The Voice of Many, The Voice of One: Collective Actions for Resistance and Mutual Aid

The Voice of Many, The Voice of One: Collective Actions for Resistance and Mutual Aid

Curators: Haiba Hamilton and Natalia Nakazawa 

Artists & Collectives: YVETTE MOLINA , CAROLINE GARCIA, DANAE HOWARD, DENNIS REDMOO, MAKEBA RAINEY, YANNI YOUNG, AnAkA, RHONDA L. HAYNES, ARIEL MERCADO , NAOMI MOMOH, YON MI KIM, MELIKA DAVE, HECTOR GOMEZ, DOUGLASS HENRY, ANDINA OSORIO, CHRYSALIS KALI, #DayonesArt, THE SALON

Dates: January 15 - February 26, 2023

Opening Reception: Soft Opening: 1 - 5pm, Sunday, January 15, 2023 | Public Opening: 6 - 8pm, Thursday, January 19, 202

Gallery: LES Gallery at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center

The Clemente and The Flux Factory Rhizome Project present visionary work from a range of artists working in and through collective action, creating solidarity networks that facilitate different ways of being with one another. We asked the artists to respond to the following set of questions: How, as a collective, do you center the work of building and sustaining communities? In what ways does your collective support others to surThrive?  How have you activated creativity in your world? Who are the people of your collective and community?

The Flux Factory Rhizome Project is a commitment to give intentional space to Black voices, and provide a platform for Black narratives by offering the support needed to help these narratives thrive and evolve. The Rhizome Project is an evolving entity. As it grows, we will add programs focused on professional development and other forms of support. We commit to listening to the leadership of Black artists with an ongoing commitment both economically and through action. Many roots support the plant.

This exhibition will include works from collectives: The Salon / DayonesArt Collective / and The Chrysalis Kali Collective, including artists:

ARTIST BIOS:

Caroline Garcia (Sydney, Australia) is a Brooklyn based, interdisciplinary artist that works across performance, video, and installation through a hybridized aesthetic of cross-cultural movement, embodied research, and new media. Her most recent body of work draws from Indigenous Filipino practices of headhunting and martial arts, all as a way of processing grief - a grief from matriarchal loss - as an individual and in the postcolonial Filipinx diaspora. Flirting with transgressions, Caroline invites a critical engagement with violence for non-hegemonic bodies. https://carolinegarcia.com.au/

Yvette Molina is a Mexican-American artist focused on the relationship between justice and caring. Her work incorporates processional banners, ritual, storytelling, costumes, action figures, collage, and painting. Current projects include New Pantheon, a series of reimagined gods born to confront the world’s challenges, and Big Bang Votive, a communal storytelling project where participants are invited to share a personal story of love or delight. Yvette memorializes each story with a painted symbol on a starry backdrop to create an expanding constellation of our collective joy and love. https://www.yvettemolina.com/

Ariel Mercado is a concept based artist, independent arts educator, founder and lead programmer for The Salon. arielmercado.art

Melika Davé is a multimedia artist and organizer working in the realms of audio, poetry, painting and design. offeringrain.com

Hector Gomez is an interdisciplinary artist working with photography, photogrammetry, binary code and weaving. Hectorgomez.net

Naomi Momoh is a Fiber artist working in sculpture, textile and furniture. 

Douglass Henry is an interdisciplinary artist working in dance, sculpture, and animation. douglasshenry.com/

Yon Mi Kim is an artist who works with photography, sculpture, poetry, and installation to explore ideas around domesticity, family, memory, and trauma. yonmikim.com

Andina Marie Osorio is a photography based artist who uses her practice to examine family lineage and lived experiences as a Nuyorican to investigate the duality inherent within matriarchy and its relationship to domestic space. andinamarie.com

Dennis RedMoon Darkeem is inspired to create artwork based on the familiar objects he views through his daily travels. He discovers elements in existing architecture and among everyday items found within the home. Darkeem ultimately set out to express a meaningful story about events in his life and the lives of people in the communities where he lives and works. Darkeem utilizes multiple mediums in his work. This creates a rich viewer experience as the eye uncovers the multiple layers. Dennis was the 2020 Black Utopian Fellow. https://www.dennisredmoondarkeem.com/

Yanni Young is a Black, queer, multi-disciplinary artist born and raised in Harlem, NYC. For two years Yanni had a podcast called "Soul Rebel Podcast" centering Black artists, healers, and grassroots organizers, allowing them to speak on their work and their life journey that led to where they are in the present. Yanni is the 2022- 2023 Black Utopian Fellow.

Originally from Harlem, New York, Makeba is a self-taught artist best known for her digital collage portraits of contemporary and historical Black icons. Makeba an internationally-exhibited artist, a 2017 Create Change Fellow with the Laundromat Project, a 2018 member of Vox Populi gallery in Philadelphia, a 2018 CFEVA Fellow, a 2018 Season III NARS resident Artist, and an Absolut Art artist. Makeba is also the Co-Founder for #DayonesArt

COLLECTIVE DESCRIPTIONS:

The Salon was founded in 2019 as a crit group for working class artists of color using an originally developed crit model. Its function has been to provide nuanced feedback (from peers) in order to combat implicit bias within criticism in institutional spaces and its resulting effect on cultural production. Through their “salon style” critiques participants practice the politics of seeing/experiencing in order to support their peers in becoming confident and autonomous cultural engineers.  

Since its founding The Salon has experimented with various forms of organization and programming in order to support the practice of its participants. Currently The Salon is an artist cooperative with six(6) core members developing programs that are utilized by their respective networks and the public. TheSalonNYC.org

The Chrysalis Kali Collective is a group for Filipina/x women (and non-binary folk) to explore Filipino Martial Arts (Kali) as an empowering mind/body/spirit practice. In our group, we delve into how historical trauma impacts our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health from a global perspective down to the cellular level. We unpack what it means to “decolonize,” but we don’t stay stuck here. We bear witness to our struggles, but we also celebrate our resilience. We question dominant paradigms and let go of what isn’t working for us any more. We deeply listen to our bodies as sacred guides to help us navigate life. We make space for emerging potential. 

https://www.chrysaliskali.com/ 

The sole purpose of #DayOnesArt is to promote and support independent artists coming out of urban meccas. Through collaboration we generate a bridge to further growth within our shared communities. We are a collective of working Artists and Cultural Consultants - here as an amenity.  We are project developers who serve Artists and Creative leaders with intention building - establishing cultural equity and resilience within Institutions and Corporate entities. We began with pop-ups and now have created outreach in the form of our fellowship “BUF”. http://www.dayonesart.com/

ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTIONS:

The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center Inc. is a Puerto Rican/Latinx multi-arts cultural institution that has demonstrated a broad-minded cultural vision and inclusive philosophy rooted in NYC’s Lower East Side/Loisaida. While focused on the cultivation, presentation, and preservation of Puerto Rican and Latinx culture, we are equally committed to a multi-ethnic / international latitude, determined to operate in a polyphonic manner that provides affordable working space and venues to artists, small arts organizations, emergent and independent community producers that reflect the cultural diversity of the LES and our City. 

The Flux Factory Rhizome Project is a commitment to give intentional space to Black voices, and provide a platform for Black narratives by offering the support needed to help these narratives thrive and evolve. The Rhizome Project is an evolving entity. As it grows, we will add programs focused on professional development and other forms of support. We commit to listening to the leadership of Black artists with an ongoing commitment both economically and through action. Many roots support the plant.

Yvette Molina, ‘Fire Bird Healer’