NuevaYorkinos and Capicu invite you to the opening of La Incubadora, a multimedia immersive experience that uses domino and tile game culture as a vehicle to celebrate Black, Caribbean, and Chinese heritage of Lower Manhattan. Through archival materials, interactive games, and community-driven programming—including workshops, artist talks, open mics, and film screenings—La Incubadora seeks to create space for Black, Brown, and immigrant New Yorkers to convene, connect, and navigate the realities of an ever-changing city, together. Come join us for our Opening Night Reception! We'll start the night with a panel and open-form conversation with cultural preservationist Djali Brown-Cepeda, Tido Cabrera of Capicu, and Rochelle Kwan and Alice Liu of Chinatown Records, followed by a tour of the exhibit and activation at Room 406.
RSVP here.
Panellists:
Djali Brown-Cepeda is a Capricornian cultural preservationist and visual storyteller. Rooted in the tenets of reclamation and rematriation, her work as a film and television producer centers oral tradition and lived experiences as a tool of cultural restoration. The founder of NuevaYorkinos, an oral history archive dedicated to documenting and preserving NYC's Latine and Caribbean culture and history through family photos, oral history, and ephemera, she is a book worm and self-taught public historian, with a penchant for all things red, black, and green. An Olorisha Yemayá, memory worker, alchemist. A steward of remembrance. A Mother to a Sun. An eldest daughter and vinyl collector of Caribbean, Afro Native, and Southern heritage. Fifth generation Gullah Geechee from unceded Wecquaesgeek territory in Lenapehoking (Upper Manhattan, New York City). She enjoys tending to her altars and conspiring with the Universe for all good things. You can find her annotating her books sipping on wine she usually can’t afford, or any pilsner or lager. Prefers a cup of dark roast coffee, speaking to spirit, and being barefoot on the grass. Wherever she goes, so do her ancestors.
Tido Cabrera, born and raised in New York, is a cultural producer and community organizer. He is the founder of Capicu! NYC, a party and lifestyle brand that celebrates Nuyorican, Afro-Caribbean, and Latin American heritage through dominoes, DJs, and dancing.
Rochelle yiuyiu Kwan is a DJ historian & educator homebased on Lenape land in New York City's Manhattan Chinatown. She takes on her childhood name yiuyiu 瑶瑶 for Chinatown Records 華埠錄音 to activate the music, memory, & history of the community archive of over 30 record/CD/tape collections inherited from her family & neighbors. She has the most fun bringing the music out of the archive onto the streets & into the living rooms we share – all alongside her family, neighbors, & loved ones, who first made her into a DJ and taught her so much along the way. As a community-taught & -powered DJ historian, she especially loves training up our next generations of DJ historians of all ages to bring the music of our homes & families to life with us. She leads storytelling projects and training with Think!Chinatown and so many more community classrooms, so we can all learn to look to our loved ones to pass down & celebrate our histories together. She will always be a dancer first.
Alice Liu is a longtime resident, intergenerational small business owner, and community organizer born & bred in NYC's Chinatown. With her family, she heads Grand Tea & Imports, a tea and Buddhist goods store in the heart of Chinatown. She is Think!Chinatown's star Community Outreach & Production Lead, with her love for hanging out with and learning from neighborhood aunties & uncles. As a budding DJ historian with Chinatown Records, she embraces her childhood as a 90's kid who grew up alongside Mandarin and Cantonese hits that spanned from the 80's to whatever is on the radio at the moment. As an adult, whenever these songs pop back into her life, they feel like a visit from an old friend. In recent years, she has been centering this feeling when she makes playlists for family gatherings, smiling whenever she catches stoic aunties and uncles unknowingly humming along.