Date: Saturday October 12th & Sunday October 13th, 1pm – 5pm
Cost: Free
Event Description:
Housing and Equitable Development: A Crossroads is a 12 min film that will run on loop and is meant to be a conversation framer/starter around what equitable development looks like in Kingston. The goal is to shift culture, moving hearts and minds in the region around the issues of housing affordability and access, and establish housing as a human right. X is a point of intersection, a crossroads.
We are at a crossroads in Kingston where we can decide whether or not we believe that everyone deserves a safe place to live, and that our priorities need to reflect that decision that we make. Set in Kingston, NY, this film will uncomplicate the issues of gentrification, giving our viewers an understanding of the types of decisions our city, county, and state governments make every day that prioritize developers over people. It will explain how these forces that often promise revitalization and market growth also promise displacement and trauma for low-income communities and communities of color.
This film will humanize the issues of displacement on both ends of the spectrum, putting a face and a story to those who are displaced and create a moral responsibility for those in power to choose differently. We will also show the types of decisions we want the places we love to be making instead.
The Radical Liberation Project is an anti-oppression book club collective that seeks to dismantle generations of internalized oppression and white supremacy through engaging with the written word of bipoc, the lgbtqia+ community, and our allies. We celebrate literature that radically challenges the power status quo. Discussions will center our voices as we reclaim our identities in a safe and inclusive space. Join us and decolonize your mind! Because the revolution will be well-read, and in community.
This month’s dialogue circle is in collaboration with Frances Cathryn of wip projects. We are centering the text The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk – you are, of course, welcome to read/listen to the text in its entirety. But it’s a long one – so we are also providing scans of specific chapters. Keep an eye out for them here, or email us RadicalLiberationProject@gmail.com
Little ones are welcome! They are the next revolutionaries after all.
For more info about the Radical Liberation Project and to RSVP for this event please visit their website.
About Frances Cathryn
Frances Cathryn is an editor and community organizer who collaborates with others to shift how we define what it means to create valuable work in the world. Her work is about helping people build equitable, inclusive, and anti-oppressive spaces (both digitally and in-person) for creating, healing, and being. Through wip projects, Frances helps arts-based organizations celebrate creative expression and dismantle systems of institutional racism and patriarchy that exclude the voices of marginalized folks from the cultural conversation around art making.
“Language is one of the most effective ways to express ourselves, and maybe the most complex. It can uplift excluded voices or be a tool to keep them quiet. So what does justice look like for those who have been silenced? As someone who lives with a mental illness complicated by trauma, it means reclaiming my voice to empower others. I also benefit from ways I am included in the conversation, so I use my place to help folks overcome traditional barriers to access and express themselves without shame.”
Kingston photographer and advocate Charise Isis will discuss some of the challenges women face as a result of breast cancer. Along with her powerful imagery she will tell stories that transcend the scars and illuminate the real beauty that lives inside each of her subjects. A selection of Charise’s photographs of women who have survived mastectomies, Broken is Still Beautiful, will be on display throughout the month.
Cost: $25 or pay what you can at door if space is available.
Event Description:
Come join us in making a traditional Romanian corn husk mat or basket. Circle Creative Collective’s Poliana Danila will lead us in creating this craft she learned as a child in Romania. Materials will be provided.
Space is limited so reserve your spot by buying a $25 ticket.
Pay what you can at the door if there’s still room:)
Join us for a conversation about the pitfalls of the current for-profit insurance system, and a look at the solution: THE NEW YORK HEALTH ACT (NYHA). Health Care impacts people at every stage of life. Come learn how single payer health care addresses care, access, social justice, and dignity regardless of employment status, health status, or income level.
Date:Opening Saturday October 5th (4pm – 7pm) & Weekends in October (1pm – 5pm) Re-Opening Reception Saturday November 2nd (4pm – 7pm) & Closing Reception November 23 (4pm – 7pm) with Free Self Healing Worshops (12:30pm-4pm)
Cost: Free
Event Description:
12:30 – 4:00:Healing Workshops. For more info on the healing workshops please go here.
