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Exhibition of Multimedia Works by Haitian American Artists M. Florine Démosthène and Didier William Explore Cultural Duality and the Immigrant Experience

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M. Florine Démosthène and Didier William: What the Body Carries

January 31–May 4, 2025

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Dec. 19, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The Frist Art Museum presents M. Florine Démosthène and Didier William: What the Body Carries, a multimedia exhibition of figurative paintings, collages, and sculptures by Haitian American artists M. Florine Démosthène and Didier William. Organized by the Frist Art Museum, the exhibition will be on view in the Frist’s Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery from January 31 through May 4, 2025.

M. Florine Démosthène was born in New York but spent much of her childhood in Haiti. Didier William, who was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, moved to Miami, Florida with his family when he was six years old. This exhibition explores how immigrant bodies can carry memories and heritage while simultaneously embodying a new, hybrid reality. Through their multimedia works, Démosthène and William—both featured in the Frist’s 2023 exhibition Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage—offer insights into their experiences navigating life outside Haiti while still being informed by the country’s history, culture, and spiritual traditions.

“This project offers an opportunity to consider the connections and departures between the work of two artists of Haitian descent,” writes Senior Curator Katie Delmez. “In a context where immigrant narratives have often been oversimplified in the media, we hope this exhibition gives more expansive and authentic insights into how their families’ relocations to the US have shaped the creative practices of two artists making their marks on the contemporary landscape, as well as how personal stories shape our communities, survival strategies, and overall vitality.”

Both Démosthène and William often create figures of ambiguous gender and race set within imaginary geographies that evoke liminal spaces—somewhere between here in the U.S. and a homeland left behind. Their depictions of the complexity of personhood through multiple forms reference the divine twins of Haitian Vodou, Marassa Jumeaux, and reflect the artists’ hybrid experiences. Both artists also emphasize eyes in their works as a way of expressing the need to be seen while protectively subverting the judgmental gaze too often cast upon immigrants and other marginalized people. Démosthène animates the eyes of her figures with glitter; William carves hundreds of eyes into the wooden panels that serve as a foundation for many of his works. 

The impact of the artists’ familial and cultural connections to Haiti, however, manifests in their art in different ways. Delmez notes, “Démosthène is particularly influenced by Haitian—and by extension West African—spiritual traditions and mythology, as can be seen in the 3D-printed sculptures that suggest shrines and deities in the work What We Know & What We Don’t Know and in the otherworldly aura of her collages.”

Démosthène sometimes surrounds her figures with various motifs that further encourage a spiritual read of her dream-like scenes. “These include representations of African votive sculptures; lily pad-like forms, which the artist considers her version of the floating cherubs seen in Renaissance and Baroque paintings; and glittery translucent rays emanating from figures’ hands like a supernatural spiderweb,” writes Delmez.

William’s work tends to be more grounded in historical and personal narratives. “Often using his coming of age in Miami with his recently immigrated family as a springboard, William dives into critical inquiries into nationhood and borders, familial memory and mythmaking, violence and tenderness,” writes Delmez. The work Redemption, Resurrection recalls an instance of violent bullying one of William’s brothers endured growing up in Miami. William’s oldest brother ran to avenge the beating; in the work, he is presented as a savior figure with rays of light emanating from behind his body as he fights off assailants.

The process of molting—the shedding of skin or feathers to make space for new growth—appears frequently in William’s work, as in Moult I. Implicit in this visual metaphor is the process of abandoning some aspects of one’s previous life to thrive or survive—a common experience among immigrants.

In the exhibition, selected gallery texts will be available in Haitian Creole, including an essay by Grace Aneiza Ali, a Guyanese-born curator focused on art and migration and an assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Florida State University.

About the Artists

M. Florine Démosthène was born in United States and grew up between Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and New York, New York. She earned her bachelor of fine arts degree from Parsons School for Design and her master of fine arts degree from Hunter College, City University of New York. She has been an artist in residence at the Nicholson Project, Washington, DC; the Silver Arts Studio, New York, New York; and the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, Louisiana, among other programs. Démosthène has also been named a New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellow and received the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, an Arts Moves Africa grant, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant. In recent years, she has lived in Accra, Ghana; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and New York, New York.

