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The Bookleggers Library was one of nine nonprofit beneficiaries of a $2.2 million investment by the Knight Foundation. Its staff includes, from left, Robert Colom, founder Nathaniel Sandler and Laura Monzon.
Nathaniel Sandler founded Bookleggers in 2012 out of his Miami Beach apartment, with the dream of opening his own public library.
His mission: To use books as a way of building community.
Since growing out of its original home space, the Bookleggers Library had a few incarnations, moving to Mana Contemporary Miami in 2018, then to its current home at Wynwood’s Bakehouse Art Complex in 2020. These moves allowed Sandler to host ever-expanding community gatherings.
Emerging out of the present moment, Knight New Work 2020 called for applicants to submit works and projects that reinvented the performing arts for the current pandemic reality. The initiative seeks to envision a world where the performing arts continue to exist in innovative ways without a traditional audience from drive-ins to digital productions accessible via mobile devices.
New Work s 18 first-round winners have been tasked with using their $10,000 grant to create a spectrum of programs and projects adapted to be accessed even after the pandemic is over. Winners have chosen a range of projects, from female-driven music of the Black Caribbean diaspora living in Miami to an immersion in modern technology s capabilities for interactive live performance.