Social Practice CUNY

Part of the Practice - SPCUNY Podcast Launch
2024-08-21 17:00 - 20:00 UTC | Francis Kite Club, 40 Loisaida Ave, New York, NY, 10009, United States

Conversation between artist Oliver Ressler and SPCUNY Faculty Fellow Ashley Dawson
2024-09-13 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | James Gallery, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, NYC, NYC, NY, United States

Dark Lab / Afro-Asia Group Open House
2024-09-20 12:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Hunter College
Update: This event has been postponed. Stay tuned for new date.

Open House for the Dark Laboratory, a climate research lab at Hunter College (68th and Lexington) led by Professor Tao Leigh Goffe. RSVP confirmation required by email to DarkLaboratory2020@gmail.com. Space Limited. Learn about new initiatives related to racial and climate justice.

Masks encouraged but not required. In-door event.

RSVP for specific location details.

Cabaret Chispas
2024-09-21 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | NY
Dearest community members,
Save the date 9/21 (rain date 9/28) for a one night only showing of CABARET CHISPAS, a cosmic urban parable about South American Indigenous leaders + activists + organizers from NYC gathering in 2023 at CASA MISTICA (Alicia’s house in the Bronx) for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Come join us as we occupy third-space and put on a guerilla outdoor production with a live fire, shadow puppets, live music, DJ, and so much more. Bring your love and bring your tears. Expect the unexpected.
Funding for this production comes through New York State Council on the Arts via fiscal sponsorship by The Action Lab. Additional funding has come through nomination for micro grant via the MAP Foundation.
Content Warning: No children under the age of 13. Bring your favorite bug spray.

With Gratitude and Love, Cabaret Chispas cast & crew
ACCESSIBILITY: Outdoor area, limited seating, we will have simultaneous Spanish interpretation
LOCATION: Location disclosed after RSVP, in Long Island City

Embodied Mapping and Urban Transformation at the Creative Time Summit
2024-09-22 11:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | BRIC Arts Media, 647 Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY, 11217, United States

Tactical Media: Collective Brainstorm & Poster Swap with SPCUNY Co-Director Gregory Sholette and Viva Ruiz
2024-09-25 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | CTHQ, 59 E 4th St, Floor 7, New York, NY, 10003, United States

Public Knowledge: The hidden hands of artistic (re)production
2024-10-05 14:00 - 18:00 (Europe/London) | Camden Art Centre, Arkwright Rd., London NW3 6DG, United Kingdom

The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art
2024-10-15 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | James Gallery, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, NYC, NYC, NY, United States

we turn to time: Screening and Discussion
2024-10-22 16:30 (America/New_York) | Rosenthal Library Auditorium, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Queens, NY, 11367-1597, United States

What Else? A Comedy Show about the Solidarity Economy
2024-11-01 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Maker’s Ensemble, 13 Grattan St. #408, Brooklyn, NY, 11206, United States

Run Amok: Asian Americans in Hardcore Punk
2024-11-01 19:30 (America/New_York) | Lincoln Center, 1887 Broadway, New York, NY, 10023, United States
Lincoln Center Presents: Run Amok: Asian Americans in Hardcore Punk
Ft. Dog Breath, Material Support, & No Model
Friday, November 01, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Lincoln Center, David Rubenstein Atrium
1887 Broadway, New York, NY 10023
Admission is FREE! General Admission, first-come first-served. Just show up!
Three Asian American-led East Coast hardcore punk bands—No Model, Material Support, and Dog Breath—join forces for an epic showcase. The name of the evening, “Run Amok,” intentionally refers to “Amok Syndrome,” a behavioral pattern formerly once recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a “culture-bound syndrome”—born out of the European misdiagnosis of Asian and Indigenous peoples’ spirit of defiance in the face of colonization. Lyrically, these groups create music that addresses generational trauma, racism, war, social justice, and liberation in service of opening a conversation about the state of the punk scene and the use of the genre to assert fully empowered Asian American narratives rooted in anti-colonial resistance. Their work embraces the struggle of every person raging against oppression and inequality, both at home and abroad.

