Restoring the heart of Ni’Tiñao – Exhibition Closing

Please join us for the closing reception of Restoring the Heart of Ni’Tiñao!

A part of: The Native Caribbean Heritage Preservation Project & Exhibition.

Ní’Tiñao means “relative; friend; progenitor” in Kalinago, and is eponymous with the Taíno peoples of the Caribbean. Loisaida Inc.’s artist-in-residence, Anthony Rosado’s, work focuses on historical, indigenous Caribbean definitions of identity and the influence of their values, spirituality, horticulture, and language today, as well as our relation to these definitions right here in Loisaida. His exhibition aims to refute eurocolonial claims that the Ní’Tiñao were a divided peoples who went extinct. Via art and storytelling, We Exist, he tells us.

Objective:

In effort to honor Indigenous Caribbean ancestors while providing their descendants with the legitimacy and empowerment of cultural identity, The Testourmonials Project will research, draft, and present an Indigena Caribe Heritage Day that intends on one day being celebrated internationally. As Founder and Artistic Director of The Testourmonials Project, Rosado will develop a campaign and build a case to support city-wide, national, and international celebration of Caribbean Heritage.

The project aims to research, archive, and memorialize the herstory, history, principles, spirituality, practices, and core values of the native peoples of the Caribbean. This project contributes to the “Ní’Tiñao Heritage Day – Celebration Model”. This model will be shared with organizations indigenous to the Ní’Tiñao via interviews, as well as a community engagement workshop and performance components.

Descendants will learn of traditions, practices, values, and foods cultivated by ancestors whose stories are made accessible. The model will consequently be redrafted considering review by active members of the Arawak Tainx community and their modern day practices. Once the model is complete, a proposal will be drafted and campaign launched to consider the “Ní’Tiñao Heritage Day” an annual city-wide, then state-wide, thereafter country-wide, and finally internationally recognized holiday. The holiday will be presented during Summer 2018 via promotion during events, workshops, festivals, and more hosted by organizations who supported the holiday’s culmination.

Through the course of the residency at the Loisaida Inc. Center, Anthony’s project aims to use the researched and archived history, herstory, principles, spiritual practices, and core values of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean as means to follow the Native Caribbean Day – Celebration Model. The exhibition, culminating his residency, will be relaying information, sources, reflections, visual art, commissioned photography, and an installation to share the research.

About Anthony Rosado:

After graduating Trinity College with a BA in Theatre & Dance, Rosado performed in works by Anabella Lenzu, Deborah Goffe of Scapegoat Garden, Lindsey Dietz Marchant, Carmen Caceres of Dance Action, and Leyya Mona Tawil of Dance Elixr. He studied with George Emilio Sanchez during Hemispheric Institute‘s Summer 2015 EMERGEnyc Performer’s Program.

Rosado has choreographed performances for Ange Noir Café via Chez Bushwick‘s ’24 hour Choreographer’s Project’, Issue Project Room & the Eden’s Expressway Open Performance Series via Movement Research, Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance via their Blaktinx 2015 & Out Like That! 2016 Performance Series & Dancing While Black‘s Masculinities Reborn Series, Gallatin Arts Festival‘s Black Lives Matter series, The Moon Show, and The Judson Church Open Performance Series.

As curator, Anthony has presented the Universal Humyn Love Series at Make The Road NY, the #NativeBushwick Artist Lecture Series at Brooklyn Fire Proof, en casa afuera at The Loisaida Center, and Progress in Five Myles Gallery. He was a 2016 Artist in Residence with Chez Bushwick. Currently the 2018 Artist in Residence at The Loisaida Center. Anthony is also curating and organizing group-led workshops, performance and discussion series as Founder of The Testourmonials Project.