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 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 Jamerry’s practice addresses language, history, and place, bringing historical documents for reinterpretation to inform the present.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.

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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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Upcoming Events: Fall 2019

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SPQ Alumni Floor Grootenhuis and Naomi Kuo will be presenting their work at Civic Art Lab: Inhabiting + Closing the Loop from October 11th through the 13th at Chinatown Soup (16 Orchard St., New York, NY).

Civic Art Lab features three days of free workshops, talks, convenings, and creative projects exploring this year’s theme: “inhabiting + closing the loop,” to include contributions from circular economics, sustainability, food science, biology, permaculture, design, wellness, and much more. The Lab is a place where disparate disciplines live and play together in public, where we are all learners, and where expertise is distributed. Check out and RSVP to the full list of events here.

Friday Oct 11th 3:30-5:00 pm and Sunday Oct 13th 3-4:30 pm: Floor Grootenhuis and microbiologist Kelly Eckenrode will be facilitating a collective piece called The Microbiome // mapping our collective fabric. This is a 2-part workshop; participants are encouraged to attend both sessions.

Friday Oct 11th 5:00-8:00 pm: Art & Design Exhibition and Performance. Naomi Kuo will be exhibiting her mixed media work that up-cycles and reflects on the material culture of the Asian American community in Flushing, Queens. Join her and the other artists in the group show in celebrating the opening of the exhibition! Drinks and light food will be served at the cafe in the back of the gallery.

Civic Art Lab was co-founded by Jeff Kasper and Laura Scherling.

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On Saturday October 19th at 5pm Julian Phillips and Floor Grootenhuis will be performing Blood Piece as part of IN|BETWEEN @New York Live Arts on 219 W 19th Street, New York, NY 10011.
Tickets for this can be reserved here:

About IN|BETWEEN:

In | Between is a group showcase co-curated by Yanira Castro and Martita Abril that assembles artists from the New York Foundation for the Art’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. In this showcase, alumni of the Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program are gathering to share ideas on Live Arts stage. With the goal of reflecting on the multiplicity of their experiences, identities, practices, politics, these artists also speak to what holds them in common: the experience of displacement and disorientation and the work of communicating/finding/forming community. The artists in the showcase include Júlia Brandão, Floor Grootenhuis and Julian Louis Phillips, Robert Ó Shea, Lyto Triantafyllidou and Tina Wang.

Full listing: https://newyorklivearts.org/event/in-between/

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JCAL Where-In

Where-In: 2019 ARTWorks, Inc., Two Fellow Artist-in-Residence Show

Artist Reception: Thu Oct. 24 6:00 – 9:00 pm @ Jamaica Art Center, Miller Gallery (161-4 Jamaica Avenue, Queens, NY 11432)

On view Oct. 10 – Nov. 9

Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning (JCAL) presents the work of Ifeatuanya (Ify) Chiejina and Julian Louis Phillips, two resident fellows who have participated in the FY19 ARTWorks, Inc., a professional development artist residency & seminar series. The exhibition culminates their creative endeavors and celebrates the work that they have created during their artist-in-residence at JCAL. Julian Phillips is an SPQ Alumnus.

Join the artists for a reception on October 24th! RSVP here.

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Zine Workshop Poster La Placita

La Placita Collage Zine Workshop: What do you eat that feels like home?

Sunday, October 27th 1-3PM

Lowery Plaza (40th street under the 7 train in Sunnyside)

Current SPQ student, Cristina Ferrigno will be leading a zine workshop for folks of all ages. Using local takeout menus with photos of Latinx food participants will make a collaged zine thinking about the connection to food, family, home and place.

More information on the Facebook event.

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Congratulations, Pedro Fliipe Vintimilla (SPQ Alum) on a solo exhibition, LINES . COLOR . TEXTURE at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut! The show features a series of 32 photographic portraits printed on silk, of Ecuadorian men during the Ecuadorian Day Parade (August 6, 2017, in Queens-NY), and the Parade of Morlaquía (November 3, 2018, in Cuenca-Ecuador).  On view until October 24th.

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Congratulations, also to Prof. Chloe Bass on her new installation – Wayfinding @ The Studio Museum in Harlem!

The Studio Museum in Harlem presents Chloë Bass: Wayfinding, the conceptual artist’s first institutional solo exhibition. This monumental commission features twenty-four site-specific sculptures that gesture toward the structural and visual vernacular of public wayfinding signage. The exhibition begins with and revolves around three central questions, poetically penned by the artist and featured throughout the park in billboard form: How much of care is patience? How much of life is coping? How much of love is attention?

