Rituals of Social Transformation

Posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2024

A decorative title with the text "Rituals of Social Transformation" displayed at differing angles.

NETWORKS OF COLLECTIVE CARE

Join us on Saturday, January 27th, 2024 for Rituals of Social Transformation, a showcase of the work of More Art’s 2023 Engaging Artists Fellows, featuring work and conversations by Carrie Sijia Wang, Danielle Cowan, Jessica Angima, Mei Ling Yu, Nava Derakhshani, and Ray Jordan Achan.

Rituals of Social Transformation invites participants to delve into the evolving practices, cultivated research findings, and transformative routines of More Art’s newest cohort of Engaging Artist Fellows. 

As we explore the alchemical power of building community, developing radical empathy, and stewarding our own communal and personal rituals of care, connection, and transformation, we get a peek at the journeys and processes our fellows have undertaken over the last year. This public presentation of ongoing work will illustrate the 2023 cohort’s exploration of and attention to themes of information accessibility, community care, storytelling, and visibility.

Rituals of Social Transformation will be presented at Head Hi in Brooklyn, NY on January 27th, 2024 from 4pm-8pm. Click here to register and to learn more about this event! Follow along on social media and subscribe to our newsletter for updates and Fellow spotlights.


LOCATION & ACCESSIBILITY

Rituals of Social Transformation will be presented at Head Hi, located at 146 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11205. Google Map Directions.

Head Hi is a small space and given the current surging numbers for Covid we’re requesting folks wear masks while not eating or drinking in the space. Masks and hand sanitizer will be available at the entrance and throughout the space.

By subway*: Take the A or C to High Street, then take the B69 bus to the Flushing Ave/Clermont Ave stop; or take the C to Jay St-MetroTech then take the B57 bus to the Flushing Av/Clermont Ave stop; or take the 5 to Borough Hall, then take the B57 bus to the Flushing Av/Clermont Ave stop; Take the M to Flushing Ave, then take the B57 bus to the Flushing Ave/Vanderbilt Av stop; or take the G to Clinton-Washington Avs, then take the B69 bus to the Flushing Ave/Vanderbilt Av stop. *All subway stops require a walk of at least 5-10 minutes or transfer to a bus line below.  

By bus: Take the B57 or B69 to Flushing Ave/Vanderbilt Av; the B69 to Flushing Ave/Clermont Ave; the B62 to

By ferry: Take the Astoria (AST) route to Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Parking: On-street and metered parking are available on Flushing Avenue, Vanderbilt Ave, and on many of the adjacent streets. Non-metered parking is available underneath the BQE along Park Avenue. The nearest parking garage is located at 275 Park Ave. Click here for more parking options.

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The presentation space is ADA accessible, with sidewalk level access to the front door opening and no steps. The main doors do not have automatic options, but can be locked in open position and are wide enough to accommodate walkers and wheelchairs. There is an ADA-accessible, gender-neutral restroom on the ground floor.

A digital, screen reader-friendly program will be circulated prior to the event and will be available via QR code or shareable link. Visual descriptions of each artist’s presentation will also be included in this program.    

Artist presentations and conversations will be available to experience virtually on Zoom at this link, which will be active at the presentation times specified in the program. Closed captioning will be available on Zoom.       

Please send any additional accessibility needs and requests to info@moreart.org at least one week prior to the event. 

Allergen-friendly light bites and refreshments will be available.

Head Hi is a small space and given the current surging numbers for Covid we’re requesting folks wear masks while not eating or drinking in the space. Masks and hand sanitizer will be available at the entrance and throughout the space.


