On July 19, the Yonkers Public Library welcomed Haifa Bint-Kadi as the Riverfront Art Gallery Curator.
“YPL is thrilled to bring Haifa on as its full-time Art Gallery Curator,” says Jesse Montero, Yonkers Public Library Director. “With this hire, YPL will be able to expand its arts programming and further establish itself as a pillar of the thriving Yonkers arts scene. I encourage all Yonkers residents to look to the library for art exhibitions, education, and events.”
Haifa holds an M.F.A. from Istituto d’Arte per il Mosaico in Ravenna, Italy, and a certificate of curation from Sotheby’s in New York City. She is a certified art educator for NYC BOE, and has been inspiring young artists through arts education for the last 23 years. Haifa also received the esteemed Kennedy Center Award in 2013 for dynamic STEAM arts education. Haifa is and will always be a working artist as in her words, “she creates to live.” She has been designing and fabricating public art mosaics since 1993. Haifa focuses on projects that archive community, history, and lived experiences.
Some of her successful projects include a commission in 2012, The Eel’s Journey, a large-scale in-ground public art mosaic for Groundwork Hudson Valley and the City of Yonkers’s daylighting of the Saw Mill River, her project with the Children’s Museum of Manhattan to design and create an installation for their 2014 Muslim Cultures installation and in 2010, Bint-Kadi received the award to complete a sculpture park for the State of New York at Suny Oneonta symbolizing the university’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Most recently, Haifa was commissioned to create a set of sculptures for the gateway to the Yonkers Greenway, a path that will ultimately connect Yonkers to New York City, and recently repaired and restored the Temple of Love and other mosaics at Untermeyer Gardens. Haifa also works as an Adjunct Professor for Suny Purchase teaching Arts for Social Change. Haifa is the mother of two daughters, one granddaughter and a staunch advocate for access to the arts throughout the Yonkers community.
“I am honored and excited to be in the position to expand access to the arts to our community,” says Haifa. “I look forward to extending opportunities to artists through professional development and exhibitions, youth programming in all of the arts through music, poetry and visual arts and increasing public art and exhibition opportunities at all three branches of our library system. I’m most excited to shine a light on our extensive fine art collection at the Will branch and increasing partnerships with our local non-profits and cultural organizations, and most importantly, with Yonkers Public Schools.”
