Come Paint With Us!

COME PAINT A MURAL WITH YOUR COMMUNITY!

Painting extravaganza opened to the community. Artistic experience not necessary. Participants are not required to attend all of the sessions, only hands and creativity needed to help complete this project!

@ FIRST STREET GREEN ART PARK
EAST 1ST STREET AND HOUSTON

33 E 1st St, New York, NY 10003

This event has passed, thank you to all of you that made it possible!



Open Community Mural Painting Weekend

An endeavor hoping to pay tribute to the 30th anniversary of the twenty-six La Lucha Continua murals raised in 1983 by the community mural collective Artmakers Inc. to address six of some of the compelling political issues of the time, issues such as: gentrification, police brutality, immigration, women’s issues, and opposition to U.S. interventions in Central America and apartheid in South Africa. In contrast with much of the art being produced in the neighborhood at the time for the mainstream art market, this was created for the people, a “neighborhood-directed” effort as described in NYTimes.

The mural will be designed and painted by a small group of volunteers called upon by members from each organization; led by artist Sam Wisneski of the Thrive Collective. This collaboration represents a joint effort in calling on members from a surrounding community to speak to their own experiences, thus amplifying the voices of the community by offering up the podium, or in this case rather the paintbrush, to the people. More than a simple retelling of history, this mural can portray our present through past voices.

As the director of The Loisaida Center, Libertad Guerra posits,
“This exhibition is more than an excavation of the past or an exploration of the social, political and cultural context in which the murals were created. It is also a lens aimed at today’s Loisaida, focusing on how the neighborhood and the issues have changed, directing the eye to the future.”

Two from the original twenty-six pieces are still visible at La Plaza Cultural to this day.  Though much of the image from this piece by Susan Ortega has all but withered, the slogan “La Lucha Continúa” remains a powerful reminder to locals in the neighborhood and a reflection of our present through an historical lens.

Production for the commemorative mural coincides with the “La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues: 1985 & 2017” exhibition currently on display at Loisaida Center.

Community Parade & Pageant – Open Workshops

The Loisaida Center logo

The Loisaida Center

proudly presents:

 Community Parade & Pageant – Open Workshops


Workshops begin: Thursday, May 4th 2017
Open daily from 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm (except Mondays)
All workshops held at Loisaida Inc. Center – 710 East 9th Street NY NY 10009
FREE! All ages welcome.
Children under 14 must be accompanied by an adult.


Overview:

Loisaida Inc. has commissioned three masters in the arts of street theater to develop and implement a FREE month-long intensive collaborative atelier of parade-making & pageant techniques to kick-off the Loisaida Street Festival on its 30th anniversary. Daniel Polnau, Pablo Varona and Adam Ende (link to bios below) are three veteran puppeteers and distinct street artists with extensive US and international experience coming together in Loisaida to engage our surrounding community in an exploration of what is possible with humble and accessible materials. They will offer their skills and mentorship in diverse formats of inter-active public art aesthetics, messaging and celebration.


Workshop dates and description by theme:


Tutabanda (Tootophone)

Dates: Thursdays (May 4, 11, 18, and 25) from 12:00pm to 3:00pm

Description: Let’s start a musical street band from scratch! Bring out all of your inner musical joy in a band of wonders and learn how to make your own costume, design your own mask, help build a float, build your own musical instruments (with materials sourced from any local hardware store) and collaboratively come up with a choreography. Open to all artists, specially musicians and dancers.

(Recommended for ages 18 – Adults)

Cabezudos (Big-head puppets)

Dates: Tuesdays (May 9, 16, and 23) from 12:00pm to 3:00pm

Description: This workshop we will celebrate local history by creating an ensemble of big head masks– portraits of the important artists, activists and gardeners who shaped the neighborhood, such as Bimbo Rivas, Carmen Pabón, Tato Laviera, Armando Pérez, and Jorge Brandon aka “El Coco que Habla”, among others.