Featuring work by:

Ray Jordan Achan (he/him/his) is an Indo-Caribbean, Brooklyn based theater-maker. Ray is the Founding Artistic Director of EXILED TONGUES, a performance collective that provides financial, artistic and collaborative support to artists of the global majority who center diasporic consciousness. Ray’s performative work primarily deals with the intersection between racial and climate justice, particularly as they relate to the NYC coastline. He is the recipient of the 2022 NYSCA Individual Artist Grant for his site-specific documentary theater project, “Our Bang for Their Buck: No Pipeline for LNG”, the 2022 Creative Equations Fund from the Brooklyn Arts Council and a commissioned artist with Works on Water for his site-specific documentary theater project, “(Re)Imagining Greenpoint’s Green Waters”. Ray is a Rising Producer Fellow at the Creative & Independent Producer Alliance, and an Associated Artist at Culture Push. Ray is a graduate of Wesleyan University with a BA in Government and Theater with Honors. rayjordanachan.com | exiledtongues.com

Jessica Angima is a first-generation Kenyan American organizer, meditation teacher and social practice artist. In a constant state of process, she facilitates intimate community through the exploration of art, justice, and contemplative practice. Her identities as the daughter of Kenyan immigrants and a Black American woman deeply inform her community-based practice. Her work primarily focuses on deep vulnerability, using meditation and creative practices as methods of awakening consciousness. Jessica blends dharma, ancestral wisdom and poetics to decenter European thought frames and lead herself and others toward liberation. With over 400 hours of meditation instruction training, she has worked with BRIC, Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Dia Art Foundation, Google, SELF Magazine, SHAPE Magazine, theSkimm, Tricycle Magazine and more. Jessica was a 2019 Create Change Fellow at The Laundromat Project and holds an MA in Arts Politics from New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She is a member of Inner Fields Collective and serves as Deputy Training Director at Arena. Jessica lives in Brooklyn, NY on unceded Lenape territory with her cat and her books.

Danielle Cowan is a blind, queer and Blackarican native New Yorker dabbling in organizing, performance and poetry. Her art comes from fascination with what it means for a body or place to hold multiple sometimes conflicting identities and playing with ways to write within shared histories and trauma. Her work has been published in Causeway Lit’s Revolution Issue, Mobius: the Journal of Social Change and elsewhere. She was an artistic investigator for Rattlestick Playwrights Theater’s Block by Block Project and was a spring 2022 Office Hours Poetry Workshop fellow.

Nava Derakhshani is a multimedia artist with a background in Architecture and Sustainable Development. Born to Iranian parents in eSwatini, her work explores themes of migration, identity, belonging, and gender. She is a 2020 graduate of the International Center for Photography, NYC, and works in images, as well as form and sculpture.

Carrie Sijia Wang (she/her) is an artist and educator based in New York. Combining art, technology, and research, she makes performances, videos, and participatory experiences to explore the humanization of machines and the mechanization of humans. Wang is an inaugural Working Artist Fellow at Pioneer Works, 2023 More Art fellow, Year 8 member of NEW INC, and 2020 Mozilla Creative Media Award recipient. She has shown and presented work with venues including Rhizome, New Museum, Onassis Foundation, ACM SIGGRAPH, and A.I.R. Gallery. Her work has been featured in publications including the Business Insider, Slate, and Computerworld. As an educator, she has designed and taught classes and workshops covering topics like creative coding, making artistic chatbots, and countering digital surveillance. She currently teaches at NYU in the Interactive Media Arts department.

Mei Ling Yu (She/They) self-identifies as a cis-gender, queer Chinese-American and Gong Fu Cha Practitioner. Born, raised and based in New York City, on unceded Lenapehoking land. Mei Ling is deeply passionate about radical healing, spirituality, and well-being. A life-long devotee of Tea, Cha, the healing arts, somatic practices and experienced in practicing Gong Fu Cha, 4 years now. Mei Ling is a child of Toishanese immigrants, coming from an ancestry of village farmers and Chinese medicine people. Mei Ling aspires to study spiritual herbalism and farming to reconnect and deepen their practice with medicine of the East and West, integrating ancient and modern practices.


ABOUT ENGAGING ARTISTS

More Art’s year-long Engaging Artists Fellowship is designed to help emerging NYC artists and community organizers develop and sustain a socially engaged and public art practice. The Fellowship program curriculum includes mentorship, peer networking, access to programming opportunities in New York City, and workshops and artist talks tailored to the interests/needs of the cohort. The infrastructure and laboratory provided by More Art allow selected emerging and underrepresented artists to gain a deeper understanding of the history and vitality of public and socially engaged art and encourage artists to expand and develop social practice.

