¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.

Loisaida Inc. presents

¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.

Dates : July 30th – October 10th

Now extended through December 1st, 2015

Modified hours from October 20th and 22nd – 11am to 3pm

*NEW HOURS*

Tuesday & Thursday (12:00 pm – 7:00 pm)  Saturday (12:00 pm – 3:00 pm) All other days are by appointment only. For more information please email info@loisaida.org or call (646) 757-0522

Loisiada Inc. will focus on the Young Lords’ founding and impact in the Lower East Side—displaying rarely seen photographs, posters, and audio and video recordings of live performances.  The exhibit begins with the announcement of the founding of the New York Chapter of the Young Lords at Tompkins Square Park on Saturday, July 26, 1969. The exhibition will feature lesser-known perspectives of the Young Lords legacy within the Lower East Side, and their cultural impact upon New York’s cultural scenes.  Some highlights include the organizing efforts of the Gay and Lesbian Caucus, the transgender activism of Sylvia Rivera, and innovative “artivism” generated by Eddie Figueroa, the founder of the New Rican Village, an influential multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary art space once located at 101 Avenue A.

by: Maximo Colon
Felipe Luciano and Tato Laviera in pre-production planning of the 1st Festival de Loiza Aldea in the LES. Photo by  Máximo Colón.

The exhibition is co-curated by Libertad Guerra and Wilson Valentín-Escobar and features many un-published photographs by Máximo Colón and Hiram Maristany, as well as poster art by Sandra Maria Esteves, and rare live video and audio recordings of some of the leading salsa and Latin jazz musicians, plus an art installation commissioned specifically for this exhibition by contemporary artist Adrian “Viajero”Román.

The overall collection of materials depict the critical role that YL members played in the environment that lead to Loisaida becoming a safe refuge for a community struggling for respect, belonging, political power, and public legitimacy.

 

“I was involved with the Young Lords… it was a time of initiation -into ourselves, into the history of our people, and into the deep images of our culture”.

-Eddie Figueroa, Founder New Rican Village

 

ylp-web-banner-long

¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York is co-organized by El Museo del Barrio (July 22 – October 17), Bronx Museum of the Arts (July 2 – October 15) and Loisaida Inc. (July 30 – October 10). The multi-venue exhibition is accompanied by an ambitious range of programs and events to build awareness of the Young Lords’ innovative contributions to the struggle for civil rights and influence on contemporary artists, and to spark conversations about grassroots community activism today. For a limited time only, the first 1000 visitors at each partnering organization will receive a commemorative button, inspired by the Young Lords. Collect them all! For more info, please visit our featured items page.

At Loisaida Inc. ¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York was made possible with support from:

About the Curators:

Wilson Valentín-Escobar, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Sociology at Hampshire College. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in Sociology and Puerto Rican/Latin@ and Latin American Studies Studies from Fordham University. He was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Program in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University in 2011-2012. A Brooklyn New York-native, Dr. Valentín-Escobar is currently completing his forthcoming book, Bodega Surrealism: The Emergence of Latin@ Artivists in New York City (New York University Press). The book examines the cultural activism, or “artivism,” of two community-based art communities and projects that originated in the 1970s within the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City: the New Rican Village Cultural Arts Center and El Puerto Rican Embassy. His scholarship, which he regularly presents at national and international conferences, has been published in various academic journals and anthologies, and has received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among several others. He, along with the late Dr. Juan Flores, co-edited a special two-volume issue on Puerto Rican music for the Puerto Rican Studies journal, Centro. Dr. Valentín-Escobar currently Chairs the Five College Consortium Program in Latin@, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.