Through a combination of text and archival images, Bass’s sculptures activate an eloquent exploration of language, both visual and written, encouraging moments of private reflection in public space. St. Nicholas Park is located along St. Nicholas Avenue between 128th and 141st Streets. Enter at 135th Street to view Chloë Bass: Wayfinding. For wheelchair access, please use the 132nd Street entrance.

On view for one year until September 2020.

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One last shout out to alumni Setare Arashloo and Barry Cline, and their group the Workers Art Coalition, for their new installation in the Socrates Annual 2019 at the Socrates Sculpture Park:

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Galvanized electrical conduit, outdoor electrical boxes, compression connectors, QR code.

‘Muscle Memory’ is a spiral sculpture of joined electrical conduit produced by the Workers Art Coalition (WAC), a group of construction workers and artists who bring representations and creative expressions of blue-collar workers into public culture. Composed through a series of workshops held at the Park, the work’s “distributed authorship” highlights the collaborative process while reversing the typical invisibility of the fabricator in contemporary art production. A sound element involving IBEW Local 3 union electricians will be added during the exhibition’s run.

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

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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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Alumnus Solo Show in Dhaka

We’re proud to share news of SPQ alumnus, Zaid Islam (’18), exhibiting his work in a solo show in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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The show is titled “I Once Was Colorblind,” and the artist statement reads as follows:

When I traveled to New York in 2016, many things in my life were in transition– family, education, career, life choices. I realized over time that my transitions were in parallel to dramatic shifts happening on a national scale. After November 8th that same year, all of America was trying to cope with something drastic, something unimaginable. There was a revival of fascist, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, colonial and neocolonial white supremacist brutality. Some would say it never went away, but suddenly the masks and gloves were off.

In face of all this, I observed resistance. I became aware of the many different identities I carry. I am Muslim. I am Brown. I am an Immigrant.

The exhibition has been extended to April 15.

Find more details at the Facebook event page here. Congratulations, Zaid!

Upcoming Events: March-April 2019

NARS Foundation Residency Exhibition: The Body Responds by Lying Down

Opening Reception March 1, 6-8PM

Exhibition on view March 1-22

NARS Foundation 201 46th Street Brooklyn NY 11223

Join SPQ alumnus Julian Phillips (’18) for the opening of “The Body Responds by Lying Down,” an exhibition at NARS Foundation, where he have been in residency for the past few months.

Phillips will be performing new work entitled, “1518 + 101 (not enough),” which challenges the perennial romanticization of the idea of the “First” given to a demographic. He will be also showing video work that is part of an expansive and unfolding new body of work.

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Talk by Gregory Sholette on art as social action

March 14, 1:30PM

Kresge Gallery, Ramapo College, New Jersey

A public lecture as part of an exhibition entitled “!!!PUBLIC ART??? INQUIRIES, ENCOUNTERS” which also features some of Sholette’s recent drawings.

 

“THIS IS A FILM 1.6” at Columbia College

March 20, 6PM

Hokin Lecture Hall, 623 S. Wabash, Room 109, Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois

Public lecture performance by Chloë Bass for Columbia College’s Art Now! lecture series in Chicago.

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Chloë Bass, Obligation To Others Holds Me In My Place (Dalmatian Narrative), 201

 

“This Is A Film 1.7” at Colgate University

March 28, 4:30PM

Colgate University, Golden Auditorium, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY, 13346 ©Colgate University

Public lecture performance by Chloë Bass. This Is A Film is part of Bass’ ongoing project “Obligation To Others Holds Me In My Place,” a study of intimacy at the scale of the immediate family. The event is part of the annual Eric J Ryan Distinguished Lecture, which honors Colgate’s colleague Eric J Ryan and his interdisciplinary work across studio, art history and archaeology.

 

Guest Professor at the Geneva University of Art and Design

April 15, All Day

Geneva University of Art and Design, Geneva, Switzerland

Gregory Sholette will lead several seminars about socially engaged and activist art for the MA program.

 

Alumni Profile: Pedro Felipe Vintimilla

For our alumni, Social Practice Queens is just another step in the ongoing process of building a socially engaged art practice.  In following their careers after the program, we get to see how they expand from the ideas and connections that they developed during their time at Queens College.

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Pedro Felipe Vintimilla graduated from the MFA SPQ program in Spring 2018. While at Queens College, the forms and subject matter of his work included geometric pattern-making, community-based participatory workshops, Ecuadorian diaspora experiences, and queer identity. Since then he has continued this work in connection with cultural organizations in Ecuador as well as locally in NY.

In June of 2018, Pedro was invited to share some of his recent work at the Summit of South American Theory of Archeology was held in Ibarra-Ecuador. In this event a series of presenters held conferences in various places around the city. It was estimated that around 500 people from North, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Europe participated. Throughout the week there were also cultural and artistic programs that took place in museums and public areas. This included art exhibits from local artists, an LGBT film screening, music and dance. Below are some images of Pedro’s contributions.

