Photograph courtesy of Destinee Thomas
After helping lead marketing for BLINK in 2019, Destinee Thomas now works for the festival as a co-producer through her art collective, Cincy Nice. While her role in the biennial light and mural event has changed over the years, her mission remains the same: to curate art-centric experiences by and for the people of Cincinnati. BLINK returns to the streets of Over-the-Rhine, downtown, and Covington—and adds Newport—the weekend of October 17-20. Thomas provides a peek behind the event’s curtain.
How is Cincy Nice involved in BLINK?
We’re a team in truly the deepest sense of collaboration. Collectively, we sit around the table together and dream up what this festival will look like each time. We love looking at it through the lens of opportunities for our local artists and how the festival can stay rooted in the community: Where are opportunities for greater inclusion, for greater community engagement? And then adding a little extra sparkle along the path where we can.
How do you go about finding local artists?
We had almost 1,000 applications for BLINK this year. We try to boost the call to artists and amplify that as far and wide as we can. We had almost triple the number of applicants we had in 2022. We have an incredible group of nine local artists, art educators, and curators who look at every one of those applications with the BLINK team. For Cincy Nice in particular, we’re always excited when people raise their hand and look for a space to experiment. We love using our connections and some of our literal spaces to make whatever people are dreaming up happen.
Are you an artist yourself?
I think we all have a little artist inside us. My dad was a 30-plus-year art teacher at Cincinnati Public Schools, so I grew up admiring what he was able to do with art. My background is strategic communications and marketing and telling stories. I just love art, so helping folks tell those stories and get attention for the arts is what I do best. Along the way, I’ve gotten to be more curatorial. It got bigger and bigger until we ended up with BLINK.
The quote at the top of the Cincy Nice website reads: “First among equals comes culture, understood not just as art, but as a way of life.”
How does that quote resonate with you and your mission?
We like finding ways for people to feel like they belong and for places where they’re the most welcome and can really be themselves. I find that you can create that environment most when you concentrate on things that make people feel alive. Usually that’s art, music, food, and any of those innate things from your soul where we can find connections and bridge gaps. The city could develop and change, but if people don’t have something that unites them, some of the magic gets lost. I think that quote is about staying true to what makes us human, which is the art we make.
What’s your vision for the future of Cincy Nice?
We are most focused on what needs to be accomplished in front of us. Originally, it started as an experiment—a rogue art activation during BLINK 2019. We saw an opportunity to bring more diversity into the event. Our goal now is to make people feel welcomed in the city and connect them with opportunities. In the future, Cincy Nice is totally phased out and irrelevant, and there’s so much diversity and every corner of the city is filled with music so there’s no need for us to be doing anything. Hopefully we get there one day.
What else should people know about BLINK?
We want everyone to feel like this event is their own. There are more than 80 artists pouring their hearts into this event, and they’re so excited to show it to everyone. There’s a bunch of art that’s meant to be walked and contemplated and talked about.
A lot of times we get asked what the most important thing on the map is, and we usually say to forget the map. Just get here and feel the magic. We encourage you to slow down and meet the artists and each other.
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