Libertad O. Guerra is an urban anthropologist, educator, social researcher/historian, independent curator and environmental activist. Her academic research and publications have focused on Puerto Rican, Latino and Latin American social-artistic movements and cultural activism in urban immigrant settings. Publications include Uncommon Commonalities: Aesthetic Politics of Place in the South Bronx in Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, (2011); and ‘Building the Aura: a social aesthetics of placement in-the-making.’ in New York / Berlin: Kulturen in der Stadt, (2008). Ms. Guerra has organized numerous local and international exhibitions, panels and conferences among them:
–Loisaida: the Visible/Invisible Body of Puerto Ricans sectors on the Lower East Side to the Downtown scene, PRSA Biennial Conference, (2010).
–Spanic Attack: Living, Making, and Reading the Latin/o American City, LASA Conference, Rio de Janeiro, (2009).
–Re- Membering Loisaida: Lure of the Retro Lens, and Visualizing Hindsight, sponsored by Council Member Rosie Méndez and The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, (2009).
–Noricua: Performing the Living City, The House of World Cultures, Berlin, (2007).
–Going Down for Real: Imagining the Estate of our Town, NYU’s Center for Latino and Caribbean Studies, (2006).
–Constructivismo 2006, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center, (2006).
–La Marginal, Centro Cultural España (CCE) Lima, (2004).
She is Artistic Director of Loisaida Inc., and current curator/event planner of the Loisaida Festival since 2014.

 

¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.

Loisaida Inc. presents

¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.

Dates : July 30th – October 10th

Now extended through December 1st, 2015

Modified hours from October 20th and 22nd – 11am to 3pm

*NEW HOURS*

Tuesday & Thursday (12:00 pm – 7:00 pm)  Saturday (12:00 pm – 3:00 pm) All other days are by appointment only. For more information please email info@loisaida.org or call (646) 757-0522

Loisiada Inc. will focus on the Young Lords’ founding and impact in the Lower East Side—displaying rarely seen photographs, posters, and audio and video recordings of live performances.  The exhibit begins with the announcement of the founding of the New York Chapter of the Young Lords at Tompkins Square Park on Saturday, July 26, 1969. The exhibition will feature lesser-known perspectives of the Young Lords legacy within the Lower East Side, and their cultural impact upon New York’s cultural scenes.  Some highlights include the organizing efforts of the Gay and Lesbian Caucus, the transgender activism of Sylvia Rivera, and innovative “artivism” generated by Eddie Figueroa, the founder of the New Rican Village, an influential multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary art space once located at 101 Avenue A.

by: Maximo Colon
Felipe Luciano and Tato Laviera in pre-production planning of the 1st Festival de Loiza Aldea in the LES. Photo by  Máximo Colón.

The exhibition is co-curated by Libertad Guerra and Wilson Valentín-Escobar and features many un-published photographs by Máximo Colón and Hiram Maristany, as well as poster art by Sandra Maria Esteves, and rare live video and audio recordings of some of the leading salsa and Latin jazz musicians, plus an art installation commissioned specifically for this exhibition by contemporary artist Adrian “Viajero”Román.

The overall collection of materials depict the critical role that YL members played in the environment that lead to Loisaida becoming a safe refuge for a community struggling for respect, belonging, political power, and public legitimacy.

 

“I was involved with the Young Lords… it was a time of initiation -into ourselves, into the history of our people, and into the deep images of our culture”.

-Eddie Figueroa, Founder New Rican Village

 

ylp-web-banner-long

¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York is co-organized by El Museo del Barrio (July 22 – October 17), Bronx Museum of the Arts (July 2 – October 15) and Loisaida Inc. (July 30 – October 10). The multi-venue exhibition is accompanied by an ambitious range of programs and events to build awareness of the Young Lords’ innovative contributions to the struggle for civil rights and influence on contemporary artists, and to spark conversations about grassroots community activism today. For a limited time only, the first 1000 visitors at each partnering organization will receive a commemorative button, inspired by the Young Lords. Collect them all! For more info, please visit our featured items page.