Safety & Accessibility
Click here for Lincoln Center Health and Safety Guidelines.
Please refer to the latest CDC guidelines and stay home if you do not feel well.
Face masks are welcomed, but not required.
Guests are encouraged but not required to remain up to date on vaccines—based on eligibility determined by the CDC.
Please practice good health and be courteous to others.
These protocols are subject to change in accordance with any updates to city and state guidelines, rules and regulations, and other health and safety recommendations from our medical and public health advisors.
An inherent risk of exposure to and infection with COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present, and a visit to the Lincoln Center Campus may still pose a risk to your safety. By visiting Lincoln Center, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure of COVID-19.
Accessible seating and designated aisle seats; Accessible restrooms and accessible routes
FM assistive listening devices with headsets and neck loops
Limited seating is available on a first come, first served-basis and varies depending on the nature of the event. Standing room will be available as space allows. Lincoln Center seeks to create a more inclusive experience for audiences by providing a range of accommodations—no request necessary. If you require any additional accommodations, please contact access@lincolncenter.org or 212-875-5375.

sankofa ripples freedom fancy
2024-11-12 | Klapper Hall, 65-30 Kissena Blvd, Queens, New York, 11367, United States
Tuesday November 12th, 2024
queens college
klapper hall
4th floor
opening reception
6PM – 7PM
listening session
with subt.le, a²z & YATTA
conversation with timmhotep
followed by Mellissa Lyde (DJ)
7PM – 10PM
brandon king is a dj/sound-selector, multidisciplinary artist, from the Atlantic Ocean by way of Hampton Roads VA. his Queens College MFA Thesis show, sankofa ripples freedom fancy, is an exploration of the various dimensions of time, labor, ecology, myth, and the afterlives of enslavement. Creating installations exploring African diasporic identities, brandon’s intention is to honor his ancestors’ stories, through archival and found materials, sound collages, painting, film, sculpture and other forms. his sound project subt.le is interested in taking people on audio-visual journeys, complimenting and juxtaposing sonic vibrations within a curated and cultivated physical space. In making, his labor is dedicated to enabling expansiveness and time-travel, conjuring pathways through an unrepressed spectrum of joy and despair. brandon aims to honor his ancestors that comfort him from those vast waters yet rages against opaque space-time constricts that he exists within and produces from. His practice generates pathways to acknowledge and alchemize harms committed to disrupt despair, rewriting h(is)tory, honoring the present, while aiming to earn the respect of future generations by equipping them with translatable artifacts that can act as a compass for the coming world.
Exhibition Visits, VR Salon & Sound Immersion
Tuesday 11/12
Opening
from 6pm – 10pm
Weds 11/13
from 3pm – 6pm
Friday 11/15
from 3pm – 6pm
Please RSVP:

It's the Time of the Season
2024-11-12 14:30 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | College of Staten Island

Deported U.S. Veterans Immersive Exhibit
2024-11-13 | Baruch College Vertical Building, 55 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY, United States
Please save the date and join us for the Deported U.S. Veterans Immersive Exhibit at Baruch College on November 13th, from 11 AM to 3 PM. The event includes Baruch students’ creative works and Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana‘s photography honoring deported veteran stories.
Find all details and descriptions on the Event Flyer!
There will be two film screening sessions of “Bring Them Home” followed by a Q&A with Margaret Cargioli, Alex Murillo, Jean Dorsainvil, James Smith, and Rob Young.
Session I – 11 AM
Session II – 1 PM
Location:
Baruch College
Vertical Building
Multi-Purpose Room, 107
55 Lexington Avenue (at 24th street)
The event is open to all ages, and no RSVP is needed.
P.S. Bring your headphones & QR code scanning apps!

OUR STUDIES SHOW Session 1
2024-11-18 18:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Center for Performance Research

OUR STUDIES SHOW Session 2
2024-12-02 14:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY, 10016, United States

Screening: The Making of Corona Plaza, Queens
2024-12-06 16:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | The New School

OUR STUDIES SHOW Session 3
2024-12-09 18:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Center for Performance Research

Mourning Machine
2024-12-19 18:30 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | The Segal Theatre, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Mourning Machine is a low-stakes participatory ritual designed to honor the history and resilience of the NYC theater community/ies during a time of uncertainty and reconfiguration. The event will feature Coffin Karaoke, open mic eulogies, lasagna, drinks, clown-tears, and more. All are welcome.
Mourning Machine is part of an ongoing research & performance project about the “practice” of mourning. It is a communal strategy for healing from the harmful aspects of our profit-driven culture.
Thursday, December 19th 6:30pm-9:30pm
at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
1st floor of the CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10016

Edge Effect is a “think and do tank” that creates participatory experiences for individuals to share knowledge across personal, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries. Co-founded by dramaturg Jess Applebaum and director/scenographer Nic Benacerraf, EE’s process is deeply rooted in the edge-blurring practices of devised theater. Each project unites a polydisciplinary community to study a transcendent issue of our time, who then creates original multimedia performances for new communities to deepen the investigation.
*This project is made possible in part with funds from Creative Engagement, a regrant program funded by DCLA, NYSCA, and the Howard Gilman Foundation, and administered by LMCC.

