the modern individual’s confusion with finding his or her own place within the world.

At Arndt und Partner gallery in Berlin, Kolk was given a freedom to experiment with new media. His single brushstroke wall portraits of young women, such as Rapunzel, function as a reflection of a young woman’s hauntingly hollow perception of self. However, it is really only with a series of sculptures, the artist’s first, that one really gets a sense of Karen Parker’s confusion. Simply entitled Karen Parker, one sculpture is of a young woman wearing a mask, in a state of undress. Perpetuating the sense of a non-existent sense of identity, the sculpture seems like an accurate depiction of a depressed woman.

Venturing through the gallery rooms will take you to the extremes of your emotional landscape and will leave you questioning your sense of self and the social constructs that have allowed the development of an entire generation of confusion.

Check it out here.

Adeleke Sijuwade, a Nigerian born designer and former model also known as Leke, knows that women’s bodies are a work of art. That’s why he is branching out from his already fabulous clothing line for men, ADELKE, to explore how his vibrant and unique designs can flatter women’s curves to make her feel gorgeous.

OLORI, which means Princess in Yoruba, is the name of his newest collection of forty unique pieces for women only. “I’m into the body expressing the clothes, not the clothes expressing the body”, Leke claims. If you want to rock Leke’s designs like Erykah Badu and Tyra Banks do, showcase your style with OLORI.

Tonight, from 7-10pm, catch the designer unveiling OLORI at Pieces Boutique in Brooklyn. You can also view his designs here.

One of the most culturally diverse cities on the planet, Toronto, Canada hosts its 41st Caribana, one of the biggest and baddest Caribbean Festivals in North America.

Three weeks of partying Carnival style draws in a million festival visitors each year and at least a hundred thousand American tourists come to celebrate culture. Along the festival route vendors line up to serve you food as diverse as the people in attendance so if you like food as much as I do, be sure to go with an empty stomach.

Caribana’s night scene is time to really get live because each night provides another party or three to attend. Machal Montana, a soca artist from Trinidad (the Holy Grail of Carnival) will make an appearance along with Kevin Lyttle, Akon, Estelle, Ludacris, and Kardinall Offishall who will all host parties over the duration of the festival to give you a reason to dance until the next days celebration begins.

Toronto’s Caribana is as close as you’ll get to a Trinidad and Tobago Carnival without having to leave North America to do it.

Caribana kicked off Sunday June 15 and ends August 5.

More event information is available here and here.

Primarily focused on blurring the traditional and contemporary representations of class boundaries, Kehinde Wiley’s subjects have primarily tended to be young African-American men, straight from the streets of Harlem. But World Stage: Africa, Lagos - Dakar at Studio Museum Harlem is moving beyond the boundaries of the urban New York landscape. Taking Wiley’s well-known style and transplanting it to a global spectrum, the new series of 10 paintings were conceived in temporary studios set up along his travels through Nigeria and Senegal. Consequently, traces of regional architecture and textiles have found their way into his new works.

Although his stylistic signature has always been juxtaposing the elements of traditional renaissance portraiture with that of urban African–American culture, this new exhibit gave Wiley the freedom to represent the historical dynamics between power and privilege in an entirely new setting. Suffusing his works with a hint of the post-colonial, Wiley paints his subjects in poses replicated straight from independence–era statues scattered around Lagos and Dakar.

Whilst these new paintings retain a powerful vibrancy, there is arguably a loss of the familiar garnered in Wiley’s earlier works. The instant identification garnered by the Harlem-based settings of his earlier portraits is somehow lost when transferred to the African landscape. But this new dimension in Wiley’s artistic realm is producing iconic results that are sure to resonate with a bigger crowd than ever.

In the dark recesses of the late 90s and early 2000s, a tremor ran through the music industry as more material made its way to the web. Amidst the uncertainty, people questioned what would happen to the music and if creativity would die along this new avenue.

What could not be foreseen was the way the internet and the digitization of media would open the door to a more democratic way of making and experiencing music. Through its floodgates have come (sometimes questionably) talented stars such as Souljah Boy and venues such as MySpace and iTunes.

Fast-forward to 2008 and the ever-talented, ever-ingenious, self-acclaimed analog girl Erykah Badu, has also appropriated the digital world to her own ends. Looking for a remix to her latest non-album single, “Real Thang,” Badu has launched an internet-based remix contest open to any creative body with beats on the mind.

