Spotlight: Brianna Harlan (she/her/hers/sir)

Early in the semester, current SPQ student Brianna Harlan (she/her/hers/sir) was interviewed virtually. The interview is transcribed below. You can read her bio here. We also want to congratulate

Spotlight: Isiah Powell-Taylor

Early in the semester, current SPQ student Isiah Powell-Taylor was interviewed virtually. The interview is transcribed below! You can also read Isiah’s bio here

Spotlight: Connor Henderson (he/they)

Early in the semester, current SPQ student Connor Henderson (he/they) was interviewed virtually. The interview is transcribed below! You can also read his bio here.

Spotlight: A Pollicino (they/them)

Early in the semester, current SPQ student A Pollicino (they/them) was interviewed virtually. The interview is transcribed below! Read their bio here. 

Announcing: Art as Social Action!

Our exhibition at the Queens Museum, a long-time community partner, celebrates 10 years of SPQ by exhibiting works our alumni created after their graduation. Art as Social Action will open on March 24th and will remain open until July 25th! Our skillful artists are Alix Camacho-Vargas, Barrie Cline, Cody Herrmann, Cristina Ferrigno, Erin Turner, Floor […]

SPQ @ Queens Museum Winter Open Studios

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Queens Museum Winter Open Studios

January 19, 2020, 1-4PM

Social Practice Queens is participating in the Queens Museum Winter Open Studios! SPQ students Cristina Ferrigno, Brianna Harlan, Adam Nadel and Jamerry Kim will be participating–we invite you to join us for this cohort’s first event together.

From the Queens Museum: Join us for Winter Open Studios at Queens Museum! Artists and artist collectives participating in the Queens Museum Studio Program will open their studios to the public from 1-4pm. Participating artists include Jeannine Han/Daniel Riley, Woomin Kim, Xin Liu, Iman Raad, Jennifer May Reiland, Lachell Workman, and The Room of Spirit and Time (Taro Masushio, Xiaofei Mo, Ali Van, Wang Xu and Cici Wu), along with Social Practice Queens as part of the Queens College MFA Program.

For more information, visit QueensMuseum.org

SPQ Green Lab Report

SPQ’s held its first ever program on Governor’s Island on Saturday October 5th. From 11:30 AM to 5:30 PM, we had back to back workshops based in the Urban Farm and the new covered structure, dubbed “The Lab,” built by a group from Parsons. One current certificate student, two alumni, and a faculty member presented their projects around this year’s broad environmental theme. After months of planning and some twists and turns in the process, everyone was excited and curious to see what it was like to work in this new location. It was a crisp, sunny, early autumn day, without a cloud in the sky – perfect weather for trying new things!

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The first project was organized by Jamerry Kim: Cooking and Communing: a Lenape recipe by Touching Leaves Woman. We set up in GrowNYC’s garden and outdoor seating space next to the Lab, which was graciously lent to us for this workshop since it involved food. Jamerry’s practice addresses language, history, and place, bringing historical documents for reinterpretation to inform the present.

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For Green Lab, Jamerry responded to the plaque on Governor’s Island that tells the story of the Dutch settler who “bought” the island from the Lenape Indians for ‘two ax heads, a string of beads, and a handful of nails in 1637.’ She created a rubbing of the plaque and invited a representative from the Native Indian Community House to share more about regional Lenape history and to demystify this transaction. Then, as a way to acknowledge the history of the land and to give thanks for the fall harvest, we shared a meal of Lenape dishes. Though Jamerry had originally planned to demo the preparation of the recipes, in order to adapt to the current limitations of the site, she graciously cooked the whole meal for us in advance.

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Sweet potato, corn, and jerky kept us all fueled for the next project by QC Urban Studies professor, Rafael de Balanzo Joue: Resilient Thinking Collaborative Workshop.

Rafael’s workshop addressed some of the very things we had already experienced and talked about that day. Just as the island was passed down (sometimes violently or aggressively) through different owners, bringing us to the present moment where cultural groups are now invited to occupy the architectural shells from America’s colonial past (sans electricity and proper building codes for cooking) – so the island would go through more cycles of being built up, destroyed, and recreated. Rafael researches these cycles of “creative destruction” whereby catastrophes, both social and ecological, make way for once marginal agents to rebuild their environments.