At the Table: Guns in the City with Immanuel Oni

Posted on Monday, October 16th, 2023

Image: Moment from the Beyond Memorial Site Walk with Immanuel Oni; image by Destiny Mata.

Join us on October 25th for a virtual At the Table conversation on Guns in the City with guest artist Immanuel Oni

Join us for our next At the Table: Dialogue + Art on Wednesday, October 25th from 6pm to 7:30pm EST on Zoom. The theme of this intimate, salon-style conversation will be Guns in the City with guest artist Immanuel Oni.  

At the Table conversations are open to anyone interested in the subject, and no expertise is required! Interested in joining? Email dylan@moreart.org to RSVP.

Click here to learn more about Beyond Memorial and Oni’s practice.


Moving away from the easily stereotyped stigma of “gun violence” as imagined to exist in certain neighborhoods – often wielded as a tool to control segments of the population – we’d like to expand the discussion to more broadly treat the problem of the prevalence of guns – from ghost guns to the militarization of our police – in New York City, as we start to imagine what a cultural and social healing practice might look like. How do we cope with or deal with the psychological toll of gun violence, against the backdrop of a powerful gun lobby and the failure to enact sensible gun control legislation at a national and regional level? And what are the costs (physical, psycho-social, economic) of living alongside a militarized police force? 

This conversation builds on the workshops and visioning of Immanuel Oni’s Beyond Memorial, More Art’s 2023 Engaging Artist Commission, which seeks to transform sites of trauma into sacred spaces and sites of healing. We are grateful to Oni for spearheading this work with a recent in person At the Table gathering in which we discussed how more culturally competent and visionary planning, architecture, and infrastructure might lead toward more tangible forms of spatial justice for the city.

More Art has been hosting At the Table: Dialogue + Art—intimate, salon-style conversations—with our community since 2019. Intended to be a platform for thought-provoking and lively conversations in shared space, whether virtual or in-person, At the Table: Dialogue + Art also provides an opportunity to solidify and build new relationships with artists and community members. The goal is to have participants find themselves stimulated and inspired by the conversation, and valued as an integral part of the More Art family. 


If you’d like to support more programs like Beyond Memorial, please feel free to make a donation here.

Beyond Memorial: Artist-Guided Site Walk with Immanuel Oni

Posted on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023

Image: Youth group conducting site tour and reclaiming space via water ritual at Rockaway Ave. 3 Train stop on Rockaway Ave. and Livonia Ave, Brownsville, BK.

Join us on October 11th for a guided walking tour of Beyond Memorial led by Immanuel Oni

Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at 6:00 pm: Brownsville, Brooklyn; meet at the Rockaway Ave 3 Train Station Click here for Google Map directions.

Join us on Wednesday, October 11th for a guided walking tour of Beyond Memorial street light prototypes installed in Brownsville, Brooklyn, led by 2023 Engaging Artists Commission Artist Immanuel Oni and youth participants from participatory workshops at the Brownsville Community Justice Center (BCJC).

The walking tour will be followed by an outdoor film screening hosted by BCJC which reanimates a former movie theater, The Pitkin, that was once a community hub. The outdoor screening takes place where the Pitkin roughly stood, and is meant to prefigure a movie theater experience for the Brownsville community which otherwise has none.

We will meet for the walking tour at 6pm at the Rockaway Avenue 3 Station. At 7:30pm, we will join the outdoor screening of “Evolution of Hip Hop: New York State of Mind” (run time: 47 minutes) hosted by the BCJC with an introduction to the project by Oni, at the intersection of Pitkin Avenue and Junius Street. The screening will have seating and complimentary popcorn.  

Click here to learn more about Beyond Memorial and Oni’s practice.

If you’d like to support more programs like Beyond Memorial, please feel free to make a donation here or add a donation at checkout through the RSVP links above.

