The Testourmonials Project will host an exhibition at Loisaida Inc. Center opening Monday, March 26 - 30, 2018. The exhibition will be relaying information, sources, reflections, visual art, commissioned photography, and an installation to share the research.
Learn how to recycle fabrics and clothing into a fun material that can be used for
knitting, weaving, crocheting and many other crafts.
Workshop Duration: 1-2 hours
Cost: FREE
Languages: English and Spanish
Level: No previous knowledge required
Date: April 17th, 2018 - 6:00 to 7:30 pm
Please join us for the closing reception of Restoring the Heart of Ni'Tiñao!
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.
Learn how to make beautiful and intricate lace pieces through a simple and meditative
technique with Puerto Rican fiber artist, Zaida Adriana Goveo Balmaseda, who will
introduce us to the technique as it is worked in her native country of Puerto Rico.
Understanding the essence of the technique gives us a vocabulary that we can apply in
both traditional and experimental/contemporary contexts.
Direct from Puerto Rico, Giovani Roberto, an organizer with Centro de Apoyo Mutuo - CAM (Center of Mutual Support), Caguas, will be discussing how its projects and others, are creating alternative solutions to meet the basic sustenance needs of the Puerto Rican people after Hurricane Maria. Other speakers include Melissa Fuster, Professor of Public Health Nutrition at Brooklyn College, and Huascar Robles, author/journalist/producer of Catatonia podcast.
Loisaida Inc. and its project The Plenatorium are pleased to host a performance and ritual stemming straight from the faith based history of Puerto Ricans in the Lower East Side. The "Feast of the Holy Cross" roughly translates into "Fiestas de Cruz" and members of the community have kept it alive from generation to generation through oral history. On these days during the month of May, many families, neighbors, friends and strangers would gather to recite a live rosary chant accompanied by Puerto Rican traditional plena sounds.
Learn how to build a dome, using Build With Hubs, Kit for Geodesic Dome Building. This kit uses pre-fabricated connection hubs that allow for the sides of the dome to easily snap together. Come together and build a dome! . The history of dome building on the LES goes back to when CHARAS built domes in collaboration with Buckminster Fuller in 1972/73. Syeus Mottel documented this effort in his photo-journalism book CHARAS THE IMPROBABLE DOME BUILDERS , first published in 1974 and now re published in 2017 by Song Cave Press & Pioneer Works.
Reception + Performances
CHARAS IS ALIVE ON SPACESHIP EARTH A project by: Matthew Mottel in collaboration with Loisaida Inc., La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez and DIAP (Digital Intermedia MFA program at City College Overview: The history of dome building on the LES goes back to when CHARAS built domes in collaboration with Buckminster Fuller in 1972/73. Syeus Mottel [...]
music performance by William Parker & Jackson Krall "Sitting In the parking lot”
