Rachel Falcone is an artist and documentary producer/director. Before starting Storyline, Rachel traveled across the United States with the Peabody award-winning national oral history project StoryCorps, and she has worked as a producer with EarSay, Inc. and Incite Pictures. Rachel has taught oral history and storytelling for movement-building in collaboration with institutions like the Museum of the City of New York and Parsons The New School for Design. She consults on transmedia storytelling and impact campaigns for nonprofit organizations and media projects. Rachel studied philosophy at University College London and Vassar College.

Michael Premo is an artist, journalist and filmmaker. In addition to his work with Storyline, he has created original film, radio, and theater with numerous companies including Hip-Hop Theater Festival, The Foundry Theater, The Civilians, and the Peabody Award winning StoryCorps. Michael’s photography has appeared in publications like The Village Voice, The New York Times, and Het Parool, among others. Recent projects with Storyline include the multi-platform project 28th Amendment: Housing is a Human Right, the participatory documentary Sandy Storyline, and award-winning short film and exhibit Water Warriors. For the Corporation for Public Broadcasting he helped produce Veterans Coming Home, a multi-platform public media series distributed by PBS. Michael consults on participatory documentary processes, impact strategy, and civic engagement through Storyline and the Interaction Institute for Social Change.

The Laundromat Project advances artists and neighbors as change agents in their own communities. We envision a world in which artists and neighbors in communities of color work together to unleash the power of creativity to transform lives.

artWork is FABnyc’s podcast exploring how art works in the world. Launched in 2016, artWork is an ongoing conversation with culture makers on the role arts and culture can play in strengthening communities. artWork is currently produced by FABnyc, hosted by Executive Director Ryan Gilliam with Associate Producer, Michael Hickey. artWork was originally conceived by former Executive Director Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei.

Native Art Department International is a collaborative long-term project created and administered by Maria Hupfield and Jason Lujan.  As artists-in-residence with Fourth Arts Block and Downtown Art during the first six months of 2018, Native Art Department International conducted three interviews with people, each with deep histories and connections to the Lower East Side.

Paul Castrucci, Architect. Paul is a Passive House trained designer whose Lower East Side firm specializes in sustainable residential architecture, community centers, public gardens, and artist’s studios.  The firm’s services are focused on new buildings that are Passive House and Net Zero certified; they also provide rehabilitation of existing structures and as energy conservation and code consultation.

artWork is FABnyc’s podcast exploring how art works in the world. Launched in 2016, artWork is an ongoing conversation with culture makers on the role arts and culture can play in strengthening communities. artWork is currently produced by FABnyc, hosted by Executive Director Ryan Gilliam with Associate Producer, Michael Hickey. artWork was originally conceived by former Executive Director Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei.

Native Art Department International is a collaborative long-term project created and administered by Maria Hupfield and Jason Lujan.  As artists-in-residence with Fourth Arts Block and Downtown Art during the first six months of 2018, Native Art Department International conducted three interviews with people, each with deep histories and connections to the Lower East Side.

Muriel Miguel, Playwright, Artistic Director of Spiderwoman Theater. Born in Brooklyn, Muriel co-founded Spiderwoman Theater Ensemble in 1976; it is the oldest feminist theater in North America. Muriel is a 2016 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship recipient, and is a member of the National Theatre. She continues to direct, perform, and teach in-residence at Amerinda.

artWork is FABnyc’s podcast exploring how art works in the world. Launched in 2016, artWork is an ongoing conversation with culture makers on the role arts and culture can play in strengthening communities. artWork is currently produced by FABnyc, hosted by Executive Director Ryan Gilliam with Associate Producer, Michael Hickey. artWork was originally conceived by former Executive Director Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei.

Native Art Department International is a collaborative long-term project created and administered by Maria Hupfield and Jason Lujan.  As artists-in-residence with Fourth Arts Block and Downtown Art during the first six months of 2018, Native Art Department International conducted three interviews with people, each with deep histories and connections to the Lower East Side.