“I cannot not grieve: CRY SCREAM SHOUT SING” by Freya Powell

Posted on Thursday, August 24th, 2023

Image: Freya Powell, I cannot not grieve: CRY SCREAM SHOUT SING, 2021; image by Walter Wlodarczyk.

Join us on September 9th & 10th for I cannot not grieve: CRY SCREAM SHOUT SING by Freya Powell.

I cannot not grieve: CRY SCREAM SHOUT SINGa newly commissioned performance by multidisciplinary artist Freya Powell, draws upon the Sophoclean character of Elektra and a Greek chorus to recognize the experience of ambiguous loss as a means to counter the statistic-based records of the COVID-19 pandemic. The performance addresses the permanent state of grieving we have been living in since the start of the pandemic. Exploring the voice as the medium this piece tests pitch, tone, pacing, and silence from operatic singing to theatrical utterances. Through varied public expressions of grief (crying, screaming, shouting, and singing) this performance will shroud the listener in an exploration of these outward bodily utterances.

Dates & Locations 

Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 6:30 pm: Central Park, East Meadow, Manhattan Click here to RSVP for the Central Park performance.

Sunday, September 10, 2023 at 4 pm: The Green-Wood Cemetery, Historic Chapel, Brooklyn, NY Click here to RSVP for the Green-Wood Cemetery performance.

If you’d like to support more programs like I cannot not grieve: CRY SCREAM SHOUT SING, please feel free to make a donation here or add a donation at checkout through the RSVP links above.

Join our CONNECT, BUILD, AMPLIFY Campaign!

Posted on Friday, August 4th, 2023

Image: Mary Mattingly, Public Water artist-led walk in Prospect Park, 2021; image by Maria Niro.

Join More Art’s CONNECT, BUILD, AMPLIFY campaign and expand the possibility for art to activate change!

Join More Art’s CONNECT, BUILD, AMPLIFY campaign and expand the possibility for art to activate change! Our goal is to raise $10,000 in 10 days (August 10th – 21st) through small donations of $10 and up.

We believe that creativity and artists catalyze social change. More Art is the only art organization in the New York City metropolitan area that promotes public art from the ground-up; we actively promote and support underrepresented and marginalized artists whose work strives to exist beyond the white cube. 

However, enacting change is a collective effort, and it is our community of supporters–like you–that make our work possible. By connecting with more people, building our community, and amplifying socially engaged public art, we expand the possibility for art to activate change.

This campaign is about growing our community of supporters without whom we would not exist. More Art strives to empower all people to utilize art as a tool for connection, awareness, and action on critical social topics (see below) that affect our lives and communities. Our supporters, therefore, enable us to create the free public events that are vital to ensuring art is accessible to all. We invite you to engage with us by attending our public programs, participating in salon dinners, or stopping by to experience work created by our more than 70-strong network (and growing!) of artists and engaging fellows. Your presence and your financial support is crucial to the work we do.

As a non-profit structured on a collective network of artists, participants, organizers, disruptors, and others from the public, bringing public art to more people is a cornerstone of our work. To fundraise in alignment with our values of creating community around art and social change, we ask for YOUR support to extend our reach. 

How to get involved:

  • Make a donation of $10 or more.
  • Become a Team Leader by asking 10 people from your community to donate $10 each. We will provide you with a fundraising webpage and all the info you need.
  • Spread the word to your network via email or on social media.

What our donors receive:

  • Free access to socially engaged public art programs, gatherings and talks.
  • Invitations to special events, including unique opportunities to meet with artists, community members and cultural enthusiasts.

About More Art:
More Art 
collaborates with artists across their careers to catalyze social change by producing meaningful participatory public art for a broad audience.

More Art. More Agency. More Action

  • Art: More Art is known for its artistic integrity, for visually compelling work and work that is socially engaged.
  • Agency: More Art supports self-determination within art. Our process is open, grounded, and flexible.
  • Action: More Art provides a platform for different people to experience art, this leads to action that paves the way towards transformation and change.

Join the campaign today and help amplify our work!

