Around Town

S.T.A.R.’s ‘Juneteenth’ Celebration Set for Next Wednesday, June 19 [Q&A]

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New Canaan nonprofit organization Stand Together Against Racism, or S.T.A.R., will hold its annual Juneteenth celebration next week. Free and held on Wednesday, June 19 at the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society, Juneteenth marks the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. We put some questions to S.T.A.R. Founder and CEO Fatou Niang ahead of the festivities. Here’s our exchange. ***
New Canaanite: STAR.’s Juneteenth celebration at the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society started out as a large gathering and it grew again in its second year.

Around Town

‘Through Your Looking Glass’ Student Social Justice Art Showcase Opens at Carriage Barn Arts Center

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The number of students contributing their work to an annual social justice art exhibition doubled in its second year, organizers say. Launched by Stand Together Against Racism or “S.T.A.R.,” in partnership with The Glass House and Carriage Barn Arts Center, the exhibition— titled “Through Your Looking Glass” —saw student contributors increase from 21 in its inaugural year to 45 this year, according to S.T.A.R. Founder Fatou Niang. “I’m amazed,” Niang told NewCanaanite.com amid the buzz of an opening reception held Saturday at the Carriage Barn, where crowds of people took in dozens of paintings, drawings, photographs, sculpture, mixed-media pieces and other art work contributed by students and professional artists brought in as a special part of this year’s show. “I’m amazed because we all know art has a power of reflecting society,” Niang continued. “And the mirror that these kids have sent us through their art is just stunning.

Around Town

Hundreds Attend S.T.A.R. Celebration of Juneteenth in New Canaan

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The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Carriage Barn Arts Center. One hundred fifty eight years ago, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to enforce President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, marking the end of slavery in the United States. On Monday, New Canaan residents came together to celebrate the milestone, making this the first Juneteenth celebration in New Canaan since the federal government and state of Connecticut made it a legal holiday. “This is amazing, we have at this point, almost 400 people have signed up to come, and last year we were at 160, so more than double,” Fatou Niang, founder and chair of Stand Together Against Racism, or “S.T.A.R.,” which organized the “Hearts of Freedom” Juneteenth celebration, as hundreds of town and area residents gathered at the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society for live music, food and games on a hot summer day. “We are so blessed that the community is embracing it, and we hope every year to have more and more people to the point that we can move it to Waveny,” Niang said. 

Monday’s event was the second-ever Juneteenth celebration in town.

Around Town

Soul-Fête: An Immersive Dinner Party 

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We thought we knew about every kind of dinner you can have: dinner from scratch, dinner with friends, early, late, expense account, room service, over the sink, a dinner presented with a flourish from under a sterling silver cloche, or one pried from the viselike jaws of a steaming takeout box. And yet, one vibrant, generous group is bringing the town together for an elevated, illuminating take on what dinner can be. With their customary knack for creating connection, Stand Together Against Racism (S.T.A.R) is reimagining dinner as an immersive cultural celebration. Soul-Fête, which will explore the culinary journey from Africa to America, will welcome you to the Carriage Barn from 7 to 9 p.m. on March 2, wrapping up Black History Month in an unforgettable way. Music will be provided by local band The Misfits, and chef Damon Sawyer of Bridgeport’s 29 Markle Ct.

Around Town

‘Through Your Looking Glass’ Exhibition Opens at New Canaan Museum & Historical Society

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Jose “Joey” Diaz, a Norwalk resident and ninth-grader at the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering in Stamford, originally planned to portray a hand reaching out in his submission for an art exhibition that opened this weekend at the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society. But “I kind of messed it up,” Diaz said Saturday from a second-floor gallery at the Oenoke Ridge nonprofit organization, standing near his acrylics-and-markers work titled “We All Bleed Red.”

“And I turned it into something else, which was a fist,” Diaz said. “I did a lot of blood on the knuckles and everywhere. It kind of shows how much people suffer, from police brutality, hate crimes. All of that.