Participants will learn sculpture techniques with clay, cardboard, and other materials, the finer points of “paper mâché”, and painting skills. No prior experience necessary– all participants will discover that they have the innate skills to make beautiful portraits and caricatures. Included in the workshop will be mask movement and performance, so you will not only make a head, but learn how to embody it.

The creations will be part of the 30th Anniversary edition of the Loisaida Festival’s opening Parade and its Theater Lab.

(Recommended for ages 13 – Adults. No unaccompanied minors will be allowed.)

Giant Tiger and Jaguar Puppets:

Dates: Wednesdays (May 10, 17 and 24) from 12:00pm to 3:00pm

Description: Open to anyone who wants to make wearable-danceable- carry able art and help create. Join our team of guest artists and local luminaries in a highly collaborative and experimental open studio where we spin straw into gold! All levels of experience- from the curious to fluent!

Families, adults, teens, individuals, organizations welcome. See your dreams come to life when we bring our creations to the street in a spectacular parade that celebrates the spirit of Loisaida past, present and future!

(Recommended for ages 6 – Adults. No unaccompanied minors will be allowed.)

Open Community Workshops:

Dates: Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays (May 5,6,7,12,13,14,19,20 and 21) from 12:00pm to 6:00pm

Description: The Loisaida Festival Parade & Pageant counts with workshop space to build anything related to the parade. Any individual or group that would like to use our space, can come in on the Open Community Workshops. If you reach us beforehand, we could also reserve a space in the workshop and help with your designs and craft.

Please note: The parade is on the 28, May 2017, it starts at 10am and finishes at 12pm. We are asking all parade volunteers to be there, at least, two hours before (~8am) the parade starts and to anyone else that is parading with us, at least one hour before (~9am).

(Recommended for ages 6 – Adults. No unaccompanied minors will be allowed.)


Instructor Profile:

Daniel Polnau – Artist, puppeteer, director of Tiny Town artists collective and  Strombolli’s Medicine Show. Daniel Polnau has created puppet parades, circuses, and outdoor theatre spectacles for over 30 years. He specializes in creating larger than life puppets out of recycled junk and up-cycled materials making the mundane become extraordinary. At the heart of each highly collaborative project he strives to demystify the creative process, and quicken the innate creative abilities in all, regardless of age, abilities, or arts experience. His projects and residencies have spanned the globe from Moscow, Bali, Alaska and Puerto Rico.

Pablo Varona – Artist, puppeteer and resident of Casa Múcaro in Las Marías, Puerto Rico. Spends most his time living close to the forested mountaintops of Puerto Rico as the artist liaison of Casa Múcaro, Las Marías. He is amazed by the immeasurable value that the reuse, recycling and/or “forgotten” objects do when it comes to the transformation of urban contexts. His interests revolve around making these issues relevant and accessible to the general audience. Lead artist at Honey for the Heart Parade, Athens, OH, 2015 and Art Director of Loisaida Festival Parade 2016.

Adam Ende – Puppeteer, founder and director of Jawbone Puppet Theater; artistic and managing director of the Islewilde performance festival. He has more than 20 years of extensive experience directing puppet shows, parades and festivals around the US and Taiwan, as well as writing shows, building puppets, performing, and leading workshops in puppet making and performance. His particular specialty is making portraits in puppet.


Even though everyone is welcome to participate in all workshops without previous registration we ask that you to please fill out this form.


Volunteer to give life to the 30th Loisaida Festival Parade, join here!


For any questions please contact: Zuleyka Alejandro (787) 636-4413 or Pablo Varona (787) 412-1220

La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues: 1985 & 2017

La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues: 1985 & 2017

“Top of the list at New York Times of must-see galleries in the Lower East Side!”


Overview:

In 1985, Eva Cockcroft, founder of Artmakers Inc., gathered together 34 “artists of conviction” to create 26 political murals on four vacant buildings overlooking the then neglected La Plaza Cultural community garden. Known as La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues, the murals addressed six political issues: gentrification, police brutality, immigration, feminism, and opposition of U.S. intervention in Central America and apartheid in South Africa. Today, the garden is thriving, the issues remain of grave concern, and only two of the murals still exist, the paint cracked and faded.


