The Voice of Many, The Voice of One: Collective Actions for Resistance and Mutual Aid
January 19 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm UTC-5
The Clemente Center
107 Suffolk Street, Manhattan
Public Closing: Sunday, February 26, 2023
LES Gallery
Curated by Haiba Hamilton and Natalia Nakazawa
The Clemente and The Flux Factory Rhizome Project present visionary work from a range of artists working in and through collective action, creating solidarity networks that facilitate different ways of being with one another. We asked the artists to respond to the following set of questions: How, as a collective, do you center the work of building and sustaining communities? In what ways does your collective support others to surThrive? How have you activated creativity in your world? Who are the people of your collective and community?
This exhibition will include works from collectives: The Salon / DayonesArt Collective / and The Chrysalis Kali Collective, including artists:
YVETTE MOLINA
DANAE HOWARD / Artschoolscammer
DENNIS REDMOON
MAKEBA RAINEY
YANNI YOUNG
AnAkA
RHONDA L. HAYNES
ARIEL MERCADO
NAOMI MOMOH
YON MI KIM
MELIKA DAVE
HECTOR GOMEZ
DOUGLASS HENRY
ANDINA OSORIO
Yvette Molina is a Mexican-American artist focused on the relationship between justice and caring. Her work incorporates processional banners, ritual, storytelling, costumes, action figures, collage, and painting. Current projects include New Pantheon, a series of reimagined gods born to confront the world's challenges, and Big Bang Votive, a communal storytelling project where participants are invited to share a personal story of love or delight. Yvette memorializes each story with a painted symbol on a starry backdrop to create an expanding constellation of our collective joy and love.
Yvette has exhibited across the US and internationally at venues such as the Stockholm Fringe Festival, the American Embassies in Uruguay and Latvia, Brattleboro Museum in Vermont, the Visual Art Center of New Jersey, Arsenal Contemporary, Spring Break Art Show, NADA Art Fair, and the Legion of Honor and de Young Museums of California as an AIR awardee. Other residency fellowships include the Vermont Studio Center, Jentel Foundation, UC Berkeley Worth Ryder Gallery, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation. Born in Kansas City, Yvette currently splits her time between Oakland, CA and Brooklyn, NY. https://www.yvettemolina.com/
Ariel Mercado is a concept-based artist, independent arts educator, founder and lead programmer for The Salon. arielmercado.art
Melika Davé is a multimedia artist and organizer working in the realms of audio, poetry, painting and design. offeringrain.com
Hector Gomez is an interdisciplinary artist working with photography, photogrammetry, binary code and weaving. Hectorgomez.net
Naomi Momoh is a Fiber artist working in sculpture, textile and furniture.
Douglass Henry is an interdisciplinary artist working in dance, sculpture, and animation. douglasshenry.com/
Yon Mi Kim is an artist who works with photography, sculpture, poetry, and installation to explore ideas around domesticity, family, memory, and trauma. yonmikim.com
Andina Marie Osorio is a photography based artist who uses her practice to examine family lineage and lived experiences as a Nuyorican to investigate the duality inherent within matriarchy and its relationship to domestic space. andinamarie.com
Rhonnda Haynes is an executive producer/co-producer, director and writer for the award-winning documentary film "Bringin' In Da Spirit." She has garnered nearly 30 years of experience in the technical aspects of film and television production. She has worked behind the scenes on productions, such as The Cosby Show, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, MTV, the John McEnroe Talk Show for CNBC as well as independent features and short films.
Through the alchemy of intention, AnAkA's multimedia practice reconnects the Self to ancient wisdoms severed from personal and collective bloodlines. Since 2012, AnAkA has cultivated an ethnographic project entitled AKTIV8: an original archive of photos, films, music, dance, tattoos and herbal creations. AKTIV8 is created with the intention to document and strengthen the heartbeat of the Afro Indigenous movements, practices and rituals of our current time. In order to share and exchange this cultivation of sacred wisdom, AKTIV8 archive presents itself as shapeshifting experiential portals: a physical space woven with AKTIV8 sounds, movement and visuals.