At Loisaida Inc. ¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York was made possible with support from:

About the Curators:

Wilson Valentín-Escobar, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Sociology at Hampshire College. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in Sociology and Puerto Rican/Latin@ and Latin American Studies Studies from Fordham University. He was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Program in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University in 2011-2012. A Brooklyn New York-native, Dr. Valentín-Escobar is currently completing his forthcoming book, Bodega Surrealism: The Emergence of Latin@ Artivists in New York City (New York University Press). The book examines the cultural activism, or “artivism,” of two community-based art communities and projects that originated in the 1970s within the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City: the New Rican Village Cultural Arts Center and El Puerto Rican Embassy. His scholarship, which he regularly presents at national and international conferences, has been published in various academic journals and anthologies, and has received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among several others. He, along with the late Dr. Juan Flores, co-edited a special two-volume issue on Puerto Rican music for the Puerto Rican Studies journal, Centro. Dr. Valentín-Escobar currently Chairs the Five College Consortium Program in Latin@, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.

Libertad O. Guerra is an urban anthropologist, educator, social researcher/historian, independent curator and environmental activist. Her academic research and publications have focused on Puerto Rican, Latino and Latin American social-artistic movements and cultural activism in urban immigrant settings. Publications include Uncommon Commonalities: Aesthetic Politics of Place in the South Bronx in Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, (2011); and ‘Building the Aura: a social aesthetics of placement in-the-making.’ in New York / Berlin: Kulturen in der Stadt, (2008). Ms. Guerra has organized numerous local and international exhibitions, panels and conferences among them:
–Loisaida: the Visible/Invisible Body of Puerto Ricans sectors on the Lower East Side to the Downtown scene, PRSA Biennial Conference, (2010).
–Spanic Attack: Living, Making, and Reading the Latin/o American City, LASA Conference, Rio de Janeiro, (2009).
–Re- Membering Loisaida: Lure of the Retro Lens, and Visualizing Hindsight, sponsored by Council Member Rosie Méndez and The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, (2009).
–Noricua: Performing the Living City, The House of World Cultures, Berlin, (2007).
–Going Down for Real: Imagining the Estate of our Town, NYU’s Center for Latino and Caribbean Studies, (2006).
–Constructivismo 2006, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center, (2006).
–La Marginal, Centro Cultural España (CCE) Lima, (2004).
She is Artistic Director of Loisaida Inc., and current curator/event planner of the Loisaida Festival since 2014.

 

¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.

Loisaida Inc. presents

¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.

Dates : July 30th – October 10th

Now extended through December 1st, 2015

Modified hours from October 20th and 22nd – 11am to 3pm

*NEW HOURS*

Tuesday & Thursday (12:00 pm – 7:00 pm)  Saturday (12:00 pm – 3:00 pm) All other days are by appointment only. For more information please email info@loisaida.org or call (646) 757-0522

Loisiada Inc. will focus on the Young Lords’ founding and impact in the Lower East Side—displaying rarely seen photographs, posters, and audio and video recordings of live performances.  The exhibit begins with the announcement of the founding of the New York Chapter of the Young Lords at Tompkins Square Park on Saturday, July 26, 1969. The exhibition will feature lesser-known perspectives of the Young Lords legacy within the Lower East Side, and their cultural impact upon New York’s cultural scenes.  Some highlights include the organizing efforts of the Gay and Lesbian Caucus, the transgender activism of Sylvia Rivera, and innovative “artivism” generated by Eddie Figueroa, the founder of the New Rican Village, an influential multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary art space once located at 101 Avenue A.

by: Maximo Colon
Felipe Luciano and Tato Laviera in pre-production planning of the 1st Festival de Loiza Aldea in the LES. Photo by  Máximo Colón.

The exhibition is co-curated by Libertad Guerra and Wilson Valentín-Escobar and features many un-published photographs by Máximo Colón and Hiram Maristany, as well as poster art by Sandra Maria Esteves, and rare live video and audio recordings of some of the leading salsa and Latin jazz musicians, plus an art installation commissioned specifically for this exhibition by contemporary artist Adrian “Viajero”Román.

The overall collection of materials depict the critical role that YL members played in the environment that lead to Loisaida becoming a safe refuge for a community struggling for respect, belonging, political power, and public legitimacy.

