Art and Abolition

About the Series About the Artists Storytelling Performance Visual Art

March 11, 18, & 25, 2021

Hosted by The Gallatin Galleries and Assembly, with Shaun Leonardo and Peer Leaders

Multiple people in an art gallery leaning toward the camera with artist Shaun Leonardo in the front.
Assembly Program, workshop & performance, Recess, Brooklyn, NY, 3/9/17. Photo by Kaz Sakuma. Courtesy of Alloy.

Workshops Hosted by The Gallatin Galleries and Assembly, with Shaun Leonardo and Peer Leaders. On Zoom. Open to all.

What role can art, the image and performance play in understanding the abolition movement? How can creative practices serve as a conduit from the present carceral state and police apparatus  to abolition? In these three midday workshops, peer leaders, artists, and educators will come together with students and faculty and the broader public to interrogate ways the idea of embodied performance, visual art and storytelling can help us reimagine a world in which the possible is not limited to that delineated by the legacies of oppression, colonialism and racism.

Workshop 1: Storytelling. March 11, 1pm-2:15 

Utilizing a game of cause and effect, participants will delve into the historical emergence and growth of the New York Police Department, while questioning our collective memory of racially-charged events in the city and their resulting outcomes. 

With an introduction from Gallatin Professor Leila Buck.

Workshop 2: Performance. March 18, 1pm-2:15

Utilizing visual storytelling, participants will create gestures which embody episodes of police activity, while problematizing our reliance on law enforcement and seeking alternative solutions to safety.

With an introduction from Gallatin Professor Michael Dinwiddie.

Workshop 3: Visual Art. March 25, 1pm-2:15

Visualizing scenarios that involve intensifying conflict, participants will learn various de-escalation techniques, while developing a practice of listening toward both internal and external conflict resolution. 

With an introduction from Gallatin Professor Stephen Duncombe.

Seven people perform in a black box theater before an audience.
Assembly Program, workshop & performance, Whitney Museum, New York, NY, 6/22/18. Photo by Andrew Kist. Courtesy of Whitney Museum.
Multiple people in an art gallery interacting through dance movies and gestures.
Assembly Program, workshop & performance, Guggenheim, New York, NY, 10/29/19. Photo by Enid Alvarez. Courtesy of Guggenheim Museum.
Three people look at small works of art on a table.
Artist Ash Arder and Assembly Peer Leaders pull screen-printed vinyl album sleeves—created using Black sand, soil and Fine Turf “Green Grass”. (image 5511)
Over the course of Arder’s two-month residency, the artist regularly met with Assembly Peer Leaders to discuss the relationship between Black culture, music, and plant life. Using Recess’ in-house print shop, Assembly youth screen-printed record sleeves marrying the music of artists like Al Jarreau and Lenny Kravitz.
Two people from behind put plastic on a painting of Arabic letters.
Artist Maryam Monalisa Gharavi works with Assembly Print Shop Apprentice Saint to install a floor to ceiling vinyl that reads, عالم الغيب والشهادة, in Arabic.
The phrase, عالم الغيب والشهادة, translates roughly as, “The Knower of the Unseen and Seen.” Artist-in-residence Maryam Monalisa Gharavi used these words, which appear a total of ten times in the Quran, as the basis for a vinyl work she’s created here at Recess.