Tao Leigh Goffe presents Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis, with Natalie Diaz
2025-01-21 18:30 (America/New_York) | McNally Jackson Seaport, 4 Fulton St., New York, NY, 10038, United States

Farsi Flows
2025-02-01 - 2025-02-28 | Rye Free Reading Room, 1061 Boston Post Rd., Rye, NY, 10580, United States
The Farsi Flows proposes a new framework for an alphabet. This alphabet bridges history, heritage, and the infinite possibilities of the future in a simple, comprehensible form. It is presented as (a grid of) thirty-two frames, corresponding to the thirty-two letters of Farsi, the artist’s cultural heritage. These frames incorporate images of ancient geoglyphs from diverse cultures alongside futuristic symbols of interstellar communication, blending visual languages, codes, numbers, and signs to transcend traditional linguistic boundaries.

Museums without Walls: the MTA and the Met Intersect
2025-02-06 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | New York Transit Museum, 99 Schermerhorn St, Brooklyn, NY, United States

What the Pandemic taught us about Technologies, and vice-versa: Viral Missives from Hong Kong and New Delhi
2025-02-07 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | The Skylight Room, Room 9100, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Ave, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Pandemics persist. They recede, are managed, resurface, mutate, and become endemic so that what was once seen as a threat becomes a part of our viral and microbial ecosystems. Biological pandemics are managed by technologies. Long after the effects of the pandemics recede, the technologies used to manage them become a part of our social and political organization.
Organized by SPCUNY Alum Alexandra Juhasz and featuring Nishant Shah, this talk draws from collaborative community workshops in Hong Kong and New Delhi to combine storytelling, contextualization, and re-mediation of the global experiences of the COVID19 pandemic. In the process it invites reflection on the changing nature of technologies, how they were shaped in the localized management of the global pandemic, and what this means for our present and future of coming and being together.
More details here.

The Technological Pandemic: The Present and Future of Coming Together
2025-02-08 10:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY, 10016, United States
You are invited to attend a day-long workshop facilitated by Nishant Shah and SPCUNY Alum Alexandra Juhasz in partnership with the Digital Narratives Studio at the School of Journalism & Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. This workshop explores the technological shifts experienced during the management of the COVID19 pandemic, profoundly altering how we come together as groups, collectives, communities, and people. The workshop aims to unpack these shifts to understand how pandemic conditions persist long after the biological pandemic has been managed.
This reflective space will help us hold, grieve, map, name, and understand the changes we have collectively undergone and how they affect our practices of coming together.
Register HERE. Room information provided to registered participants.

Climate Museum Pop-Up Exhibit
2025-02-27 16:00 - 18:00 UTC | LaGuardia Community College, 31-10 Thomson Avenue, Long Island City, NY, New York, 11101, United States
A screening of “Peaker” film by SPCUNY Fellow Ashley Dawson.
Casa de las Américas, the Latinx academic and culture center at LaGuardia Community College/CUNY, is collaborating with The Climate Museum to present a pop-up version of The End of Fossil Fuel, exhibition featuring details on how climate change has impacted our world throughout the years. Ashley Dawson’s Film “Peaker” and photographs in Dawson’s Ravenswood series will be featured. The exhibition will be formally introduced with a program and reception, from 4 to 6 p.m., February 27 in the M-Lobby, where the exhibition is displayed.

How to Get Here?
The College campus is located at 31-10 Thomson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 on Thomson Avenue, between Van Dam Street and Skillman Avenue. All visitors must enter through the E-Building Lobby (M-Building Lobby is for exiting only).