 

“I was involved with the Young Lords… it was a time of initiation -into ourselves, into the history of our people, and into the deep images of our culture”.

-Eddie Figueroa, Founder New Rican Village

 

ylp-web-banner-long

¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York is co-organized by El Museo del Barrio (July 22 – October 17), Bronx Museum of the Arts (July 2 – October 15) and Loisaida Inc. (July 30 – October 10). The multi-venue exhibition is accompanied by an ambitious range of programs and events to build awareness of the Young Lords’ innovative contributions to the struggle for civil rights and influence on contemporary artists, and to spark conversations about grassroots community activism today. For a limited time only, the first 1000 visitors at each partnering organization will receive a commemorative button, inspired by the Young Lords. Collect them all! For more info, please visit our featured items page.

At Loisaida Inc. ¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York was made possible with support from:

About the Curators:

Wilson Valentín-Escobar, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Sociology at Hampshire College. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in Sociology and Puerto Rican/Latin@ and Latin American Studies Studies from Fordham University. He was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Program in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University in 2011-2012. A Brooklyn New York-native, Dr. Valentín-Escobar is currently completing his forthcoming book, Bodega Surrealism: The Emergence of Latin@ Artivists in New York City (New York University Press). The book examines the cultural activism, or “artivism,” of two community-based art communities and projects that originated in the 1970s within the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City: the New Rican Village Cultural Arts Center and El Puerto Rican Embassy. His scholarship, which he regularly presents at national and international conferences, has been published in various academic journals and anthologies, and has received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among several others. He, along with the late Dr. Juan Flores, co-edited a special two-volume issue on Puerto Rican music for the Puerto Rican Studies journal, Centro. Dr. Valentín-Escobar currently Chairs the Five College Consortium Program in Latin@, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.

Libertad O. Guerra is an urban anthropologist, educator, social researcher/historian, independent curator and environmental activist. Her academic research and publications have focused on Puerto Rican, Latino and Latin American social-artistic movements and cultural activism in urban immigrant settings. Publications include Uncommon Commonalities: Aesthetic Politics of Place in the South Bronx in Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, (2011); and ‘Building the Aura: a social aesthetics of placement in-the-making.’ in New York / Berlin: Kulturen in der Stadt, (2008). Ms. Guerra has organized numerous local and international exhibitions, panels and conferences among them:
–Loisaida: the Visible/Invisible Body of Puerto Ricans sectors on the Lower East Side to the Downtown scene, PRSA Biennial Conference, (2010).
–Spanic Attack: Living, Making, and Reading the Latin/o American City, LASA Conference, Rio de Janeiro, (2009).
–Re- Membering Loisaida: Lure of the Retro Lens, and Visualizing Hindsight, sponsored by Council Member Rosie Méndez and The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, (2009).
–Noricua: Performing the Living City, The House of World Cultures, Berlin, (2007).
–Going Down for Real: Imagining the Estate of our Town, NYU’s Center for Latino and Caribbean Studies, (2006).
–Constructivismo 2006, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center, (2006).
–La Marginal, Centro Cultural España (CCE) Lima, (2004).
She is Artistic Director of Loisaida Inc., and current curator/event planner of the Loisaida Festival since 2014.

 

The Look of Sovereignity

Sept. 24th, 2015 – “The Look of Sovereignity: Style and Politics in the Young Lords”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Frances Negrón-Muntaner
Filmmaker, writer, and scholar.

Her work is focused on a comparative exploration of coloniality, primarily in Puerto Rico and the United States, with special attention given to the intersections between race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and politics. She is an associate professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University in New York City. She has also contributed to the Huffington Post, El Diario/La Prensa, and 80 Grados, and since 2008 has served as a Global Expert for the United Nations Rapid Response Media Mechanism. She is one of the best-known Puerto Rican lesbian artists currently living in the United States.