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In the workshop, Rafael directed people to form groups and think about Governors Island’s past cycles and possible futures, taking to account its assets and potential deficits. Many identified real estate development as a potential danger for the natural and creative environment that the island could nurture.

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The groups moved outdoors to share the results of their brainstorming, though time ran out to take their findings on the road to engage more of the public via research cart. Many students from Rafael’s classes came out to participate, and a few stayed on to check out the other events in the day.

presentations

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The tone changed abruptly (in the best of ways) as people filtered back into The Lab for the third workshop, Glomalin2020 by Bethany Fancher. Bethany was working the room with her miniature voice changer speakerphone, announcing the start of her presentation and pulling in young families from outside. She had set up the room to hold a mock campaign rally, complete with printed swag and demonstrations, for Glomalin, the soil fungus residue that keeps dirt healthy and clumpy.

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Recent breakthroughs in soil research reveal that Glomalin, and the network of fungus that creates it, is critical for soil nutrient balance, water absorption, as well as retaining CO2 in the ground. As a result, there are those who want to shift prevailing agricultural practices away from disruptive tilling to more “regenerative” methods. Bethany walked people through basic environmental cycle concepts as well as these findings via slideshow.

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Demonstrations – Top: Bethany making it rain on a stack of sliced bread, showing the difference between structured and loose substances in their ability to absorb water; Middle: A taste test between organic and non-organic apples; Bottom: Soil from an untended area (left) compared to soil from a tilled garden (right).

The last workshop was Tierra espacio para habitar: How to fall in love with a river, pt. 3, organized by Erin Turner and Alix Camacho-Vargas. Erin represented the duo team that day. Their project was part of a series of reflective walks that bring disparate locations together for consideration through personal, interpersonal, historical, and imaginative creative exercises that tie into major ecological issues in unexpected ways.

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Erin directed everyone to choose from three prompt cards that had us either walking to find a view of the city, filling in word associations for the Urban Farm area, or looking at the water. The group agreed on how long we wanted to spend on individual silent walks and a time to return to The Lab (note: apparently if you want people to commit to participating, just ask!). On the back of the cards were portions of a larger image that we were to puzzle together when we returned.

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Many of the prompts focused on large swaths of land or water that we were familiar with as New Yorkers and imagining if they suddenly disappeared. The picture on the back of the cards was revealed to be an image of an Apache ceremony that originated from Oak Flat, Arizona, a territory sacred to the Apache which was recently swapped out of public ownership to become a copper mining site. Erin explained that this exercise was an attempt to close the distance between New York and Arizona and to help people empathize with the imminent loss of land and home that the Apache face in Oak Flat.

Though somber in its reminder of real problems across the country, it was a fitting way to the end the day of activities, slowing down the pace and in a way tying together elements from the other workshops: Native Indian communities and intimate connections to the land, destruction of ecosystems, that which builds up over time in the soil itself, and being present on Governors Island amidst the dizzying tasks of reckoning with the past and preparing for a precarious future.

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My (Naomi) view of the city from Governors Island.

The day was over, but all of us left (some with prop suitcase and research cart in tow, ready for the subways) with fresh insights into our public practices and collaborations, and new connections across the growing SPQ family. We hope to be back at Governors Island in the future!

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Greg Sholette getting into the Green Lab spirit repping Glomalin2020 swag.

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SPQ Green Lab was supported by the office of the Associate Vice Chancellor of the City University of New York, CUNY Arts, as well as The Shelly & Donald Rubin Foundation.

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SPQ Goes to Governors Island Oct 5th!

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Social Practice Queens (SPQ) Green Lab is a one-day art event featuring experimental projects and workshops by CUNY students, alumni, and faculty, rooted in their ongoing research-based creative practices. Hosted in the new  Lab at the Urban Farm, these site-specific projects address our multifaceted and often troubled relationship to the environment. They consider our use of land over time: from the colonial past to the future of climate change, from microorganisms in the soil to our own bodies in the landscape, from local conditions to the global community. Join us!