What Else? A Comedy Show about the Solidarity Economy (new date!)
2025-02-28 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Maker’s Ensemble, 13 Grattan St. #408, Brooklyn, NY, 11206, United States

Film Premiere of Please Hold at The Parkside Lounge
2025-03-02 15:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Parkside Lounge, 317 E Houston St., New York, NY, 10002, United States
March 2, 2025
Doors at 3pm / Screening 5-7pm
Tickets are pay-what-you-can: all funds will be split between MIX and helping the film travel for future installations
Activist mediamaker, scholar, writer, and Distinguished Professor of Film, CUNY, Alexandra Juhasz, announces the premiere of her latest experimental documentary, Please Hold (70 mins, 2024). As part of a dynamic, multisensory, community-based experience, before the screening (3–5 PM) attendees are invited to come early, so as to bring and share among queer community objects that hold memories of HIV/AIDS, the Lower East Side, or the Parkside Lounge. Co-sponsored by the MIX Experimental Film Festival and Visual AIDS, the event, emceed by “High-Profile NYC Drag Queen!” Linda Simpson, will conclude with a live performance by CHRISTEENE, whose music is featured in the video.
21+

Accessibility Information:
The bar is on the ground floor. The performance venue and accessible bathrooms are accessed via a portable ramp (1.5 steps). All tickets are general admission first come first serve, but if you have accessibility needs and need a seat, need to be close to the stage, or will be coming in a wheelchair, please let us know at checkout and we will have a spot reserved for you. Strobe lighting and fog may be used in this performance.

Look Both Ways
2025-03-06 17:00 - 21:00 UTC | 205 Hudson Gallery, 205 Hudson St, New York, NY, 11367, United States
SPCUNY fellow Ali Motamedi is an Iranian-born artist and author whose work explores the intersections of language, immigration, and identity through text-based art, photography, and interdisciplinary storytelling. His practice challenges dominant narratives and engages with collective memory, recontextualizing imagery to examine displacement, belonging, and cultural perception.
Join us for his Hunter MFA thesis show of 2025, Look Both Ways. The work exhibited will feature artists Meredith Bakke, Nava Derakshani, Max Eisenberg, Magdalen Pickering, Rosalie Smith, and Emily Wichtrich and ranges from sculptural installation to VR, Photo, and Painting.

Open March 6th through March 16th at 205 Hudson St
Opening reception
March 6th
5pm -9pm
Directions
The gallery entrance is located on the south side of Canal Street between Hudson Street and Greenwich Street. Closest subways are the 1 train at Canal Street or the A, C, E trains at Canal Street.
Accessibility
The 205 Hudson Gallery is an accessible ground floor space. The mezzanine level of the gallery is accessible via a wheelchair lift and a wheelchair accessible restroom is located on the ground floor of the gallery. Closest accessible subway stations are Canal Street 6 train only and Chambers Street 1, 2, 3 trains.

Online Premier: Please Hold
2025-03-08 15:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual, See event for details
How do neighborhoods, sweaters and scarves, videotapes and queer bars hold ghosts? How do we let them go?

In this 2-hour webinar, we will introduce the panel and the video, screen it together (70 mins), and then the panel of “AIDS workers” who are authors or editors from the collection “AIDS and the Distribution of Crises” (Duke University Press, 2020) will discuss their reaction, feelings and questions.

Featuring: Cecilia Aldarondo, Pablo Alvarez, Jih-Fei Cheng, Pato Hebert, Alexandra Juhasz, Cait McKinney, Nishant Shahani, Quito Ziegler

OUR STUDIES SHOW Session 7
2025-03-09 14:00 - 17:00 UTC | (Brooklyn NY, register for address, max 15 participants)
FREE/NON-MONETARY

Lead by SPCUNY alumni Esther Neff of PPL, OUR STUDIES SHOW stages collective philosophy as a form of theatre. It is a play about/of/at thinking. Considering our inhabitation of our own body-minds as legitimate empirical study (e.g. “instances of human being/thinking”) and our intuitions, experiences, and ideas as important philosophical contributions, we practice complex thought together through a series of in-person gatherings. We (those assembled) dig deeply into metaphysical and conceptual problems. Everyone is welcome. No assumed “knowledge,” or intellectual “background” needed. The primary task here is simply to compose and perform complex inquiries together. This is not a reading group, it is (a) “play.”

Through the first three sessions in Fall of 2024, collective bodies composed the form of an inquiry:
1) how are “human beings” related to “nature”?
2) how does what actual embodied persons believe about this question “matter”?

3) How shall we evaluate “beliefs” on grounds other than whether or not they are “true” or “scientific”?
Spring 2025 sessions will involve “theoretical dramaturgies” (scores for thinking and theorizing together) which re-phrase, re-frame, and re-iterate such inquiries, particularly in relation to “biological” vs. “cultural” senses of sex and gender, de-alienation and “settler surrender,” and the role of doxastic logics (belief systems) in collective self-recognition.
Masks are required for the in-person session. The space and bathroom are accessible to those using wheelchairs or other mobility aids. ASL interpretation available on request. Please e-mail eneff@gradcenter.cuny.edu with any questions.