Exhibition Details:

Opening Date:
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Time: 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Viewing Hours:
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
Noon to 6:00 pm
and by appointment.

Organizer:
Artmakers Inc.
For more info and media queries: Jane Weissman, ArtmakersNYC@aol.com, (212) 989-3006

Host Venue:
Loisaida Inc. Center
(646) 726-4715

710 East 9th Street, Lower East Side
New York, NY 10009 United States
+ Google Map
 
Emailinfo@loisaida.org

Public Programming and important dates:

April 19, 6:30-8 PM. Panel: Loisaida: Then & Now. With Chino Garcia, Maria Dominguez, Noah Jemisin, Kristin Reed, Seth Tobocman. Libertad Guerra, moderator

April 26, 6:30-8 PM. Illustrated Talk: Protest & Celebration: Community Murals of the 1970s & 1980s in Loisaida and on the Historic Lower East Side. Jane Weissman, presenter

April 30. 1 PM Gallery Talk / 2 PM Garden Visit to La Plaza Cultural at 9th & C. (Gallery remains open to 5 PM)


*SECOND ILLUSTRATED TALK, BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND*

May 11, 7:00-8:30 PM. Illustrated Talk: Protest & Celebration: Community Murals of the 1970s & 1980s in Loisaida and on the Historic Lower East Side. Jane Weissman, presenter


*May 23, 6:30-8 PM. Illustrated Talk: La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues: 1985 & 2017. Jane Weissman, presenter. City Lore Gallery (56 East 1st Street). Also co-sponsored by Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation & City Lore

*May 27, 2 PM Gallery Talk / 3 PM Garden Visit to La Plaza Cultural at East 9th Street & Avenue C Unless noted, all events take place at The Loisaida Center (710 East 9th Street, NYC) Part of the 2017 Loisaida Festival Weekend Programming.


All events are co-sponsored by Artmakers Inc. and The Loisaida Center

*In conjunction with Lower East Side History Month


Media Queries: Jane Weissman, ArtmakersNYC@aol.org, 212.989.3006


FREE Community Screen Printing Workshops

mauricio_trenard

The Loisaida Center logo

The Loisaida Center

   proudly presents:

 Community Screen Printing Workshops 


Workshop begun: Wednesday, March 8th

10 sessions – 1 day a week for three months

All sessions on Wednesdays

from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm 

FREE! Ages 18+


 Overview:

This program aims to bring art and creative place-making opportunities to Asian and Latino immigrant communities in the city of New York. The program introduces participants to a new art form and a vocabulary that can be used to strengthen and communicate to others their understanding of their environment. This program will expose participants to careers in art and design, developing skills and abilities that have transformative for individual growth and development, community beautification and belonging, and cross-cultural understanding. Art will be the vehicle that unites members of Asian and Latino immigrant communities to discuss, create and build the artistic capacity necessary for socio-cultural change. Our goal is to create opportunities to develop important artistic skills while sharing across differences that would not otherwise be possible.

Instructor Profile:

Professional artist Mauricio Trenard, will lead workshops for the project. He has lead design/build workshops for HSC and El Puente since 2010 and has 15 years of experience teaching art in Cuba. Since arriving in the U.S. in 2000, Mauricio has created commissions for the NYC Dept. of Education, Groundswell Community Mural Project and Fifth Avenue Committee. He uses public art as an indispensable tool to show and explore aspects of social reality of interest to him and the community in which he works. His work is in private collections in Europe, Mexico and the U.S. His illustrations for Dance, Nana, Dance received the 2009 Aesop Award.


Students will learn:

• The methodology, techniques and procedures of water base screen-printing for printing.

t-shirts, posters and others on similar types of material;

• How to utilize all equipment, tools, and supplies to produce a quality screen-printed product.

• How to translate their ideas into images – specifically, students will be encouraged to

explore issues of immigrant identity, community, and difference.