DATE: Saturday October 5, 2019

LOCATION: Governors Island, The Lab at the Urban Farm (See full map and directions here)

TIME: 11:30AM–5:30PM

RSVP on Facebook; free and open to the public

SCHEDULE: 

11:30-12:45 Cooking and Communing: a Lenape recipe by Touching Leaves Woman

12:45-2:45  Resilient Thinking Collaborative Workshop

2:45-4:00   Glomalin2020

4:00-5:30   Tierra espacio para habitar: How to fall in love with a river, pt. 3

GI_Urban Farm Classroom map

 

 

PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS

Cooking and Communing:  a Lenape recipe by Touching Leaves Woman – Jamerry Kim

In response to the plaque that tells the historical story of the Dutch settler who bought Governors Island from the Lenape Indians for “two ax heads, a string of beads, and a handful of nails in 1637”: To welcome the Fall season and to acknowledge the land we stand at Governors Island, we will cook a traditional Lenape Indian recipe using grapes to make dumpling soup. The recipe comes from the cookbook titled “Lenape Indian Cooking with Touching Leaves Woman.” Kim will give a small presentation of Lenape cooking history according to Touching Leaves Woman, facilitate the group preparation of grape dumplings and corn fritters and enjoy them together.

Resilient Thinking Collaborative Workshop – Rafael de Balanzo

Professor de Balanzo and a group of Queens College students will facilitate a workshop in which we will identify the different short- and long-term stresses that Governors Island has experienced in the past or may experience in the future, including climate change, government programs or future real-estate development. We will explore how these different challenges generate a window of opportunity for change, in which different actors unify forces to create change—also known as creative destruction process.  By the end of this workshop, participants will be familiar with concepts such as resilience thinking approach or urban sustainability, and will engage in brainstorming on the future path for Governor’s Island.

Glomalin2020 – Bethany Fancher

An interactive presentation with t-shirt prizes – Come learn about the literal underground candidate, Glomalin, and learn how building healthy soil can reverse the worsening CO2 levels in the atmosphere, increase yield and profitability for farmers, and grow vegetables with higher nutrient value and deliciousness to keep us healthier. Glomalin is the great connector, not the divider! Your purchase power becomes your vote.

Tierra espacio para habitar: How to fall in love with a river, pt. 3

– Erin Turner & Alix Camacho-Vargas

Turner and Camacho-Vargas will present their collaborative walking project that invokes Governors Island’s ecology in order to create a dialogue between the human body, the regional landscape, and the larger context of world affairs. We will explore walking as an aesthetic practice through a series of ‘games’: Inspired by Roland Barthes, “Fragments of a Lover’s Discourse,” we will utilize archival photographs and digital photographs taken by the participants to create collages, love letters, walking scores, and/or ephemeral artworks. We will examine a variety of perspectives to consider how we connect to space and to our natural resources. At the end of the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to utilize their works as a form of resistance to urgent and significant landscape issues in the United States.

 

ARTIST/PRESENTER BIOS

Jamerry Kim Kim is an artist currently working on a socially engaged project that addresses language, history, and place in Flushing, Queens for the SPQ Certificate Program.

Rafael de Balanzo, is an adjunct professor in the QC Urban Studies Department, Director of “Actions Without Borders” for the International Union of Architects (AWB-UIA), and a frequent collaborator with SPQ.

Bethany Fancher is a transdisciplinary sculptor, photographer, performer, video maker and community-based artist who holds a certificate from SPQ.

Erin Turner is a graduate of the QC MFA in Social Practice as well as a site-specific installation artist who is interested in land-based practices, preservation, and collaboration. She is a collaborator and nomadic resident of Tierra: espacio para habitar.

Alix Camacho-Vargas is a Colombian artist. She holds an MFA in Social Practice from CUNY, Queens College and a specialization in art education from the National University of Colombia. She is the founder of Tierra: espacio para habitar, a project and nomadic residency that generates collaborations between art, pedagogy, and landscape.

 

SPQ Green Lab is supported by the office of the Associate Vice Chancellor of the City University of New York, CUNY Arts, as well as The Shelly & Donald Rubin Foundation. 

