Actionists are Master’s students with a serious art practice, usually from MFA programs, who are committed to developing as socially-engaged art practitioners. Eligible students are currently enrolled in a CUNY master’s degree program and will have completed at least one year of study by the end of the Spring 2022 semester. Applications are due by April 25, 2022 (deadline extended!) for the 2022-23 academic year.
SPCUNY Student Fellow Cristina Ferrigno's MFA thesis, April 26th-29th. Opening reception Tuesday April 26th, 7pm Klapper Hall Gallery, Queens College.
Four of the worker films belonging to 2021-22 Faculty Fellow Zoe Beloff's SPCUNY project (in collaboration with Eric Muzzy), "The Song of the Essential Worker," are part of the Workers Unite Film Festival May Day Salute. May screenings become available on-demand starting Thursday May 5th at 10AM EST through Monday May 9th at 10PM EST.
A Black Mother and a Filipino Father's balanced interpretation of resiliency and hope in caring for their daughter PhoeniX. Indigo Hero presents "Two Stories About the Same Miracle", a multimedia theater experience where parents of a special needs child tell their respective stories about her birth and first few years of life. Each parent is dedicating one hour each, to their interpretation. Indigo Hero is comprised of Kilusan (SPCUNY Actionist 2021-22) and Lia Bautista. May 6 and 7: doors open at 6pm, show begins at 7pm.
American Icons is a collaborative project centering music and stories by Americans who live in the shadows cast by our national myths and monuments. Whose stories are told, whose erased? Student and community residents from Bronx Community College (BCC), the home of the “Hall of Fame of Great Americans,” will share their own experiences learning and working among monuments that fail to reflect America’s diversity. Musicians from Juilliard will interweave these stories with poetic and musical context from America’s past and present.
Including work from SPCUNY Actionists Quinlan Maggio and sgp, open daily from 10am-6pm. Events on May 19, 20, 27, and 30.
The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center presents ‘Parade of the Old New’, a solo presentation of works by Zoe Beloff including a large format mural on cardboard and a correlating publication. Dates: May 20th - June 12th. Opening Reception: May 27th 5-9pm.
SPCUNY grants for faculty fund faculty-led projects and assemble a cohort of faculty and students committed to socially engaged art. All CUNY faculty affiliated with any campus who want to develop a project at the intersection of social justice and art are eligible to apply, regardless of title or rank. Applicants can be teaching (including adjunct) or non-teaching faculty, but they must have an active CUNY appointment in at least the fall semester of their fellowship year. Fellows will receive $2,000 stipends towards the fulfillment of their project and access to Materials for the Arts. Applications are due by July 1, 2022 for the 2022-23 academic year.
In this one-time live event, New Orleans Musicians’ Village will be transformed into a shifting soundscape of intersecting performances.
A new work of sound art by Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere in collaboration with Danny Abel, Sam Albright, Denise Bonis, Tom Chute, Sula Janet Evans, Helen Gillet, Edward Lee Jr., Thomas McDonald, Margie Perez, Troy Sawyer, Gabriel Velasco, and Chip Wilson. Curated by Anna Mecugni.
With a participatory ancestral tribute to Musicians’ Village founding resident Council Chief Joseph Jenkins in the Black Indian tradition, featuring Big Chiefs Kevin Goodman and Kevin Turner who co-curated the production with Maroon Queen Reesie (Cherice Harrison-Nelson).
Free professional development workshop presented in partnership with Flushing Town Hall. During this Zoom conversation, we will speak with artists from the Social Practice CUNY program, Naomi Kuo and Cristina Ferrigno, whose practices are based in working with the community and discuss best practices when connecting with people to create art and tell their stories. This will be a moderated conversation with space for Q&A.
Organized by Center for Ethnic Racial & Religious Understanding and co-sponsored by SPCUNY, this online conference will feature keynote Nikole Hannah-Jones and offer 8 workshops to examine what antiblackness is and provide participants tools to engage with it. This year's Innovation Exchange (2-day mini conference) will explore anti-Blackness within the academy. This conference stands on the shoulders of the work of scholars, artists and activists who graduated or worked at CUNY like Audre Lorde, Faith Ringgold, Toni Cade Bambara, Shirley Chisolm, and A. Phillip Randolph who came and demanded justice and dignity for Black people. During the Summer uprisings of 2020 students, faculty and staff saw messages of support from many universities, however much of the landscape of antiBlackness within the university often continued uninterrupted. This conference center Black people and is welcome to everyone and offers tools to address systemic antiBlackness in the academy and the necessary joy rituals that allow Black people to exist in the future.
Organized by Faculty Lead of Archives in common and Social Practice CUNY fellow Ángeles Donoso Macaya, this event marks the launching of Las hermanas de la milpa: comienza con la calabaza / The sisters of the milpa: it begins with the squash, a bilingual and indigenous (Mixteco) cookbook by chef Natalia Mendez of La Morada restaurant. Like other initiatives devised by La Morada, this book seeks to disseminate indigenous knowledges and practices, and at the same time to conceptualize and expand the ways of doing mutual aid.