Objectives:

• To engage students in the process of exploring their individual artistic vision by

developing personal imagery;

• To create an art project generated by using iconography, social and cultural community

issues;

• To appreciate the enrichment that art brings to his/her own life experience and the

possibilities for career development;

• To create a basic artist portfolio with the work performed during the work shop;

• To develop self-motivation, self-direction and a strong work ethic;

• To think critically, work creatively and collectively across difference.


The Program

Our medium will be water-base screen printing with an emphasis on photo emulsion processes.Students will be exposed to various techniques for making silkscreen prints, will gain basic mastery of these processes, and by the end of the program, will develop a series of their own single, and multiple color edition prints. Students will be encouraged to investigate their own interests and concepts in terms of content and image making in the process of printing. Themes of cultural history and preservation, art and activism, and immigrant identity will all be explored.

Workshop Timeline:
Unit 1: Introduction to Screen Printing
Unit 2: Image Preparation
Unit 3: Screen Preparation
Unit 4: Reclaiming the Screen
Unit 5: Screen Printing Operation
Unit 6: Substrates and Inks

Unit 7: Presenting and communicating to the broader community


The 30th Loisaida Festival

A celebration is coming:

The Loisaida Festival has been historically celebrated on the Sunday before Memorial Day, this year is on:

    Sunday, May 28th fom 12:00pm – 5:00pm

2017’s theme is Immigration where we’ll be recognizing and celebrating the Im/migrant experience in the Lower East Side – The Gateway to America, and celebrating the Latin American Immigrant and their contributions to this community, city and country.

BECOME A SPONSORREGISTER AS A VENDOR

Vitrina Rota – book talk with Silverio Pérez

Wednesday, March 29th at 6:30pm

Loisaida Inc. Center hosts Silverio Pérez in the presentation and signing of autographs for his new book:

La Vitrina Rota “The Broken Glass Case” or What the hell happened here?


THIS EVENT HAS PASSED. SEE A VIDEO OF THE LIVE BROADCAST BELOW:


About the book:

The broken glass case, or what the hell happened here? Is a hybrid text that takes hold of what memory is and what memory offers, it is autobiographical, and a “history-o-graphic” essay. Narrated using the most respectable seriousness, the most pure emotion and a suggestive taunt, it leaves us a text that invites reflection and calm, but also calls to action and maybe encourages a calculated rebellion. All written in a tragicomic or comedic-serious tone so typical of the picaresque narrative that accompanies the Puerto Ricans from a remote past.

What Silverio does in this intense and moving volume is to look at that long 20th century that began in 1898 and continues in 2016, the American century, in the light of a repeated “promise” unfulfilled.

Exceptional witness of the time he has lived will prepare the reader for a time where “history” and “life” converge in an enviable balance.

It is also a historical and vital responsibility, well fulfilled.

Read Press Release here.


About the author:

Silverio Pérez (born July 18, 1948) is a musician, writer, comedian, entrepreneur and broadcasting media host, born in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. He is known for several reasons, among them:

  • Hosting several successful Puerto Rican television shows during his career.
  • Performing with the known group of political satire called Los Rayos Gamma (The Gamma Rays)[1][2]
  • Performing with the nueva trova group called Haciendo Punto en Otro Son.
  • His motivational lectures which are usually called “Humortivación” (Humortivation).

Nativa Remedies // MUJER Gathering

Join us Sunday, March 12th 3-5PM at Loisaida Inc. Center for our second workshop with Celeste Casillas of Nativa Remedies and other women seeking to connect with their feminine wisdom, honor their mother energy, and share sacred space.

We will discuss:

Using plant medicines to heal our bodies, balance our hormones, and ease stress and anxiety.
Connecting to the lunar calendar to understand the phases of our own cycle.
Ritualizing our life to create balance
Holistic beauty remedies

The gathering will evolve based on the interest of the group and sharing is optional.