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Upcoming Events: May 2019

Flushing Creek Walking Tour

May 4, 3PM

Meeting at the boat launch at the East end of Flushing Bay promenade.

Join Guardians of Flushing Bay’s Cody Ann Herrmann and Rebecca Pryor for a walking tour of Flushing Creek. The walk takes place in “the valley of ashes,” as referenced in the novel “The Great Gatsby,” and will trace City owned property under the Van Wyck Expressway. We will discuss water quality, local history, and plans for new development in Willets Point and downtown Flushing. Participants can join us before the walk anytime between 11am and 3pm at Pier 1 for the Empire Dragon Boat Team’s “Jennifer’s Annual Flushing Bay Shoreline Clean Up”, where there will be an opportunity to help clean up the waterfront and take a ride in a dragon boat!

Cody Herrmann is a current SPQ student and is on the board of Guardians of Flushing Bay.

https://www.mas.org/events/flushing-creek-walking-tour-2/

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“Partitioned Dreams” Closing Reception

May 4 11AM-1PM

Student Gallery, Klapper Hall 4th Floor, Queens College, Flushing, NY 11367

The thesis exhibition of current SPQ student Naomi Kuo will close with a public reception. The work interprets the built environment and investigates the relationships between cultural identity and place in Flushing, Queens through collective cognitive mapping, oral history, quilting, and mixed media. Included are two Action Art projects, “Common Thread,” and “Flushing Art Tours.”

RSVP on the Facebook event

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Artist Talk: Down by the River – art and advocacy along the Fishing, Queens coastline

May 9, 5:30PM

Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Klapper Hall, Queens College, Flushing, NY 11367

Join Cody Ann Herrmann for a presentation highlighting her ongoing work in her hometown of Flushing, Queens. Since 2015 Cody’s work has revolved around Flushing Bay and Creek, creating an iterative series of projects critiquing current policy related to land use and environmental planning. Through multidisciplinary arts, community engagement exercises, and grassroots organizing she applies an iterative, human centered approach to environmental problem solving.

Godwin-Ternbach Museum Gallery Talks

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SPQ News

We’re proud to share recent recognition and activity of members of the SPQ community! Below are some highlights.

In the Press

Current student, Cody Herrmann and her project “How do you get to Flushing Creek,” was featured in Hyperallergic last November:

Flushing Creek is so hidden by industrial sites and highways, it’s almost invisible to those passing through the Flushing neighborhood of Queens. “I lived in Flushing my whole life and didn’t know that I lived near waterways until I was 20 years old,” Cody Ann Herrmann told Hyperallergic. Now the artist and community organizer is advocating for its visibility through the “How do you get to Flushing Creek?” project, a multiyear initiative involving conversations on the street, a zine with maps, and guerrilla signage.

The How do you get to Flushing Creek? sign installation for City of Water Day (photo by Jonathan Baron)

“If you’re not seeing the problem, you don’t really take ownership or stewardship over it,” said Herrmann, who is currently in the Social Practice Queens MFA program at Queens College. For the July 14 City of Water Day, organized by the Waterfront Alliance, several aluminum signs were covertly installed in Flushing and Willets Point. Each pointed the way to Flushing Creek.

Continue reading here.

 

Chloë Bass was also featured recently in Hyperallergic. Her work, “The Book of Everyday Instruction,” exhibited at the Knockdown Center, was included in their list of “Best of 2018: Our Top 20 NYC Art Shows.” You’ll also find her in discussion with museum veteran Lowery Stokes Sims about imagined publics of contemporary art, public and private education, and the challenges of empathy and identity in art. Listen here.

 

Alumni Activity

Julian Phillips (SPQ ’18) has been accepted into the Artists Residency &Training Workshop Series (ARTWorks, Inc.) Program at the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, supported by the Jerome Foundation. He is one of two in the program to receive the Workspace Fellowship. Check out his profile here! 

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Congratulations to students, faculty and alumni whose works are gaining media and organizational support!