Proving the fast-pace of the web and the ability of its plethora of users to turn out a quick download, you can find a number of remixes to the track already up on the paean to self-promotion, YouTube. The remixes are diverse with sounds that range from dub with 80s Barrington Levy samples, to spacey electronic tracks to a mellowed out Madlib groove (remixers, breathe — Madlib produced the original track and cannot be a part of the contest). Don’t feel limited to “urban” types of sounds either — creativity is key so if you think you can make “Real Thang” rock, literally, go for it.

Sound good? Then plug in and get it poppin’.

For “Real Thang” vocals, grand- and runner-up prizes and more information on the contest, click here.

Deadline for entry: July 31.

A whimsical fantasyland of wooden beams and hanging glass canopies, Frank Gehry’s first project in the UK is about to become reality. Having been selected by the Serpentine Gallery to participate in an innovative architectural program, Gehry was given 6 months to design, construct and erect a temporary summer Pavilion in London’s Hyde Park. Following in the footsteps of Rem Koolhaas and Oscar Niemeyer, Gehry’s Pavilion is ninth in the Serpentine’s series as well as being his first UK project.

To describe the structure as conceptual is somewhat of an understatement. Held up by 4 steel columns, the pavilion is a scintillating labyrinth of overlapping glass panes and protruding wooden beams. But despite the convoluted aesthetic of the Pavilion, there is an undeniable functionality embedded in Gehry’s concoction. Described as an “urban street”, the pavilion will serve as a promenade linking the park to the Serpentine Gallery itself.

And whilst the placement of timber catapults and steel planks may seem to some absurd, wooden benches are scattered around the pavilion making it an attractive space for aimless wandering and self-reflection.

More here.

If you’re a big enough fan of Quincy Jones, you’d know that his middle name is ‘Delight’. You’d also know that the maverick is getting ready to celebrate his 75th birthday. But leave it to Uncle Q to celebrate in musical style: supported by the Swiss Army Big Band, over 20 artists will be gathered on stage at the 42nd Montreux Jazz festival, to perform a fitting tribute to the great man himself.

Billed as the highlight of this year’s festival, the tribute concert will feature a variety of artists from the legendary Chaka Khan and Herbie Hancock to relative newcomers James Morrison and Paolo Nutini. The performer’s list reads like a who’s who of musical talent. But this should hardly come as a surprise, considering the expanse of Jones’ influence in the musical realm.

Having co-produced the Festival from 1991 – 1993, Jones oversaw a sizeable portion of its expansion and had a considerable stake in evolving the festival from a purely jazz-centric festival into a world music extravaganza.
All proceeds from ticket sales go to the Quincy Jones Listen Ip foundation

July 18-20 (this Friday-Sunday) is the 10th Annual Harlem Book Fair. For a full list of events, go here.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008, 7:00pm
B&N Tribeca (97 Warren Street)
Michael Ian Black: My Custom Van

Michael Ian Black will be at the Tribeca Barnes & Noble Tuesday to read from (or discuss, or make fun of, or something) his new collection of essays, My Custom Van: And 50 Other Mind-Blowing Essays that Will Blow Your Mind All Over Your Face. Sarah Silverman says it’s “Fun to read while you’re pooping.” That’s good enough for me.

Wednesday, July 16, 7:00pm
B&N Tribeca (97 Warren Street)
Grandmaster Flash

Two B&N events this week because they’re so good. Grandmaster Flash has a memoir out, Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats, and he’ll be at the Tribeca B&N Wednesday. Do I really need to say more than that?

Thursday, July 17, 7:00pm
McNally Robinson (52 Prince St. between Lafayette and Mulberry)
Dzanc Books and Friends

Dzanc Books is an upstart indie publisher. On Thursday Aaron Petrovich of Hotel St. George Press will host a reading by the contributing authors of Best of the Web (Dzanc Books), including Garth Risk Hallberg, Cara Hoffman, Sarah Sweeney, Justin Taylor, Tess Taylor, and Claudia Zuluaga. Joshua Kornreich will read from his novel The Boy Who Killed Caterpillars (Marick Press) and Peter Markus will read from Bob, or Man on Boat , published by Dzanc Books.