2015, Bilingual, Books, Education, Events, New York History

We refused to cave In

Posted on by Alejandro

Sept. 24th, 2015 – “We refused to cave In”: Gender, Race, Class, and Decolonial Intersectionality in the Young Lords’ Liberation Politics

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Darrel Wanzer-Serrano
Assistant Professor, The University of Iowa

Based on a chapter from The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation (Temple University Press, 2015), this talk engages the process by which the Young Lords shifted from an organization rooted in the idea that “machismo” could be “revolutionary” to one that rejected machismo as a product of a racist/sexist/imperialist/capitalist system. The Young Lords advanced a nuanced and cutting-edge critique of the intersectionality of oppression and extended their analysis from the internal workings of the organization to society at large. The transformation ushered in by this “revolution within the revolution” was not instantaneous, however. Rather, there was significant struggle within the organization that first led to policy and leadership changes. Once the Young Lords advanced the rejection of machismo in their official platform, it opened space for the emergence of a gay and lesbian caucus and coalitional politics with lesbian, gay, and trans* activists, like Sylvia Rivera. Their intersectional perspective was central, I argue, to a kind of decolonial critical politics that eschewed a focus on rights in preference for attentiveness to and claims for liberation. In this framework, which is also advanced by most scholars of de/coloniality, liberation is an alternative to emancipation—the latter of which relies on claims to recognition that fortify the legitimacy of the modern/colonial system. Liberation, then, seeks a liberty delinked from classical liberalism, mindful of affiliations and fraternal connections, and guided by an ethic of decolonial love, even as colonial wounds can never fully heal.

About the book:

The book summary and a blurb by Andrés Torres can be found on the Temple Press website here: http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2346_reg.html

The publicity manager at Temple is Gary Kramer and can be reached at gkramer@temple.edu.

Author/Speaker Long Bio:

Darrel Wanzer-Serrano (PhD, Indiana University) is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Public Advocacy in the Department of Communication Studies, and founding member of the Latina/o Studies Minor Advisory Board, at the University of Iowa. His research is focused on the intersections of race, ethnicity, and public discourse, particularly as they relate to formations of coloniality and decoloniality in the United States. He recently completed a project on the New York Young Lords with the first scholarly monograph on the organization, The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation (Temple University Press, 2015). He also edited The Young Lords: A Reader (New York University Press, 2010), a sourcebook of primary texts on the group; and he has published numerous articles on the organization and other topics. Darrel is currently working on a new book project, tentatively titled Possession: Crafting Americanity in Congressional Debates over Puerto Rico’s Status, which examines the formation of coloniality and the rhetoric of Americanity within the first twenty years of US entanglement with Puerto Rico.

We refused to cave In

Sept. 24th, 2015 – “We refused to cave In”: Gender, Race, Class, and Decolonial Intersectionality in the Young Lords’ Liberation Politics

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Darrel Wanzer-Serrano
Assistant Professor, The University of Iowa

Based on a chapter from The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation (Temple University Press, 2015), this talk engages the process by which the Young Lords shifted from an organization rooted in the idea that “machismo” could be “revolutionary” to one that rejected machismo as a product of a racist/sexist/imperialist/capitalist system. The Young Lords advanced a nuanced and cutting-edge critique of the intersectionality of oppression and extended their analysis from the internal workings of the organization to society at large. The transformation ushered in by this “revolution within the revolution” was not instantaneous, however. Rather, there was significant struggle within the organization that first led to policy and leadership changes. Once the Young Lords advanced the rejection of machismo in their official platform, it opened space for the emergence of a gay and lesbian caucus and coalitional politics with lesbian, gay, and trans* activists, like Sylvia Rivera. Their intersectional perspective was central, I argue, to a kind of decolonial critical politics that eschewed a focus on rights in preference for attentiveness to and claims for liberation. In this framework, which is also advanced by most scholars of de/coloniality, liberation is an alternative to emancipation—the latter of which relies on claims to recognition that fortify the legitimacy of the modern/colonial system. Liberation, then, seeks a liberty delinked from classical liberalism, mindful of affiliations and fraternal connections, and guided by an ethic of decolonial love, even as colonial wounds can never fully heal.