Sept. 14, 2018: Quilting Memories of Migration at American Folk Art Museum

September 12, 2018
6:30 pm–8:30 pm

American Folk Art Museum
Self-Taught Genius Gallery
29-47 32nd Place
Second Floor
Queens, NY 11101

RSVP

Gather with a team of quilters and storytellers to celebrate the completion of Common Thread, a twelve-week series of workshops to create a community story quilt. Organized by local artist Naomi Kuo (SPQ MFA ’19), Common Thread invited several local quilting instructors to teach participants quilting basics, and help them explore their own family traditions of craft and creativity. The result is a community project illuminating stories of migration—memories that are illustrated visually through the quilts themselves, and relayed aurally through embedded electronics that play recorded oral histories.

Join us to hear participants reflect on their experience contributing to Common Thread, and share your own memories of migration to Queens. Following the panel discussion, take a look at the Self-Taught Genius Gallery’s current exhibition, Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts, and add your own Queens memory to the ongoing participatory embroidery project, Our Queens. Light refreshments will be served. Come celebrate with us!

Common Thread was the second “story quilt” workshop series developed by the Queens Memory Program as part of the Memories of Migration initiative, funded by a grant from Institute of Museum and Library Services. Memories of Migration was conceived by the Santa Ana Public Library (Santa Ana, CA) in partnership with Queens Library (Queens, NY), West Hartford Public Library, (West Hartford, CT), the State of New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, and New Mexico Highlands University (Las Vegas, NM). It is a three-year community memory project that gives voice to immigrant communities through the digitization and dissemination of oral histories that develop cultural heritage collections around the shared stories of migration in America.

Free; registration recommended.

QC alumni Asia Stenzel is Artist-in-residence at 18TH STREET ARTS CENTER

Press Contact:
Sue Bell Yank
310-308-7246
sbyank@18thstreet.org

18TH STREET ARTS CENTER CELEBRATES YOUTH ARTISTS AND EMPOWERING YOUTH VOICES THROUGH SANTA MONICA COMMUNITY FESTIVAL

SANTA MONICA (CA) – 18th Street Arts Center, a 30-year-old artist residency and contemporary arts center in the inland Pico Neighborhood of Santa Monica, holds its third major Pico Block Party community festival focused around youth artists and empowering youth voices on Saturday, May 19, 2018 from 3-6 PM. The free family-friendly artistic festival will feature youth-led art-making workshops, performances, open studios with resident artists, exhibitions, food trucks, and other creative activities.

The Pico Block Party series grew out of 18th Street Arts Center’s in-depth community outreach programs, including its bilingual neighborhood oral history project, CultureMapping90404.org. That project spurred the creation of a Neighborhood Advisory Council in 2018, who helped shaped the content for this Pico Block Party along the theme of “Empowering Youth Voices.”. With many Santa Monica high school and college-age youth deeply invested in political activism and organizing, but also facing challenges such as a school achievement gap and lack of youth services, focusing on youth artists and empowering youth voices became a priority for the Center’s community programming in 2018.

Past Block Parties have drawn upwards of 600 people to the Center’s large campus, and have provided a platform for the artistic and cultural vibrancy of our Pico Neighborhood to intermingle with LA-based exhibiting artists and international artists in our visiting artist residency program.

FEATURING:

Art Workshops

  • Create your own Pico Neighborhood Loterίa cards with the Santa Monica High School MEChA Student Group!
  • Work with exhibiting artist Mariángeles Soto-Díaz and area youth to screenprint slogans on fabric banners for your next protest march, and customize them with your own messages!
  • Paint your own tote bag and collaborate on a community map of your neighborhood with Visiting Artist in Residence Asia Sztencel.
  • Collage your own ‘zines with youth from Santa Monica High School, led by Isabelle D’Amico
  • Create LED electrical artworks with Camera Obscura artist in residence Brittany Ransom.
  • Participate in free movement classes with teachers from Continuum Movement Studio!
  • Grab your costumes and act out your favorite stories with Kids on Stage!
  • Activities and face-painting for the toddler set from Santa Monica Montessori School
  • Experience virtual reality art with Keith Tolch of Art Reality Studio

Performances (on the main stage)

