Chire Regans

"Say Their Names"
 by Chire "Vantablack" Regans

Chire “VantaBlack” Regans’ makes art at the intersection of social justice and storytelling. Her work responds to urgent societal concerns and functions as a critical platform to amplify the voices of the communities with whom she engages. Over the past decade, she has focused on community advocacy and depicting social narratives without distortion, in a variety of mediums. The birth of the Black Lives Matter movement triggered a sense of urgency in her practice, motivating her to broaden her work’s social accessibility and creative scale. In South Florida, Regans continues to marry her artistic practice with community-led activism, emphasizing the art of storytelling as a means of engaging with communities with radical empathy and transparency.

Regans was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, and relocated to Miami in the late 1980s. She studied at New World School of the Arts in the mid-90s, and graduated from Florida A&M University in 2005. The artist serves on the Miami Dade County Community Relations Board's Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Committee and was the Fall 2020 Artist-in-Residence with the Community Justice Project Miami. Chire has received critical recognition for her work in advancing social justice and racial equity. In 2020, she received The Ellies Social Justice Award from Oolite Arts and was recognized as the Best Visual Artist by the Miami New Times. In 2021, she was awarded a prize for her leadership and activism from The Miami Foundation’s Racial Equity Fund.

Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Producer: Fresh Art International | Sound Design/Editing: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio Feature: Chire Regans, “Say Their Names,” 2021, courtesy of the artist
Related Links: Chire Regans, Oolite Arts Social Justice Award 2020, Say Their Names—A Public Art Memorial Project