About the book:

The book summary and a blurb by Andrés Torres can be found on the Temple Press website here: http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2346_reg.html

The publicity manager at Temple is Gary Kramer and can be reached at gkramer@temple.edu.

Author/Speaker Short Bio:

Darrel Wanzer-Serrano is an assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa.

¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.

Loisaida Inc. presents

¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.

Dates : July 30th – October 10th

Now extended through December 1st, 2015

Modified hours from October 20th and 22nd – 11am to 3pm

*NEW HOURS*

Tuesday & Thursday (12:00 pm – 7:00 pm)  Saturday (12:00 pm – 3:00 pm) All other days are by appointment only. For more information please email info@loisaida.org or call (646) 757-0522

Loisiada Inc. will focus on the Young Lords’ founding and impact in the Lower East Side—displaying rarely seen photographs, posters, and audio and video recordings of live performances.  The exhibit begins with the announcement of the founding of the New York Chapter of the Young Lords at Tompkins Square Park on Saturday, July 26, 1969. The exhibition will feature lesser-known perspectives of the Young Lords legacy within the Lower East Side, and their cultural impact upon New York’s cultural scenes.  Some highlights include the organizing efforts of the Gay and Lesbian Caucus, the transgender activism of Sylvia Rivera, and innovative “artivism” generated by Eddie Figueroa, the founder of the New Rican Village, an influential multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary art space once located at 101 Avenue A.

by: Maximo Colon
Felipe Luciano and Tato Laviera in pre-production planning of the 1st Festival de Loiza Aldea in the LES. Photo by  Máximo Colón.

The exhibition is co-curated by Libertad Guerra and Wilson Valentín-Escobar and features many un-published photographs by Máximo Colón and Hiram Maristany, as well as poster art by Sandra Maria Esteves, and rare live video and audio recordings of some of the leading salsa and Latin jazz musicians, plus an art installation commissioned specifically for this exhibition by contemporary artist Adrian “Viajero”Román.

The overall collection of materials depict the critical role that YL members played in the environment that lead to Loisaida becoming a safe refuge for a community struggling for respect, belonging, political power, and public legitimacy.

 

“I was involved with the Young Lords… it was a time of initiation -into ourselves, into the history of our people, and into the deep images of our culture”.

-Eddie Figueroa, Founder New Rican Village

 

ylp-web-banner-long

¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York is co-organized by El Museo del Barrio (July 22 – October 17), Bronx Museum of the Arts (July 2 – October 15) and Loisaida Inc. (July 30 – October 10). The multi-venue exhibition is accompanied by an ambitious range of programs and events to build awareness of the Young Lords’ innovative contributions to the struggle for civil rights and influence on contemporary artists, and to spark conversations about grassroots community activism today. For a limited time only, the first 1000 visitors at each partnering organization will receive a commemorative button, inspired by the Young Lords. Collect them all! For more info, please visit our featured items page.

At Loisaida Inc. ¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York was made possible with support from:

About the Curators:

Wilson Valentín-Escobar, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Sociology at Hampshire College. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in Sociology and Puerto Rican/Latin@ and Latin American Studies Studies from Fordham University. He was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Program in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University in 2011-2012. A Brooklyn New York-native, Dr. Valentín-Escobar is currently completing his forthcoming book, Bodega Surrealism: The Emergence of Latin@ Artivists in New York City (New York University Press). The book examines the cultural activism, or “artivism,” of two community-based art communities and projects that originated in the 1970s within the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City: the New Rican Village Cultural Arts Center and El Puerto Rican Embassy. His scholarship, which he regularly presents at national and international conferences, has been published in various academic journals and anthologies, and has received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among several others. He, along with the late Dr. Juan Flores, co-edited a special two-volume issue on Puerto Rican music for the Puerto Rican Studies journal, Centro. Dr. Valentín-Escobar currently Chairs the Five College Consortium Program in Latin@, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.