  • Dance it up with the Hype Squad with Ebonicia Fischer
  • Groove to the stylings of Rondalla Sueño Romantico, a youth band from St Anne’s Church
  • Let your voice rise with the SMC Jazz Vocal Ensemble
  • Holla for the original rhymes and beats of the Pico Youth and Family Center youth MCs
  • In the Gallery, Artist Lab Resident Paul Pescador will perform with his signature costumes as part of his exhibition Going West, or 15 Years in Los Angeles

 

Art As Social Action Book Launch at The 8th Floor, May 11th

Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices
of Teaching Social Practice Art
Book Launch with Social Practice Queens
Friday, May 11, 2018
6-8pm
*RSVP has reached its capacity for this event.  
If you’d like to be placed on the waitlist, please email media@sdrubin.org.  

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The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation will host a book launch for Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art, edited by Gregory Sholette and Chloë Bass of Social Practice Queens (a 2018 Rubin Foundation grantee). Art as Social Action is both a general introduction to, and an illustrated, practical textbook for the field of social practice, an art medium that has been gaining popularity in the public sphere. With content arranged thematically around such topics as direct action, alternative organizing, urban imaginaries, anti-bias work, and collective learning, among others, Art as Social Action is a comprehensive manual for educators on how to teach art as social practice. Several of the book’s contributors, including Pedro Lasch, Sheryl Oring, and Daniel Tucker, will be present to facilitate discussion about social practice methodologies.

SPQ MFA Student UNO offers workshop at Queens Library!

This winter, artists UNO (MFA 18) and Cheon Pyo Lee staged an interactive yet personal project on the experience of having a broken heart. The workshop series was titled, Broken Hearts: The Words We Say, The Pictures We See. Participants were invited to describe and draw their story of heartbreak while exploring how memories are shaped through words, physical gestures ,and art. The program was open to adults and older adults.

Queens Library Location:
Fresh Meadows Library 193-20 Horace Harding Expressway
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Cody Herrmann to Present at Pratt | March 24th

8TH ANNUAL SUSTAINABILITY CRASH COURSE, MARCH 24TH

SUSTAINABILITY CRASH COURSE 2018
Pratt Center for Sustainable Design Strategies

On Saturday, March 24, 2018, Pratt’s CSDS will host the 8th annual Sustainability Crash Course, a day-long series of presentations, panel discussions and workshops with a host of experts from Pratt’s faculty and elsewhere.  In years past we have had over 20 different speakers present topics including Ecology, Biomimicry, Packaging Design, Life-Cycle Assessment, Fashion, Architecture, Policy and Environmental Activism. This year we have an entirely new line up of exciting and inspiring presenters. As in the past, the event is free and open to the Pratt Community as well as the general public, but registration is requiredView the eventbrite page.

FEATURED PRESENTATION

Up Sh*t’s Creek: Creative Approaches to Organizing in Flushing, Queens

Cody Ann Herrmann – Artist and Grassroots Organizer

Drawing from participatory design and socially engaged art practices, artist and organizer Cody Ann Herrmann asks– how might ecological issues be communicated to the public? Using NYC’s Flushing Creek as a case, the artist’s ongoing series of workshops, tours, performances, and onsite interventions are explored to understand effective methods for documenting and sharing information about pollution and land-use issues impacting the dynamic waterway.

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Cody Ann Herrmann is a New York City based artist and community organizer with an interest in participatory design methods, public space, and local sustainable development. Through multidisciplinary arts, community engagement exercises, and urban design practices she applies an iterative, human centered approach to ecological problem solving. Cody’s work explores the relationships between land-use, urban infrastructure, and environmental degradation with a focus on communicating the problems and solutions of environmental issues to the populations they directly impact. Working in her hometown of Flushing, Queens, Cody started an ongoing series of multidisciplinary work in 2015 addressing pollution and development in and around Flushing Bay and Creek. Cody is currently studying to receive an MFA from Social Practice Queens at CUNY Queens College.

http://www.codyannherrmann.com/

Art As Social Action Book Launch — May 11

Friday, May 11, 6-8pm
The 8th Floor, 17 West 17th Street, NYC
Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art
Book Launch with Social Practice Queens
 
