This workshop provides an introduction to some of the methods used in social practice art, an approach that emphasizes the potential of art to support positive social change. In this workshop, we will engage in practicing ‘connection’ to create an experience of community and care through listening, sharing and making.

We will perform a listening score, ‘this is a piece,’ that invites us to consider what we need as creative agents. We will then guide participants in making an artist book or zine, which are tools that social practice artists often use as jumping off points for dialogue, tools for celebration, and objects for collective reflection. Sharing, listening and making are methods that we use in our own practice and we hope that by working through these methods together, these tools may support the work that matters most to you.

Workshop leads:

Cristina Ferrigno is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Queens, NY. Cristina’s work explores identity and belonging, through lived experiences, photographs, zines, and an array of socially-engaged local and international projects. Her work has appeared at the Queens Museum, La Bodega Gallery, Local Project Art Space, AS220 Gallery, and New Women Space, among others. Cristina completed her BFA at Maryland Institute College of Art and recently completed her MFA with a focus on Social Practice at Queens College. She currently serves as a teaching artist with the Queens Museum, The Mosaic Project, and Sunnyside Arts.

Floor Grootenhuis is a New York based Dutch-Kenyan artist currently in residence at the Raper Lab in the Hunter College Biology department and a fellow with Social Practice CUNY. She has an MFA in Social Practice from Queens College, CUNY, was a More Art fellow 2017 and in the NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentorship Program 2018/19. She received grants from the City Artist Corps of New York, the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, the Vilcek Foundation, and Queens Art Intervention. She exhibited at Brooklyn Public Library, Queens Museum, Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Five Myles Gallery in New York, and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània in Barcelona.