4:00-7:00: Closing party for Broken is Still Beautiful, photographer Charise Isiss moving images from The Grace Project, an empowering photographic project that captures the courage, beauty, and grace of those who have had mastectomy surgery as a result of breast cancer. During the evening we will have performances by two amazing musicians, Michael Bisio and Ella Ray Kondrat.
Bassist / composer Michael Bisio has been called a poet, a wonder and one of the most virtuosic and imaginative performers on the double bass. Nat Chinen writes in The New York Times :” The physicality of Mr. Bisio’s bass playing puts him in touch with numerous predecessors in the avante garde, but his expressive touch is distinctive.” He has over a hundred recordings in his discography, more than two dozen as leader or co-leader as well as a dozen more documenting his extraordinary association with piano icon Matthew Shipp. Michael has been a member of the Matthew Shipp Trio since 2009 performing throughout the Americas and Europe : Carnegie Hall, Newport Jazz Festival, Buenos Aries Jazz Festival, Am I Jazz Festival, Kiev, MoMA, The Vision Festival, NYC and Festival Sons D’hiver, Paris.
Ella Ray Kondrat blends her background in eastern European a capella arrangements with her ear for rustic Latin, blues, and Balkan sophistication. Her music has been described as “a progressive, world-accented folk sound with unpredictable harmonic and melodic turns and an other-worldly quality, like the folk music of an unknown dimension” (John Burdick of Hudson Valley Almanac Weekly). Ella Ray released her debut album, “Hum to Your Heart,” with support from her cosmic heart-folk trio the Star Sisters, and special guests, at the Beverly in Kingston NY on August 9, 2019.
The Grace Project
The Grace Project (Broken is Still Beautiful) is an empowering photographic project by fine artphotographer Charise Isis that captures the courage beauty and grace of those who have had mastectomy surgery as a result of breast cancer.
The very act of standing in front of a camera revealing their scars, allows each of her subjects a transformative experience, giving them permission to step into self acceptance and the opportunity to share the story of the scars that have been written on their body.
The portraits are inspired by Hellenistic goddess sculptures that have survived the trauma of history, such as the Venus de Milo. Although broken, these cracked and scarred relics are celebrated as beautiful, their brokenness revealing the delicate nature of life, and endurance, and the inherent beauty that still radiates.
The ultimate goal of the Grace project is to photograph 800 portraits, the approximate number of new breast cancer diagnosis in the U.S. every day.Thus far, Charise has photographed well over 400 portraits towards this goal.The exhibition portraits are printed on large format (36×54) silk banners which will eventually be exhibited together in one space to show the enormous impact of breast cancer.Meanwhile smaller versions of the exhibition and artist talks are presented at galleries, museums, hospitals and cancer centers throughout the US as Charise continues to photograph portraits for the project.
Other events during O+ and Breast Cancer Awareness Month will include:
We are also THRILLED that Ella Ray Kondrat will also be performing during the OPENING reception on 10/5!
It Could Happen To You (Saturday October 12 @ 2pm) Come hear from N.Y. Health Act expert Jess Robie, R.N. about the proposed legislation and discuss how it applies to you.
Breast Cancer and Body Image (Saturday October 12 @ 3:30pm) Photographer and advocate Charise Isis will discuss some of the challenges women face as a result of breast cancer. Along with her powerful imagery she will tell stories that transcend the scars and illuminate the real beauty that lives inside each of her subjects.
clockwise from left: Matisse Gallery-Judith Hoyt, Eco Mural-Star Nigro & Everette Hodge Community Center, pess/op-Norm Magnusson, Round Out Creek-Greg Patch, Printed Beehive-HV Bee Habitat, Betrayal-Dan Goldman
Date: Saturday September 7th, 4pm – 7pm
Cost: Free
Event Description:
Please join us for a showing of artists creating with a mindfulness for the health of the planet and a concern for the communities impacted by our climate crisis.
If you can’t make the opening, stop by and check out the show during Art Walk Kingston on 9/21 & 9/22.