The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation will host a book launch for Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art, edited by Gregory Sholette and Chloë Bass of Social Practice Queens (a 2018 Rubin Foundation grantee). Art as Social Action is both a general introduction to, and an illustrated, practical textbook for the field of social practice, an art medium that has been gaining popularity in the public sphere. With content arranged thematically around such topics as direct action, alternative organizing, urban imaginaries, anti-bias work, and collective learning, among others, Art as Social Action is a comprehensive manual for educators on how to teach art as social practice. Several of the book’s contributors will be present to discuss their work in social practice.
About The 8th Floor
The 8th Floor is an exhibition and events space established in 2010 by Shelley and Donald Rubin, dedicated to promoting cultural and philanthropic initiatives, and to expanding artistic and cultural accessibility in New York City. The 8th Floor is located at 17 West 17th Street and is free and open to the public. Schools groups are encouraged. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm. the8thfloor.org
 
About The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation
The Foundation believes in art as a cornerstone of cohesive, resilient communities and greater participation in civic life. In its mission to make art available to the broader public, in particular to underserved communities, the Foundation provides direct support to, and facilitates partnerships between, cultural organizations and advocates of social justice across the public and private sectors. Through grantmaking, the Foundation supports cross-disciplinary work connecting art with social justice via experimental collaborations, as well as extending cultural resources to organizations and areas of New York City in need. www.sdrubin.org
Join the conversation with the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation on Facebook   (The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation), Twitter (@rubinfoundation), and Instagram (@rubinfoundation) with the hashtags #The8thFloor, #RubinFoundation, and #ArtandSocialJustice.

City of Gods – Book Talk with R. Scott Hanson

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Join Social Practice Queens (SPQ) in welcoming R. Scott Hanson to Queens College October 17th, 6:30-8pm. He will be talking about his research on Religious Diversity and Tolerance in Flushing, Queens.

Event co-organized with “Beacon of Pluralism” a collaborative community project led by SPQ/QC MFA Alumni, Gina Minielli Gunkel and Nancy Bruno. Event supported by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation and Vilcek Foundation.

Co-sponsored by The Dean of Social Sciences, the QC Art Department, and QC Urban Studies Department. Refreshments provided by office of the Dean of Social Sciences.

 

Home of Practice on view August 19-29th

Home of Practice

Art As A Tool for Resistance @ Queens Museum June 11th 1-4:30pm

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Art as a Tool for Resistance

with Social Practice Queens (SPQ)

Jun 11 2017
1:00pm–4:30pm

Resistance Theatre 
Artists: Julian Phillips, Zaid Islam, Floor Grootenhuis

Location: Unisphere gallery
Schedule: 1:30-2:30pm, 3:00-4:00pm

To register, please contact: nung-hsin@queensmuseum.org

During Resistance Theatre participants will have an opportunity to explore the practical and interpersonal facets of protest and authority. First the group will talk about what it is that each participant seeks to resist while creating representative protest signs. As part of this, the group will discuss what is needed to physically resist. After, participants will use their bodies to explore various spacial restrictions that are used during demonstrations and how these restrictions are used to dominate. Finally participants will discuss how to foster resistance to certain authorities both in the larger social as well as personal contexts.

DEBTBANK
Artists: Alix Camacho Vargas, Jeff Kasper

Location: West-side library corner
Duration: 1:00-4:30pm

DebtBank is a surreal bilingual (Spanish/English) resource desk that sets up shop in various community venues, like museum and libraries, in order to provide a space where the public can ask a question or answer a neighbor’s query about debt. Thought participatory written prompts and video diaries that spark dialogue and collects research. (Website coming soon!) The project aims to: (a) visualize debt as a shared phenomena while illuminating the experiences of all of us; (b) provoke individual understandings of debt and autonomy while searching for creative solutions; (c) foster  alternative forms of crowd-sourced resource-sharing about economic equity.

(Artwork courtesy of DebtBank.)

‘Presence is Required’ by Alix Camacho | May 16th

“Presence is Required” includes diagrams, instructions, objects, and situations by Alix Camacho that investigate forms produced by bodies present in a same physical space. Camacho’s works focus on elements such as time, balance, height, and body proximity that are part of different social assemblies.