Dave Powell, Executive Director of Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association. Cooper Square MHA is committed to the preservation and development of tenant-controlled and cooperatively owned affordable housing. In addition to serving as a nonprofit affordable housing manager, developer, and owner, Cooper Square MHA works in coalition with other groups to promote the preservation and development of affordable housing throughout the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

artWork is FABnyc’s podcast exploring how art works in the world. Launched in 2016, artWork is an ongoing conversation with culture makers on the role arts and culture can play in strengthening communities. artWork is currently produced by FABnyc, hosted by Executive Director Ryan Gilliam with Associate Producer, Michael Hickey. artWork was originally conceived by former Executive Director Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei.

Gan Golan is a NY Times bestselling author, artist and activist. His books include the hit satire “Goodnight Bush” and critically-acclaimed “The Adventures of Unemployed Man.” His work combines grassroots community organizing with high-profile, media-genic public spectacles that shift popular narratives and mobilize communities. A fan of pop-culture, he has created original video games projected onto the side of buildings to challenge corporate power, and invented a fake sports team, the corporate “Tax Dodgers” to address economic inequality, who were installed in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Recently, he helped design the largest climate mobilization in history, The People’s Climate March. As an artist he has created visual works for Erykah Badu, Henry Rollins, Willie Nelson and Neil De Grasse Tyson. He is a co-founder of the The Movement Netlab, a Think & Do tank, which studies and supports decentralized mass social movements.

Raquel de Anda is an independent curator and cultural producer based in Brooklyn, NY. De Anda began her career as Associate Curator at Galería de la Raza, a contemporary Latino arts organization in San Francisco, CA. Born and raised on the U.S. Mexico border, her work focuses on themes of separation, inclusion and the intersections of migrant rights with climate change and other movements for racial and economic justice. She is a firm believer in the power of art and culture to transform society. De Anda holds an MS from Parsons School of Design, with a focus on integrating cultural equity in the field of arts and culture. Recent exhibitions include The Ripple Effect: Currents of Socially Engaged Art (Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, D.C.), Art in Odd Places intervention festival (NYC), and overseeing creative production for the historic People’s Climate March (NYC), with hundreds of artists and 400,000 people participating.

artWork is FABnyc’s podcast exploring how art works in the world. Launched in 2016, artWork is an ongoing conversation with culture makers on the role arts and culture can play in strengthening communities. artWork is currently produced by FABnyc, hosted by Executive Director Ryan Gilliam with Associate Producer, Michael Hickey. artWork was originally conceived by former Executive Director Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei.

Gonzalo Casals is the Director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum. His experience ranges from innovative programming, authentic engagement strategies, and progressive cultural policy. As Vice President of Programs at Friends of the High Line, he led the organization in a transformative process to focus on equitable cultural practices. Gonzalo held various roles at El Museo del Barrio. His tenure was informed by ideas of cultural production as a vehicle to foster empowerment, social capital, and civic participation. Gonzalo continues to explore these concepts as member of the Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts New York (NOCD-NY).

Prerana Reddy is the Director of Public Programs & Community Engagement for the Queens Museum. She is also in charge of the museum’s community engagement initiatives that utilize a cultural organizing model to build inclusive civic engagement opportunities in nearby neighborhoods predominately comprised of new immigrants. These include the museum’s offsite immigrant arts & activism center Immigrant Movement International Corona and the collaborative design and ongoing programming of Corona Plaza. She was recently appointed by the Mayor to the NYC Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission, which advises the Department of Cultural Affairs on increasing cultural equity and developing the City’s first comprehensive cultural plan.

artWork is FABnyc’s podcast exploring at how art works in the world. Launched in 2016, artWork is an ongoing conversation with culture makers on the role arts and culture can play in strengthening communities. artWork is currently produced by FABnyc, hosted by Executive Director Ryan Gilliam with Associate Producer, Michael Hickey. artWork was originally conceived by former Executive Director Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei.

Elizabeth Hamby and Hatuey Ramos Fermin (also known as Meta Local Collaborative) are Bronx based artists who continue to transform our understanding of New York’s largest public space: its streets. They explore the histories of neighborhoods, create site-specific participatory work, engage a broad range of people, and work collaboratively across disciplines. In this episode, we have a conversation about work, about crossing between disciplines, how bicycling is an art form, using history as a jumping off point for deep dialogue, and the kinds of moments that can turn your life in a direction you never saw coming.

