How can art be a bridge to environmental, economic and community justice? Join this workshop where artists will showcase their work and participate in lively conversation. Featured art may include spoken word, dance, music, film, and visual arts.
GUEST ARTISTS & CONTRIBUTORS
– Amelia Foster & Jerone Hsu “Reef Wake”
– Chantal Calato “Unseen”
– Isabel Varela “Clothes Minded”
– Lisa Russell “Mother’s Cry”
– Maira Duarte “Dance to the People”
– Michelle Jackson “Seeds to Soil”
– Russ Ronat “Project Holocene”
– Mechthild Schmidt-Feist “L.E.S.S”
Thursday, October 3, 2019
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM (DOORS OPEN AT 6:30 PM)
NYU at the Woolworth Building
15 Barclay St., 4th Floor Public Assembly Room
FREE WITH RSVP: http://tinyurl.com/CALA-IAm2019
Guest Artist Bios:
Maira Duarte is a Mexican performer, choreographer, organizer and educator. Maira’s work explores the impact of global capitalism on social and environmental injustice, and upon the production and presentation of art. She performs with Alex Romania, Justin Cabrillos, and Estado Flotante. She is faculty and member of the Racial Equity Professional Development Cohort at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and was formerly a dance professor at the University of The Americas Puebla. She directs Dance to the People, a collective that organizes donation-based classes and workshops, environmental dance research, performance parties, and community forums. DTTP’s recent projects include The Tampon Piece co-created with Miu Soda, the Papalotl Muyus Dance Film, a collaboration with Semillas Collective and Mayday Space, and, in collaboration with Jo Stone, the Mindful Trash Movement project, consisting on trash outings open to the public to change the way we relate to our environment. More info at: www.dancetothepeople.org
Isabel Varela is a sustainable fashion educator, mix-media artist, zero waste designer, and environmental activist. The name of her company is Isabel Varela, and her mission is to increase the physical and psychological effects that fashion has on the environment through art, film, and education.
Isabel has presented on the importance of upcycling, overcoming fashion addiction, and advocating positive sustainable solutions at several universities around the United States. She strongly believes that everyone is capable of making a difference and holds workshops that include demonstrations on simple alterations that can be used to revive your old clothing.
Art is the other medium that she uses to explore waste within the textile and consumer context. She upcycles her own wardrobe and scraps the clothes to create mixed media pieces that magnify the pollution to our land and water. A few examples of her work includes, “Scrapped Pollution,” and the two 10ft sculptures named “10”. The vulnerable yet powerful short film, “Fashion Addict,” filmed and produced by Johnathan Vargas, touches on a unique aspect of the industry that no one is speaking about but needs much consideration.
With over 19 years in the fashion industry from tailoring women, men, and children all the way to celebrity clientele including The Property Brothers, Vicky Jeudy, Ryan Seacrest, Rosie Perez, Jennifer Lopez, Emmitt Smith and wife Pat Smith of the Dallas Cowboys, Lady Gaga and Mother and many more. Isabel has evolved her skillset into wardrobing for movies & film, designing and creating costumes for off-broadway shows, theatre, and commercial clients. Additionally, the seasoned professional has managed retail, wholesale, oversaw manufacturing process domestically and internationally, while continuing to produce various collections for multiple companies including her own.
Chantal Calato’s work explores the mutilation that humans have caused to our environment through multimedia installations. She grew up in Niagara Falls near the infamously toxic Love Canal which has been a driving inspiration behind her work. She recently received the Global Warming Art Project grant (from Ben Perrone and the ‘Environment Maze’ project donors); administered by Arts Services Initiative of WNY” to fund her largest installation to date UNSEEN. UNSEEN will open in 2020 at the Burchfield Penney Art Center.
Amelia Foster is an artist, conservationist and educator from planet Earth. She studied the coral microbiome in Dr. Vega-Thurber’s laboratory at Oregon State University, where she obtained her degrees in Microbiology and International Studies. In Fall 2018, she lived aboard the Schooner Adventuress, where she taught experiential environmental education and nautical skills to surrounding communities. Currently residing in New York City, she is an educator and artist whose work explores unseen and unspoken realities of interspecific ecosystems of abuse, histories and sexualities.
Jerone Hsu is an Earthling working at the intersection of participatory platforms, community experiences, and interdisciplinary collaborations. As an artist, muralist, strategist, and designer, he likes to do creative stuff to serve the various communities that have and continue to nourish him. He is currently engaged a performance art piece called, “No, Seriously, There’s Still Hope” where he invites participants to pretend alongside him that there’s totally still hope and it’s actually not too late to act in accordance with our conscience and make meaningful, positive change in the world. No, seriously.