With gratitude,

The More Art Team

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Check out some of our recent and upcoming public programs: 

WATCH: A live recording of Resistance Revival Chorus and Pennants & Poets, part of our Gates, Borders, Barriers series of public programs in connection with our latest public art installation Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds by artist Fred Wilson.

EXPLORE: The Red String, a recent public art project by Lily & Honglei, one of More Art’s Engaging Artist Residents. This project was an augmented reality (AR) art installation designed for multiple public parks in Asian American neighborhoods. Incorporating both physical and digital components reflecting on immigrant experiences, East Asian cultural heritage, and Asian American identity the artwork included a series of large banners with distinct designs inspired by patterns of Asian red strings, also called Asian knots, a type of folk art symbolizing unity & love.

PREVIEW: Get to know the work of Freya Powell, an artist whose work we will be presenting in the Fall at Green-Wood Cemetery Chapel, Brooklyn.

Learn more about what we do at moreart.org. Contact us with any questions by emailing alexandra@moreart.org.

Gates, Borders, Barriers: Closing Celebration

Posted on Tuesday, June 20th, 2023

A double exposure image featuring the black ornamental ironwork of Fred Wilson's public art sculpture at Columbus Park, and overlaid over it is a photo of a person with dreadlocks dancing - their hair in movement covering their face. Overlaid is text that reads: "Who is looking in? Who is looking out? Who is free? Who is trapped? Who has the power to decide who has the freedom to be inside and outside? "

Gates, Borders, Barriers: Closing Celebration

Who is looking in? Who is looking out? Who is free? Who is trapped? Who has the power to decide who has the freedom to be inside and outside?
A performance by Jonathan González with Katrina Reid

*DATE CHANGED to THURSDAY, JUNE 29TH*

Date and time: Thursday, June 29th 2023, 6-8pm*
Location: Columbus Park, in Downtown Brooklyn (see below for full location details)

Find the event schedule below:
6 PM: The performance by Jonathan Gonzalez and Katrina Reid begins, alongside the deinstallation of the work by AJ Iron Works.
6:30 to 7:30 PM: Light snacks and beverages by Drive Change.
8 PM: The performance will end followed by closing remarks by Micaela Martegani and Fred Wilson.

*This event has been postponed to Thursday, June 29th due to rain!*

Join us in celebration on Thursday, June 29*, from 6-8 pm at Columbus Park in Downtown Brooklyn for a movement-based performance by Jonathan González and Katrina Reid to mark the closing of Fred Wilson’s Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds. The performance will be followed by a community celebration with refreshments from Drive Change, a food truck and hospitality-centered fellowship program that supports formerly incarcerated young people and creates quality employment pathways to ensure their economic and emotional wellbeing.

More Art has commissioned a captivating and thought-provoking performance by Jonathan González, exploring the complex questions of visibility, confinement, and authority in our society.

Through a dynamic collaboration between the performers—Jonathan González and Katrina Reid—and the AJ Iron Works fabrication team, who was responsible for originally constructing the welded steel gates that form the very structure of Wilson’s artwork, the audience will witness a mesmerizing display of improvised movements.

The performance will take place in the midst of the de-installation process, symbolically representing the desired collapse of gates and barriers that hinder our freedom. As the de-installation crew actively dismantles the artwork, González and Reid will seamlessly interface with their actions. This interactive element will allow the audience to witness the transformative power of dismantling obstacles, both metaphorically and literally.

Jonathan González’s performance invites reflection on societal boundaries, power dynamics, and the liberation that comes from breaking down barriers. Through the seamless integration of movement, sculpture, and de-installation, the audience will be immersed in a visually striking and intellectually stimulating exploration of freedom and visibility in our world.

Presented in partnership with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, this event is part of Gates, Borders, Barriers, a series of public programs in connection with Fred Wilson’s year-long installation Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds. This program is produced in part through the Downtown Brooklyn + Dumbo Art Fund, a grant that funds projects that serve to enhance public space, increase access to cultural programming, and connect the neighborhoods of Downtown Brooklyn and Dumbo. The grant is part of the New York State Downtown Revitalization Initiative.