Meta Local is the collaborative practice of Elizabeth Hamby and Hatuey Ramos Fermin. Our work investigates the dynamics of urban spaces; exploring the histories of buildings and neighborhoods, and tracing the flows of people, ideas and products. Combining documentary strategies with performance and fine art, we articulate concepts of origin, and the sense of place. Meta Local develops site-specific, participatory works that refer to the complexity of our community in the South Bronx and beyond. We observe, analyze, and dissect the social, cultural and economic structures of our neighborhood, as well as the design and organization of buildings and spaces, and use the information gathered to develop questions that serve as a foundation for our projects. By actively engaging a broad range of people and working collaboratively across disciplines, Meta Local challenges the existing hierarchies, inclusions, and exclusions that characterize “participation” in the larger democracy of New York City. Projects are entirely site specific, and are developed collaboratively with a variety of stakeholders including community organizations, neighbors and visitors in different capacities.

artWork is FABnyc’s podcast exploring at how art works in the world. Launched in 2016, artWork is an ongoing conversation with culture makers on the role arts and culture can play in strengthening communities. artWork is currently produced by FABnyc, hosted by Executive Director Ryan Gilliam with Associate Producer, Michael Hickey. artWork was originally conceived by former Executive Director Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei.

artWork is FABnyc’s podcast exploring at how art works in the world. Launched in 2016, artWork is an ongoing conversation with culture makers on the role arts and culture can play in strengthening communities. artWork is currently produced by FABnyc, hosted by Executive Director Ryan Gilliam with Associate Producer, Michael Hickey. artWork was originally conceived by former Executive Director Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei.

For many decades we’ve felt the pressures of gentrification in the LES, and our neighborhood has creatively found ways to maintain its cultural and economic vitality throughout. Lately we’ve been feeling the rapid impact of small business closures and displacement.  In this episode of artWork we hear Risa talk to SaMi Chester, and Armando Moritz-Chapelliquen about initiatives to protect small business today.

SaMi Chester aka; SC2 is the Founder/Artistic Director of BeBop Theatre Collective. A veteran artist and advocate, he considers himself “A Servant of the People” and continues to fight injustice through art and activism. He has been fortunate to work with Sonia Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks and a host of others. When not working on his craft, you can find him beating up on bad acting landlords and fighting for human rights.

Armando Moritz-Chapelliquen is the Campaign Coordinator for Equitable Economic Development. Armando engages with member groups and allies to advance economic justice through organizing and advocacy campaigns. Beyond the cause of equity, he enjoys philosophy and his cat Coltrane.

Associate Producers: Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei
Audio Engineer: Timothy McAleer

This episode features Carlina Rivera, candidate for City Council, and Jamie Rogers, owner of Pushcart Coffee and chair of Community Board 3. With the host, Risa Shoup, the three of them focus on Civic Engagement and Organizing in Lower East Side. While we’re living together and working together, we have to make the time to support each other. Carlina speaks on the advice that the women in her life have given her: Be strong and to take care of yourself and to remember that taking care of others is important to your heart and to your spirit.

Website: www.carlinarivera.nyc

Facebook: www.facebook.com/CarlinaforCouncil

Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarlinaRivera

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlinalrivera

Associate Producers: Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei
Audio Engineer: Timothy McAleer

Real Talk/KipTalk is a serial live talk show about the state of contemporary performance in New York City. Risa, Geoffrey Jackson Scott, Sheetal Prajapti, Lucy Sexton, George Sanchez, and Amy Khoshbin talk about artists, activists, administrators, and when (and if) they collide in this not-so-unique point of our history.’, ‘7. Real Talk/Kip Talk with Geoffrey Jackson Scott, Sheetal Prajapti, Lucy Sexton, George Sanchez, and Amy Khoshbin

Associate Producers: Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei
Audio Engineer: Timothy McAleer

In the 5th episode of art Work, we look back at PS122xLoisaida’s Long Table discussion on Cultural Equity back in November 2016. Associate Producer Denise plays stage manager and runs some clips from the discussion as special guest Maura Cuffie and Risa Shoup dig deeper into the undercurrents and current currents stemming from that evening. What are we really talking about when we talk about “cultural equity”? Also, dear leaders in organizations, some things for you to think about as you move forward in this work. Get a recap of the evening in tweets here. You can connect with Risa at @The_Risa (twitter) and @risar (instagram) and Denise at @publiclydee.