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Since August 2018, Pedro has been working with the Ecuadorian American Cultural Center here in Queens, first as an Arts Education Consultant and now as Director of Arts Education and Cultural Programs. The EACC is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to raise awareness of Ecuadorian culture through the arts and empower the community through education.

With EACC, Pedro facilitated family workshops in collaboration with Big Brother/Big Sister for a Hispanic Heritage Month Event last fall. He has also facilitated open call workshops building up the organization’s dance company “Ayazamana” that is celebrating 10 years since its founding. He is currently organizing programs for the children’s dance group “Ñukanchik Sapi” and developing a new project to have children and adult art programs during the week as an alternative space for after school and after work activities.

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In collaboration with the Ossining Public Library, Pedro was recently awarded the 2019 ArtsWestchester Arts Alive Grant to develop a series of free adult workshops exploring the community’s culture and family values where conversations will be translated into geometric mosaics.

Pedro is also currently a part-time Spanish lecturer at Norwalk Community College (Connecticut State Colleges & Universities).

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!

Upcoming Events: Jan-Feb 2019

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.

http://moreart.org/projects/engaging-artists/new-works-in-practice/

 

Teaching Art As Social Action 

February 14, 2PM

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.

https://caa.confex.com/caa/2019/meetingapp.cgi/Session/2531

 

Sonic Acts Festival 2019

February 21, 2PM

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Jodi Dean and Gregory Sholette will be discussing topics around communism and the radical imagination, presided over by Ash Sarkar, Anglia Ruskin University, UK.

http://sonicacts.com/what-is-dark-ecology/news///

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Have We Met: Dialogues on Memory and Desire

A recent exhibit on socially engaged art was on view at Stamps Gallery in the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art and Design (Sept 21-Nov 18 2018). Gregory Sholette was included as one of the artists.

Have We Met: Dialogues on Memory and Desire draws inspiration from Ann Arbor’s legacy of social movements (Anti-War Movement, Civil RightsMovements) and experimental art practices (The Once Group) from the late-1950s to the 1970s as its point of departure. It brings together archival materials and reproductions from the Labadie Collection and the Bentley Library in conjunction with radical artworks by diverse, multi-generational artists and designers whose works are deeply influenced by the ideas of freedom and self-determination, re-writing the canonical accounts of history, building contemporary culture, and solidarity. Have We Met? Dialogues on Memory and Desireretraces and learns from the models of collectivity and organizing developed by artists, designers, and cultural producers in the past and present as a lens to understand the contemporary moment and explore how can we re-imagine a vibrant and inclusive future.

Read more about it here.

Sept. 25, 2018 – Opening Reception of Moving Walls 25: Another Way Home

SPQ MFA Alumni Sol Aramendi is featured an upcoming exhibition:

The Open Society Documentary Photography Project is pleased to invite you to the opening reception of Moving Walls 25: Another Way Home, the 20th anniversary of our Moving Walls exhibition series.

Location: Open Society Foundations–New York
Event Date: September 25, 2018
Event Time: 6:00–9:00 p.m.

RSVP to this event

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Roberta Chalini y sus pasteles, @Project Luz Mujeres en Movimiento + Sol Aramendi.

Moving Walls 25: Another Way Home brings together eight projects led by 13 visionary artists, journalists, and creative technologists who are exploring migration through documentary practice. Each featured artist will also receive a fellowship for work on migration. The exhibition features:

  • Sol Aramendi, Project Luz
  • Jessica Ávalos, Koral Carballo, and Anita Pouchard Serra, Welcome to Intipucá City
  • Tomas Ayuso, The Right to Grow Old
  • FRPxTN (Génesis Mancheren Abaj, Kenia R. Guillen, Alvaro Morales, and Frisly Soberanis), Fractured Connections
  • Thana Faroq, The Passport
  • Omar Imam, Live, Love, Refugee
  • Walé Oyéjidé, After Migration
  • Layqa Nuna Yawar, Across la Tierra

The exhibition will be open to the public through July 19, 2019. You can read more about the selected artists and their work here.

Since its inception in 1998, Moving Walls has featured over 200 photographers and artists whose works address a variety of social justice and human rights issues.

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.

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.  

ArtAsSocialAction

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.

Vilcek Foundation showcases what’s new with SPQ this May!

A Busy May for Social Practice Queens

A Fresh Civility at The Plaxall Gallery

Even though the school year is coming to an end, Social Practice Queens isn’t slowing down its efforts to share socially engaged art. In the next month, the collaborative graduate program (run by Queens College in partnership with the Queens Museum) will showcase MFA students’ art at its annual group exhibition, release a textbook on social practice, and share two students’ work at a major conference.