Libertad O. Guerra is an urban anthropologist, educator, social researcher/historian, independent curator and environmental activist. Her academic research and publications have focused on Puerto Rican, Latino and Latin American social-artistic movements and cultural activism in urban immigrant settings. Publications include Uncommon Commonalities: Aesthetic Politics of Place in the South Bronx in Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, (2011); and ‘Building the Aura: a social aesthetics of placement in-the-making.’ in New York / Berlin: Kulturen in der Stadt, (2008). Ms. Guerra has organized numerous local and international exhibitions, panels and conferences among them:
–Loisaida: the Visible/Invisible Body of Puerto Ricans sectors on the Lower East Side to the Downtown scene, PRSA Biennial Conference, (2010).
–Spanic Attack: Living, Making, and Reading the Latin/o American City, LASA Conference, Rio de Janeiro, (2009).
–Re- Membering Loisaida: Lure of the Retro Lens, and Visualizing Hindsight, sponsored by Council Member Rosie Méndez and The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, (2009).
–Noricua: Performing the Living City, The House of World Cultures, Berlin, (2007).
–Going Down for Real: Imagining the Estate of our Town, NYU’s Center for Latino and Caribbean Studies, (2006).
–Constructivismo 2006, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center, (2006).
–La Marginal, Centro Cultural España (CCE) Lima, (2004).
She is Artistic Director of Loisaida Inc., and current curator/event planner of the Loisaida Festival since 2014.

 

en casa afuera

en casa afuera

June 12- 19

Opening Reception and Performances June 12 at 6:00 pm.

A live exhibit which will bring together new young artists— Mckenzie Angelo, Anthony Rosado, Jonathan Gonzalez, Yoira Santos, Adam Echahly, Lamar Stephens, Adam Rhodes, Chazz Bruce, and Stephanie Mota.

 

Curatorial Statement 

en casa afuera –

Think gentrification is completely erasing the hirstory and identities of native New York residents? Think again. Amidst new developments, increasing rents, empty storefronts, newcomers in LES, Crown Heights, Washington Heights, Harlem, & Bushwick, artists are finding ways to claim their stake in the areas, tethering the old soul of these communities. A group of such artists are coming to Loisaida, Inc.’s Center, one of the remaining physical spaces serving the LES and NYC Latino and independent community, to present a series of interactive works paying tribute to the Home(s).

en casa afuera, a live exhibit which will run from June 12th to June 19th, brings together new young artists from the metropolitan New York and New Jersey region spanning the ages of mid 20’s-30’s.— Mckenzie Angelo, Anthony Rosado, Jonathan Gonzalez, Yoira Santos, Adam Echahly, Lamar Stephens, Adam Rhodes, Chazz Bruce, and Stephanie Mota. They came together to investigate the intersections of home and displacement, as well as the potential for art making to reflect and revision these relations. Loisaida Inc., as the performance hub, may then be the home or shelter that localizes this web of creative results.

The process of what initially began as a series of conversations on the shifting dynamics of New York City, the forces that will it, and what is authentic in these urban amalgamations, developed into a need to generate around these lofty queries – what is home? and what remains as the physical departs from what we know it to be? (whether by a stripping of possession or decay.) Lastly, what does this process of transition look like, feel like, for us?

Visitors and members of the community, old and new, are encouraged to the engage in and think about the daily rituals of Home(s). The series of installations range from the symbolic to the banal. One of the works, a collage in the main hallways shows a Nuyorican’s response to gentrification while another shares with audiences the everyday objects our communities use to pamper themselves. Together, all works zoom in and out of the experience of a changing neighborhood.

en casa afuera represents and shines light onto the complex process of change and gentrification in NYC, and celebrates the histories that are passed on from generation to generation and carried everywhere. Above all, they encourage artists and guests to preserving our stories and our communities will follow.