Denae Howard is A Brooklyn-based Conceptual artist, educator, curator and advisor. At the moment she is solely a collaborative artist. Working with her cooperative #Dayonesart and other Black creatives invested in making work that forces necessary conversation. Her work is a coded-guide that promotes discussions that reveal the similarities and differences in the way individuals' experience systems. Her practice stems from a need to create space and conversation around the systems that govern our natural existence. As a visual artist and contributor to culture she feels it is imperative to create art that reflects cognitive, emotional and social pedagogy. Her works are re-appropriations of negative archetypes and stereotypes to reclaim and transcend positive meaning for Black people. But also re-imaginings of the limitless opportunities of Black Existence.
Dennis RedMoon Darkeem is inspired to create artwork based on the familiar objects he views through his daily travels. He discovers elements in existing architecture and among everyday items found within the home. Darkeem ultimately set out to express a meaningful story about events in his life and the lives of people in the communities where he lives and works. Darkeem utilizes multiple mediums in his work. This creates a rich viewer experience as the eye uncovers the multiple layers. Dennis was the 2020 Black Utopian Fellow.
Yanni Young is a Black, queer, multi-disciplinary artist born and raised in Harlem, NYC. For two years Yanni had a podcast called "Soul Rebel Podcast" centering Black artists, healers, and grassroots organizers, allowing them to speak on their work and their life journey that led to where they are in the present. Yanni is the 2022- 2023 Black Utopian Fellow.
Makeba Rainy is a self-taught artist from Harlem best known for her digital collage portraits of contemporary and historical Black icons. Makeba an internationally-exhibited artist, a 2017 Create Change Fellow with the Laundromat Project, a 2018 member of Vox Populi gallery in Philadelphia, a 2018 CFEVA Fellow, a 2018 Season III NARS resident Artist, and an Absolut Art artist. Makeba is also the Co-Founder for #DayonesArt
COLLECTIVE DESCRIPTIONS:
The Salon was founded in 2019 as a crit group for working class artists of color using an originally developed crit model. Its function has been to provide nuanced feedback (from peers) in order to combat implicit bias within criticism in institutional spaces and its resulting effect on cultural production. Through their "salon style" critiques participants practice the politics of seeing/experiencing in order to support their peers in becoming confident and autonomous cultural engineers.
Since its founding The Salon has experimented with various forms of organization and programming in order to support the practice of its participants. Currently The Salon is an artist cooperative with six(6) core members developing programs that are utilized by their respective networks and the public.
The Chrysalis Kali Collective is a group for Filipina/x women (and non-binary folk) to explore Filipino Martial Arts (Kali) as an empowering mind/body/spirit practice. In our group, we delve into how historical trauma impacts our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health from a global perspective down to the cellular level. We unpack what it means to "decolonize," but we don't stay stuck here. We bear witness to our struggles, but we also celebrate our resilience. We question dominant paradigms and let go of what isn't working for us any more. We deeply listen to our bodies as sacred guides to help us navigate life. We make space for emerging potential.
The sole purpose of #DayOnesArt is to promote and support independent artists coming out of urban meccas. Through collaboration we generate a bridge to further growth within our shared communities. We are a collective of working Artists and Cultural Consultants – here as an amenity. We are project developers who serve Artists and Creative leaders with intention building – establishing cultural equity and resilience within Institutions and Corporate entities. We began with pop-ups and now have created outreach in the form of our fellowship "BUF".
The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center Inc. is a Puerto Rican/Latinx multi-arts cultural institution that has demonstrated a broad-minded cultural vision and inclusive philosophy rooted in NYC's Lower East Side/Loisaida. While focused on the cultivation, presentation, and preservation of Puerto Rican and Latinx culture, we are equally committed to a multi-ethnic / international latitude, determined to operate in a polyphonic manner that provides affordable working space and venues to artists, small arts organizations, emergent and independent community producers that reflect the cultural diversity of the LES and our City.
The Flux Factory Rhizome Project is a commitment to give intentional space to Black voices, and provide a platform for Black narratives by offering the support needed to help these narratives thrive and evolve. The Rhizome Project is an evolving entity. As it grows, we will add programs focused on professional development and other forms of support. We commit to listening to the leadership of Black artists with an ongoing commitment both economically and through action. Many roots support the plant.
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