Social practice art can take many forms. The diversity of the work being done by the students at SPQ can be seen in the MFA program’s annual exhibition, which is currently on view at The Plaxall Gallery in Long Island City. Titled A Fresh Civility  and curated by acclaimed poet and critic John Yau, the show is an exploration of the question “What does it mean to be civil in a world in which name-calling and inflammatory positions have superseded dialog and debate?” The varied responses of the 16 featured artists include performance, video, painting, drawing, ceramics, and quiltmaking. Assistant Professor Chloë Bass, who served as a faculty advisor to the exhibition stated, ”I’ve been delighted by the responses from diverse audiences about how these creative works share poetic truths about the times we live in, demonstrating the beauty of social and aesthetic engagement.” The show will wrap up with a closing reception on May 10, and the last day to view the exhibition will be May 13.

Series: My Big Fat Catholic Tsunami by Ed Majkowski

Two SPQ students, Cody Herrmann and Julian Louis Phillips, in partnership with artist Margaretha Haughwout, will also present Trees of Tomorrow as part of Open Engagement, a three-day conference focused on socially engaged art which will take place at the Queens Museum from May 11 to May 13. The work, made in collaboration with the John Bowne High School agriculture department, is a tour of the trees in Flushing that “expos[es] the ways trees shape, and are shaped by, neighborhoods, economies, and soils.”

SPQ is one of a few programs in the country that offer an MFA in social practice, but it is working to increase prevalence of the medium in schools. To that end, SPQ is releasing Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art. Edited by SPQ professors Gregory Sholette and Chloë Bass, the book explains the basics of the medium, as well as provides pedagogical projects to teach a variety of topics at the high school and college level. “Greg and I are incredibly excited to share the work of Social Practice Queens, and our engaged friends and collaborators throughout the United States and abroad, with a larger audience, in a way that we hope will be practical, exciting, and change-oriented for the classroom,” said Chloë. The launch of the book will be celebrated on May 11 with an event hosted by the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation at The 8th Floor arts space, and the book will be available for purchase starting May 22. Pre-orders can be placed through Amazon.

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/

Home of Practice on view August 19-29th

Home of Practice

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

debtbank question

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
Kasper11x17_matte

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

‘Protecting Our Nature and Our Sacred Land at Oak Flat’ at the Peace Table | 01/29

Protecting Our Nature and Our Sacred Land at Oak Flat
A Social Practice Queens Discussion at the Peace Table

Jan 29 2017
3:30pm–5:00pm

You are invited to participate in a pertinent conversation on land, protection and culture, that surround the case of Oak Flat, sacred to San Carlos Apache in Arizona.

Oak Flat Campground is located outside of Superior, Arizona in a part of Tonto National Forest and has been protected since 1955 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. This area of land is sacred to the San Carlos Apache, and contains more than 2,400 acres of land, wildlife, petroglyphs, sacred spaces, water resources, and lying beneath the surface, a copper deposit thought to be the largest in the hemisphere. Through a controversial land-swap presented in an unrelated 2015 National Defense Bill by John McCain, this land-swap would allow Resolution Copper (a joint venture by Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton) to develop a block cave mine which as perceived would create a 2-mile wide crater.

Convening at Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Peace Table, Social Practice Queens invites Mr. Wendlser Nosie Sr. (pictured above), former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Reservation, and Standing Fox, Apache Stronghold member, Bedonkohe Apache photographer and artist to lead a conversation about the current situation at Oak Flat including the repeal of the Defense Bill, the protection of sacred spaces, mining contamination in important riparian habitats, and the importance of environmental stewardship.

We are incredibly honored to have this conversation in Queens to support the San Carlos Apache tribe’s vision in “creating environments that ensure the greatest opportunity to succeed, and to become self-sufficient for Indigenous and all communities.”

This conversation will be accompanied by photography and video by Standing Fox, and current SPQ MFA candidates Floor Grootenhuis, and Erin Turner.

The event has been generously supported by Queens College CUNY, Queens Museum and the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation.

Further Resources:

Apache Stronghold Website

Petition to save Oak Flat

 

A Curator Talks Social Practice at Queens College

Located about an hour outside of the usual New York City art hubs, Queens College has long been renowned for its studio-based Social Practice MFA program with current and former professors including artist Chloë Bass, Vito Acconci, Maureen Connor, and Judith Bernstein.

After having been given the opportunity to curate an all-female show in the student gallery, I was stunned by the variety of available media at the facility, including a woodshop and a bronze-casting studio. Material Archive (April 2016) aims to present the viewer with diversity in materiality while also offering an investigation of the notion of the artwork as a vessel of personal, historical and cultural memory.

Read more on ArtReport.