When asked what Loisaida means for them the group responded:
“Loisaida has been an iconic place-maker for both its residents and the world at large. It architecturally houses the pride and cultural breadth of a community, while transcending the energetic embodiment of LES – a location/identity in flux. These dynamics are at the heart of our creative interests and explorations en casa afuera.”

 

2015, Events, Festival, Music, Performance, Plenatorium, Storytelling, Visual Art

Invisible Loisaida – Ideas City

Posted on by Alejandro

IDEAS CITY

Part of the Street Program 12:00 -6:00pm

Loisaida Inc: Invisible Loisaida

The booth by Loisaida, Inc. will play with the visible and invisible tensions of rescued social spaces, their cultural output, and their lack of inclusion in the mainstream story line of the Lower East Side. Through a collaborative installation by resident artists Edgardo Tomás Larregui and Alejandro Epifanio, the booth will recreate the vernacular architecture of “seclusion” and social gathering elements of the traditional casita or urban community garden. Our casita also involves a strategy to render visible the reality of Loisaida, Inc., a social-cultural-artistic community (Latino/Puerto Rican Lower East Side), whose contributions to New York City and the downtown scene have usually remained unacknowledged, absent, and invisible to the hegemonic artistic and cultural narratives of New York City’s creative myth. The presentation will feature a listening station of oral histories by Laura Zelasnic, performances by ongoing Loisaida Center collaborators and projects: the Salvage Project; Flux Theater Ensemble; the Plenatorium, which nurtures and documents the “plena universe”; and Edwin Torres, a Nuyorican poet, performer, and downtown icon, who will explore the nonappearance of “No-isaida.”

A– ONGOING programming throughout the day:

1. Display and live screen-printing of the templates and prints developed and produced through our workshop: Building Community Through the Arts, a partnership with Hester Street Collaborative.

2. Listening Station featuring oral histories focused on local Latino cultural and community organizations such as CHARAS and Loisaida, Inc., by Laura Zelasnic.

3. Visual Collaborative Installation(s) between artist collaborators of the Loisaida Center. The entire booth will act as an installation and visual collaboration between visual artist’s Alejandro Epifanio and Edgardo Larregui with the support of Urban Garden Center NYC.

B– SCHEDULED programming by time-slots:

3:00 pm – The Salvage Project: 

Story circles facilitated by the Loisaida Center’s artistic residents Flux Theater Ensemble where community members will share the stories of a precious object and have their stories transformed by professional playwrights into short monologues.

http://www.fluxtheatre.org/2015/02/flux-announces-art-residency-loisaida-center/

4:00 pm – Edwin Torres:

“Nuyorican” (New York-Puerto Rican) poet-performer-sound artist and downtown icon will present work based on the Invisible Loisaida theme. Torres’s work bridges numerous downtown and Loisaida traditions and scenes, from the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and beyond. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Torres_(poet)

5:00pm – PLENATORIUM:

A project initiative of the Loisaida Center focused on the nurturing and documentation of the practice of Puerto Rican plena, a genre of popular traditional music, song and dance native to the island of Puerto Rico, but related to similar Afro-diasporic expressions throughout the Caribbean and commonly present within the casita/community garden culture.

Planetarium means a space for the plena-universe of activities such as forums, workshops, performances, and other forms of plena-focused sociocultural participation.

http://loisaida.org/plenatorium/

Invisible Loisaida was made possible by: 9C Community Garden – Northeast Avenue C & 9 Street

 

2014, Events, Performance, Theater

Zoetrope: Part 1 (Excerpts)

Posted on by Alejandro

The Loisaida Center presents:

Excerpts of CABORCA Theatre Co.’s play

ZOETROPE: Part 1

CABORCA Theatre Co.

Friday, November 21st, 2014

(POSTPONED) NEW DATE WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON!

Zoetrope follows a Puerto Rican family over four decades between Lares, Puerto Rico and Harlem, New York. Divided into two plays, excerpts of part 1, the bilingual version will be presented. This bilingual version was developed during the company’s artists in residence program at the new Loisaida Center.