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Didier William moved to Miami, Florida, with his family when he was six years old. He received his bachelor of fine arts degree in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art and his master of fine arts degree in painting and printmaking from Yale University School of Art. William has been a recipient of the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, a Pew Fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant. He currently teaches at Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University and lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Program

Opening Conversation: M. Florine Démosthène and Didier William with Katie Delmez, senior curator
Friday, January 31, noon
Auditorium
Free for members; gallery admission required for not-yet-members

Join artists M. Florine Démosthène and Didier William, as they sit down with Katie Delmez, senior curator at the Frist Art Museum, for this conversation about What the Body Carries.

Exhibition Credit

Organized by the Frist Art Museum

Supporter Acknowledgment

Supported in part by the Gordon CAP Gallery Fund and Clay Blevins

The Frist Art Museum is supported in part by The Frist Foundation, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Connect with us @FristArtMuseum #TheFrist

About the Frist Art Museum
Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Frist Art Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit art exhibition center dedicated to presenting and originating high-quality exhibitions with related educational programs and community outreach activities. Located at 919 Broadway in downtown Nashville, Tenn., the Frist Art Museum offers the finest visual art from local, regional, national, and international sources in exhibitions that inspire people through art to look at their world in new ways. Information on accessibility can be found at FristArtMuseum.org/accessibility. Gallery admission is free for visitors ages 18 and younger and for members, and $15 for adults. For current hours and additional information, visit FristArtMuseum.org or call 615.244.3340.

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SOURCE Frist Art Museum

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Fox ESS Ranks No. 1 Globally in Residential Energy Storage

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WENZHOU, China, April 23, 2026 /CNW/ — Fox ESS, a global leader in renewable energy solutions, has been ranked No. 1 among residential energy storage providers worldwide for 2025, based on MWh shipments in S&P Global Energy’s Residential Energy Storage Market Tracker.

The report also places Fox ESS at No. 1 in Germany and the UK, highlighting the company’s momentum in key markets and expanding distribution footprint.

Compared with 2024, Fox ESS’s global market share rose 50% in 2025, reinforcing its position in a rapidly growing residential storage sector. The company has continued to scale internationally, with global headcount doubling from the end of 2024. As of April 2026, Fox ESS employs more than 5,000 people worldwide, and has added local support through new offices, including in Sydney, Australia.

“We’re thrilled for this remarkable achievement. It reflects our commitment to innovation and product quality, and to making clean, reliable energy practical for households around the world,” said Michael Zhu, CEO of Fox ESS. “We will continue pushing the boundaries to deliver solutions that help homes and businesses move toward energy independence.”

Notably, Fox ESS has launched the Champion’s Choice campaign globally, combining the endorsement of sports champions with recognition from prestigious organizations. With the first stop in Australia, the company signed Ian Thorpe, a five-time Olympic champion last December. The campaign underscores Fox ESS’s ambition to deliver better value for customers and partners.

Fox ESS is committed to building long-term trust with customers and partners. The company delivers reliable, high-quality energy storage systems engineered for consistent performance, supported by rigorous quality-control processes designed to help ensure every product meets the highest standards.

Fox ESS develops solutions that serve both installers and end users. With ongoing investment in R&D, the company stays ahead of evolving market needs, helping installers work more efficiently while enabling homeowners to move toward energy transition and reduce electricity costs.

With a team of more than 400 experts in R&D, Fox ESS continues to refine its product design for easier transportation, installation, and everyday use. The AI-powered FoxCloud app also makes energy management more intuitive, enabling users to monitor and control home energy consumption, manage smart devices, and track detailed generation and usage data in a single streamlined platform, delivering greater peace of mind.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fox-ess-ranks-no-1-globally-in-residential-energy-storage-302752471.html

SOURCE Fox ESS

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Deepvein Mining Tech Wins NY Product Design Gold for Exploration Robotics

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SHANGHAI, April 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Deepvein Mining Tech, a developer of robotic systems for mining operations, has received Gold at the 2026 NY Product Design Awards for its Intelligent Geological Mapping and Geochemical Sampling Quadrupedal Robots, a robotics series developed for mineral exploration in remote and high-risk field environments.

The NY Product Design Awards, organized by the International Awards Associate (IAA), recognize achievements in product design and industrial innovation worldwide.

Mining exploration has become increasingly costly and technically challenging as easily accessible deposits are depleted, particularly in remote and geologically complex regions where fieldwork can be slow, labor-intensive and operationally demanding.

Deepvein’s award-winning robotics series was developed to address those constraints through a combination of quadrupedal robotic hardware and integrated software systems. The solution supports route planning, equipment coordination, sample logging and geological data management, helping standardize field operations and reduce manual workloads.