Bring your amiga, sister, mother, a notebook and pen, a yoga mat or thick blanket.
RSVP REQUIRED CLICK HERE


Part of: Atomic Culture – 2017 Loisaida Inc. Artists in Residence

CitiCien Exhibit Artist Talk

Thursday, March 16 at 6 PM – 8 PM

Join us on Thursday March 16th for an artist talk featuring many of our participating artists.

The artists will share about themselves and their artistic practice, as well as the meaning behind the artworks they created for the CitiCien exhibit.


RSVP HERE.


SPEAKING ARTISTS:
Bonafide Rojas
Carlos Jesus Martinez Dominguez
Melissa Montero
Vagaond Alexander Beaumont
Yasmín Hernández
Will Rosado
Juan Sanchez
Manny Vega
Jean Oyola
Shellyne Rodriguez

Other artists in attendance:
Sofia Maldonado
Daniel Alago
Nelson Host Santiago
Leenda Bonilla
Luis Pagan
Jo-El Lopez
Nia Andino
Oliver Rios


Signed in 1917 by President Wilson, The Jones-Shafroth Act granted U.S. citizenship to anyone born in Puerto Rico on or after April 25, 1898, a complex and significant turning point for the people of Puerto Rico.

Following strict visual guidelines of size and a black-and-white only palette, the exhibit’s theme is one of visual consistency and commitment, acting as a metaphor of the unified voice and solidarity of Puerto Ricans during this critical political time. Coinciding with the 100 year anniversary of the signing of the Jones Act, CITICIEN, in an effort to nurture greater solidarity and collaboration, will feature 100 Puerto Rican artists from the island and the diaspora.

Curated by Puerto Rican artist Adrián Viajero Román, DEFEND PUERTO RICO’s CITICIEN traveling exhibition will feature 100 artworks highlighting the historical and present-day impact of the Jones Act.


About DEFEND PUERTO RICO
Defend PR is a multimedia project designed to document and celebrate Puerto Rican creativity, resilience, and resistance. Recognizing the complex and dynamic landscapes that comprise Puerto Rican daily life and struggle, Defend PR seeks to deepen connections between Puerto Ricans on the island and throughout the diaspora, in the hopes of nurturing greater solidarity, collaboration, and kinship.

#CITICIENPR #DEFENDPR
Visit www.defendpr.com
www.facebook.com/Defendpr / instagram.com/defendpr

 

Cover photo: “Wall of Resistance” by Leenda Bonilla + Luis Pagan
—————————————————————————————-

Project Ñ – Film Screening

DESCRIPTION:

Loisaida Inc. & Project Ñ are proud to present a special screening of:

The ñ Experience, is an engaging 90-minute presentation that combines a screening of the documentary “being ñ” infused with directors cut-style commentary from the film’s star and co-director Denise Soler Cox, offering viewers a unique perspective on the film and an unforgettable live experience.

In 90 minutes, Denise leads the audience on a powerful journey of cultural self-discovery and personal reflection. The result is a heartfelt, humorous and interactive experience that offers audiences a refreshing perspective on how to talk about culture and the feelings we all share around acceptance.


DATE AND TIME

Tue, March 7, 2017

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST

Add to Calendar


LOCATION

Loisaida, Inc

710 East 9th Street

New York, NY 10009

View Map

Our Voices Ring Loud Town Hall!

Our voices ring loud town hall meeting: Wednesday, March 1st at 6:00 pm.
The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center – 107 Suffolk St, New York, NY 10002
 
Loisaida & The NYC Cultural Plan – Our Voices Ring Loud Town Hall Meeting! Loisaida Inc. leads the local cultural planning project, in partnership with the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center and Teatro SEA that will ensure that Latino arts organizations, cultural workers, and residents in Lower Manhattan are heard and their recommendations included in the City’s 10 year cultural plan. Loisaida Inc. was chosen from a competitive pool of applicants as one of the winning proposals to conduct community engagement and feed-back activities around the City’s cultural planning process, which will wrap up in the late spring of 2017.
Be Heard! Participate!


This Loisaida-led Project to Help Inform New York City’s Cultural Plan is Funded by:

New York City Cultural Agenda Fund in The New York Community Trust.