This event is part of Alix Camacho’s MFA thesis in Art and Social Practice at CUNY, Queens College.

Opening reception: Tuesday, May 16th, 2017 (6:00 – 9:00 pm.)
Queens College
Klapper Hall 4th Floor
65-30 Kissena Blvd
Flushing, New York

 

May 5th 6-9pm Closing Reception of [intimate distance] new works by Jeff Kasper (MFA 17)

Join SPQ Friday, May 5 (6-8pm) for a Reception and audio narration of new & ongoing body of videos, text, audio, performance by SPQ student Jeff Kasper (17) investigating the choreography of relationships and pursuit of publicness and physical connection, particularly between men.

Where?:
Queens College CUNY
Klapper Gallery
Klapper Hall 4th Floor
65-30 Kissena Blvd
Flushing, New York
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Intersectionality, Art & Activism Panel Discussion | Tuesday 28th March, 6 – 8 pm

Intersectionality, Art & Activism Panel Discussion
Tuesday 28th March, 6 – 8 pm
Klapper Gallery, Klapper Hall 4th Fl
Queens College CUNY

Special guests: 
 . Daisy Bulgarin (Semillas Collective Co-founder)
 . Fernanda Espinosa (People´s Collective Arts Member)
 . Amin Husain (G.U.L.F., MTL, NYC Solidarity with
   Palestina Co-founder and Gulf Labor Coalition Member)
 . Kerbie Joseph (ANSWER Coalition and Party for
   Socialism & Liberation Organizer)
 . Zelene Pineda Suchilt (Political Organizer, Artist Activist & Storyteller)
 . Charlie Urichima (Kichwa Hatari Co-founder and NICE
   organizer)
 . Lino Wampusrik (NYC Shuar Organization President)
   Organized & Moderated by Alejandro Salgado Cendales (MFA ’17)
   Sponsored by Social Practice Queens (SPQ)
   with support by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation
RSVP on facebook:

Beacon of Pluralism brings together faith communities across Flushing

Quaker

“There’s a kind of renewal that can happen for people spiritually or through community that can really sustain us in these times,” said Chloe Bass, a visiting professor at Queens College.” (NY1 Flushing)

The Beacon of Pluralism project joins together the diverse cultural, ethnic & religious communities of Flushing, Queens to remember the basic right of religious freedom that Flushing prides itself on. Located in the heart of Flushing, are two historic sites: The Bowne House, former home of John Bowne, a pioneer in the American struggle for religious liberty and the Quaker Meeting House a place of worship for Flushing’s early Dutch settlers. John Bowne and the community joined together to deliver the Flushing Remonstrance to Governor Stuyvesant on December 27, 1657, marking the beginning of religious freedom in America.

The project is led by Gina Minielli Gunkel, a professional social documentary photographer (SPQ class of 2016), and Nancy Bruno, a NYC public school teacher and ceramic sculpture artist (Queens College MFA class of 2017).

The first Beacon of Pluralism event took place in January 2017, just days after Trump’s proposed “Muslim ban.” The event was held at the Flushing Quaker Meeting House which is considered by historians to be the birthplace of religious freedom in the United States. This event was well-attended and received positive reactions form the community. The dialogue ceremony was covered by local news media outlets including NY1 (television), and print & digital editions of the Queens Chronicle (QNS.com) and US China Press.

Read & watch more about the January event:

http://www.ny1.com/nyc/queens/news/2017/01/31/flushing-religious-communities-comes-together-to-spread-hope.html

Protecting Our Nature and Our Sacred Land – Exhibit Closes March 4th

oakflat-e1486747578890

 

Don’t miss ‘Protecting Our Nature and Our Sacred Land: Images of Oak Flat by Standing Fox & Social Practice Queens MFA candidates Floor Grootenhuis, Erin Turner and Uno Nam at the Queens Museum.

Read more

Alix Camacho Vargas (MFA ’17) in Afterimage

Check out current SPQ MFA student Alix Camacho Vargas‘ (’17) new article in Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, here.

Afterimage2