Designed for geological mapping and geochemical sampling, the robotic units can autonomously perform targeted collection tasks while reducing repeated manual fieldwork. A single operating cycle can gather approximately 30 to 50 samples.

According to deployment data from company-operated mining assets in Africa, exploration data collection cycles were reduced from around 12 months to one week, while overall workflow costs fell by approximately 40%.

Beyond efficiency gains, the use of robotic systems in steep, high-temperature or hard-to-access areas can help reduce personnel exposure to hazardous conditions. Improved targeting and digital workflow management can also limit unnecessary surface disturbance during early-stage exploration.

Deepvein is developing a broader portfolio of mining robotics covering the industry lifecycle, with future applications expected in transport support, inspection, maintenance and site rehabilitation, alongside continued iteration of its exploration-stage systems.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/deepvein-mining-tech-wins-ny-product-design-gold-for-exploration-robotics-302752483.html

SOURCE Deepvein Mining Tech

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SK Group Establishes Foundation for AI Collaboration with Vietnam

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SK Telecom and SK Innovation sign separate MOUs with Vietnam’s Nghe An Province and the National Innovation Center (NIC) to foster artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem development.From AI data center (AIDC) construction to stable power supply, Korea’s full-stack AI is poised for its first overseas expansion.SK Chairman Chey Tae-won: “SK Group will contribute to the advancement of Vietnam’s AI industry through its comprehensive AI portfolio.”

SEOUL, South Korea, April 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — SK Group announced it will collaborate with Vietnam to build the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry ecosystem and develop core AI infrastructure.

At the Korea–Vietnam Business Forum held in Hanoi on April 23, SK Group signed separate memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with the Nghe An Provincial Government and Vietnam’s National Innovation Center (NIC) to foster AI ecosystem development.

The signing ceremony was held in the presence of Kim Jung-kwan, Minister of Trade, Industry and Resources of Korea, and Ngo Van Tuan, Minister of Finance of Vietnam.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Nghe An Provincial People’s Committee and SK Group was signed by Vo Trong Hai, Chairman of the Nghe An Provincial People’s Committee; Choo Hyeong-wook, President & CEO of SK Innovation; and Jung Jai-hun, President & CEO of SK Telecom.

Another MOU between the National Innovation Center (NIC) and SK Group was signed by Vu Quoc Huy, Director General of NIC; Choo Hyeong-wook, President & CEO of SK Innovation; and Jung Jai-hun, President & CEO of SK Telecom.

Chey Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group and Chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), also attended the ceremony.

Earlier, at the Korea–Vietnam Summit, the two countries agreed to expand cooperation in future growth sectors such as AI, semiconductors, and energy. SK Group’s MOUs with Vietnam represent this bilateral cooperation being put into action by the private sector.

Through these partnerships, SK Group plans to support Vietnam’s growth as a key partner in its national AI strategy. In addition, building on AI data center development and stable power supply, SK Group is expected to lay the groundwork for the first overseas expansion of its “Korean-style AI full-stack” model, linking AI model development and validation with the rollout of industry-specific AI services.

Joint AIDC feasibility study in Nghe An linked to the Quynh Lap LNG Power Project

SK Innovation and SK Telecom signed an MOU with the Nghe An provincial government to jointly explore developing an AIDC and related infrastructure projects in the region. Nghe An is a major economic hub in north-central Vietnam and has emerged as a fast-growing region for manufacturing, energy and advanced industries, supported by its port and logistics infrastructure.

SK Innovation will explore broad cooperation opportunities in energy solutions, including supplying electricity to the data center and building dedicated generation facilities connected to the Quynh Lap LNG Power Project, for which it was recently selected as the developer.

SK Telecom plans to review options for developing, building, and operating the AIDC while also seeking to secure global demand. The Nghe An provincial government agreed to discuss support measures to help advance the partnership, including permits, administrative procedures, inter-ministerial coordination and incentive programs.

In February, SK Innovation was selected as a developer for the Quynh Lap LNG power project in Nghe An Province, together with PV Power, a power generation subsidiary of Vietnam’s state-owned oil and gas group PVN, and local company NASU. The project is a large-scale energy infrastructure initiative that includes the development of a 1,500-MW gas-fired combined cycle power plant, an LNG terminal, and a dedicated port, with construction scheduled to begin in 2027 and completion targeted for 2030. From the proposal stage, SK Innovation also presented a model to foster high value-added industries by integrating SK Group’s AI and semiconductor capabilities in areas near the power plant, thereby laying the foundation for the current partnership.

