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.
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.
Engaging Artists: New Works in Practice // OPENING
Opening Reception Jan 24 | 6-8 PM
HEREart / 145 6th Avenue Manhattan
Participating Artists: Bryan Rodriguez Cambana, Vanessa Teran Collantes, Workers Art Coalition, Álvaro Franco, Noé Gaytán, Melissa Liu, and SPQ Alumni (’17) Floor Grootenhuis. The exhibition features artists working to inspire social change engage in-depth processes often unseen by the public.
College Art Association Conference, New York Hilton Midtown
A panel discussion co-chaired by SPQ’s Chloë Bass and Jeff Kasper about Teaching Socially Engaged Art. Featuring panelists Susan Jahoda, Jen de los Reyes, Beverly Naidus, Todd Ayoung, and Sheryl Oring, with a response from SPQ’s Gregory Sholette.
Jodi Dean and Gregory Sholette will be discussing topics around communism and the radical imagination, presided over by Ash Sarkar, Anglia Ruskin University, UK.