Jonathan González

A headshot of Jonathan Gonzalez from the chest up. Jonathan is wearing a black collared shirt, and short dreaded locks. Jonathan has dark skin and features and has moustache facial hair. There is a blurred green leafy background behind them.

Image: Jonathan González, image by Shawn Poynter.

Jonathan González is an artist based in Philadelphia and Queens, NY. Their practice emerges through the prisms of black study, the site, the plot and the choreographic. Unfolding at the intersections of performance, these works occur as live art, video, text, sound and platforms for collaborative study activated within theatrical spaces, galleries and museums, virtual locations, site-specificity and printed matter. Their writings have been published by EAR | WAVE | EVENT, Contemporaryand, Cultured Magazine, deem journal, Angela’s Pulse, among others.

Their creative and pedagogical works, collectively, seek to engender nuanced conceptions of Black imaging, Black movement, and Black narrativizing in relation to the built environment, libidinal economies of the flesh and the longue durée of coloniality. González has received generous support from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Art Matters Foundation, Jerome Hill Foundation as well as residencies with Loghaven Artist Residency, Center for Afro-futurist Studies, MANCC, The Kitchen/American Academy of Arts and Letters and Trinidad Performance Institute.


Katrina Reid

A headshot of Katrina Reid. She is a Black femme woman with short, almost shaved bleached hair, smiling while looking at the camera, her face pointed away to the left. There is a blurred landscape behind her that looks like a rock formation. She is wearing a pink and black shirt.

Image: Katrina Reid, image by Kiya Marie Schnorr.

Katrina Reid is a dancer, choreographer, and storyteller. She collaborates with a range of artists who explore performance across dance, theater, ritual, music, and film. Select presentations include: Queens Museum, ISSUE Project Room, the Knockdown Center, Current Sessions, AUNTS is Dance, the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) as 2016-2017 Dancing While Black Fellow with Angela’s Pulse. Learn more at katrina-reid.com

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This event is part of Gates, Borders, Barriers, a series of public programs in connection with Fred Wilson’s year-long installation Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds. This program is produced in part through the Downtown Brooklyn + Dumbo Art Fund, a grant that funds projects that serve to enhance public space, increase access to cultural programming, and connect the neighborhoods of Downtown Brooklyn and Dumbo. The grant is part of the New York State Downtown Revitalization Initiative.

Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds is made possible by a grant from the Downtown Brooklyn + Dumbo Art Fund, a partnership with Downtown Brooklyn Partnership and Dumbo Improvement District as part of New York State’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. This project is supported in part by the Lambent Foundation, the Joseph Robert Foundation, the Abakanowicz Arts and Culture Charitable Foundation, Pace, The David Rockefeller Fund, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and commissioning sponsor VIA Art Fund. Additional support for educational programming has been provided by the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation. Thank you to our partners, NYC Parks and the Center for Court Innovation.

Image: Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds, image by Kris Graves.

location.

The sculpture site is located in the plaza inside of Columbus Park, in Downtown Brooklyn, which is situated close to the Borough Hall subway station and near the Kings County Supreme Court. You can enter the plaza from the North at Johnson Street and Cadman Plaza, or from the south at Court St and Montague Street. It is close to where the Brooklyn Borough Hall Greenmarket is held.

Click here for Google Map directions.

By Subway: Take the 4/5 or the 2/3 to Borough Hall, or the A/C/F to Jay St, MetroTech.

By Bus: Take the B38, B41, B25, B52, B26 to Cadman Plaza West/Montague St.

accessibility.

The closest accessible subway station is the 4/5 2/3 Borough Hall Subway Station (Manhattan and Bronx-bound only).

The Jay St-MetroTech Subway Station is also an accessible station, however, it is a 7-minute walk away.

The sculpture site and plaza is paved and single-level with bench seating nearby.

Accessible public restrooms are available until 6pm on Wednesday evenings at the Brooklyn Heights branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, located one block away at 286 Cadman Plaza W, Brooklyn, NY 11201. For hours, visit the BPL website.

Please contact info@moreart.org with any accessibility needs or inquiries.