At the forum, the Nghe An government also presented the SK Innovation consortium with the Investment Registration Certificate (IRC) for the Quynh Lap Power Project, reaffirming its commitment to the development.

“Drawing on SK Group’s experience in operating large-scale power generation and diverse energy solution businesses, we will ensure the successful development of the local power infrastructure,” said Choo Hyeong-wook, President & CEO of SK Innovation, during a presentation titled “Vietnam’s Economic Leap through AI + Energy Innovation.”

Cooperation with NIC to Build Vietnam’s AI Ecosystem

SK Telecom and SK Innovation also signed a comprehensive MOU with Vietnam’s NIC to support the development of the country’s AI ecosystem.

The two sides agreed to cooperate on AIDC development, energy infrastructure development and the establishment of policy and institutional frameworks to foster the AI industry.

Under the agreement, SK Telecom will support AI ecosystem development in Vietnam through technology collaboration and investment promotion, and SK Innovation will provide energy solutions for AIDCs and related industries. The NIC will provide institutional support, such as coordinating with government agencies, improving regulations and developing policy, while also identifying and connecting local partners to facilitate project execution.

Established in 2019 by the Vietnamese government, NIC serves as the country’s national innovation hub, leading initiatives in AI, semiconductors and investment promotion. SK Group has maintained a close partnership with NIC, including a previous $30 million contribution toward its establishment.

Jung Jai-hun, President and CEO of SK Telecom, said, “AI data centers are key infrastructure that underpins the growth of the AI industry. Building on SK Group’s accumulated capabilities in the development, construction, and operation of AI data centers, we will further refine a collaboration model tailored to the Vietnamese market.”

First Overseas Expansion of Chairman Chey Tae-won’s “AI Full-Stack Provider” Vision

This partnership in Vietnam is significant as it could mark SK Group’s first overseas expansion of the “AI full-stack provider” strategy, integrating capabilities in AIDC, power, and energy solutions.

Chairman Chey Tae-won has consistently articulated his vision of transforming SK Group into an “AI full-stack provider.” Leveraging SK Group’s strengths across the AI value chain—including semiconductors, data centers, power and energy solutions, and AI services—the Group aims to build the most efficient AI infrastructure model.

Under this vision, SK Group is advancing the development of the 100-MW hyperscale “SK AI Data Center Ulsan,” targeted for completion in 2027. The Group has also been laying the groundwork for Korea to emerge as an Asia-Pacific AI hub by engaging in discussions with OpenAI on collaboration for AI data center development in Korea.

Ahead of the Korea–Vietnam Business Forum, Chairman Chey Tae-won said at a business roundtable, “AI will play a critical role in Vietnam’s continued growth. SK Group has a portfolio spanning the entire AI ecosystem—from energy and semiconductors to AI models and applications—and we will leverage this to make tangible contributions to the development of Vietnam’s AI industry.”

About SK Telecom 

SK Telecom has been leading the growth of the mobile industry since 1984. Now, it is taking customer experience to new heights by extending beyond connectivity. By placing AI at the core of its business, SK Telecom is rapidly transforming into an AI company with a strong global presence. It is focusing on driving innovations in areas of AI Infrastructure, AI Transformation (AIX) and AI Service to deliver greater value for industry, society, and life. 

For more information, please contact skt_press@sk.com or visit our LinkedIn page www.linkedin.com/company/sk-telecom

About SK Innovation

Founded in 1962 as Korea Oil Corporation, SK Innovation has been at the forefront of Korea’s energy industry for over six decades. The company has pioneered numerous milestones, including Korea’s first overseas oil field development, the vertical integration of its energy and chemical businesses, the nation’s first private LNG import, and a strategic entry into the electric vehicle battery business.

Now, SK Innovation has reached a transformative turning point in its journey to become a Comprehensive Global Energy Company. Extending beyond its traditional oil business to encompass the entire energy value chain -spanning LNG & Power, Renewable Energy, and Energy Solutions- the company is driving global expansion, including in Vietnam.

For more information, please visit the official SK Innovation website at www.skinnovation.com.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/sk-group-establishes-foundation-for-ai-collaboration-with-vietnam-302752442.html

SOURCE SK Group; SK Telecom

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