Maura Cuffie is one of three co-founders of the collective The Free Breakfast Program (FBP)—a platform for artful interactions and new ways of being inspired by the work of the Black Panther Party. Most recently FBP has exhibited with the No Longer Empty Curatorial Lab, NYU’s Department of Art and Politics, and the Painted Bride Art Center. Recent projects include A Lot More Beautiful, Ernest Cole Cultural Exchange, and Breakfast for Dinner concerning the topics reclaiming space, identity politics, artful protest, and more. She comes out of Drexel University with a degree in sociology focusing on the sociology of images and identity politics. By day she works as the Program Manager at EmcArts.

Associate Producers: Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei
Audio Engineer: Timothy McAleer

In the 4th episode of art Work, we are privileged and excited to have Sarita Covington guest host in honor of Black History Month! Together with her guests, Ebony Noelle Golden and Paloma McGregor, the trio talk about art, resistance, and liberation. Are you just joining the party? Are you chasing the thing? What IS Liberation? This conversation will lead you through art-making, lessons in collectivity, visions of resistance… ultimately, to be FREE. Learn more about Sarita, Ebony, and Paloma below. Many thanks once again to Nova Mandarke for sharing his music.

Sarita Covington is a multi-disciplinary artist/ activist from Harlem. She holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. She is co-founder of Company Cypher, an arts organization dedicated to transforming the conversation about race and skin tone prejudice by using theatre and hip-hop education to build community. She co-founded ACRE (Artists Co-Creating Real Equity), an organizing body that works closely with grassroots community organizers the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond to provide Understanding & Undoing Racism/ Community Organizing Workshops for artists and cultural workers. She is also a collaborating artist with social impact organization B3W Performance Group, who are currently working on an international project called Forgiveness.\r\n \r\nHer work has received support from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Open Meadows Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Jerome Foundation. and BAX (Brooklyn Arts Exchange). Sarita has facilitated workshops for Fishkill Correctional Facility, Yale Schools of Divinity and Drama, Artspace’s City Wide Open Studios, NYC Public Schools, Philadelphia Charter School students, Danish High School students, Mexican youth in a Tijuana orphanage and the 59th Street Project.
Website: www.saritacovington.com
Cypher: www.facebook.com/CompanyCypher

Ebony Noelle Golden, native of Houston, Texas currently residing in the Bronx, serves as principal engagement strategist at Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative and the artistic director of Body Ecology Womanist Performance Project. BDAC is a cultural arts direct action group that works to inspire, instigate, and incite transformation, radical expressiveness, and progressive social change through community-designed, culturally-relevant, engagement initiatives, and creative projects. \r\n\r\nAs a strategist, Golden consults, co-creates, designs, implements, and evaluates impact-driven projects and initiatives that push for social transformation.  As an artist-scholar, Golden stages site-specific rituals + live art productions that profoundly explore the complexities of freedom in the time of now. In 2016, she developed a seminar course, served as a lecturer of Womanist and Black Feminist performance art at The New School, and co-edited an anthology of experimental womanist writing published by Obsidian Journal of Literature and Arts. \r\n\r\nGolden is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU where she is developing125th and Freedom, a performance art installation of ten choreopoetic rituals along 125th street between the Hudson and Harlem Rivers. The work explores home, migration, displacement, and the eradication of black space due to cultural, spiritual, and political gentrification.
Website: www.bettysdaughterarts.com
Twitter: @bettysdaughter1
Instagram: @ebonygolden

Paloma McGregor (Director, Angela’s Pulse/Dancing While Black) is a New York-based, Caribbean-born choreographer whose work focuses on centering Black voices through collaborative, process-based art-making, teaching and organizing. A deeply rooted practitioner of intersectionality, she creates projects in which communities of geography, practice and values can vision their roles in enacting a more equitable and joyful future. She has worked with grandparents, children, environmental educators, academics and other artists to create a wide range of work, including a dance through a makeshift fishnet on a Brooklyn rooftop, a structured improvisation for a floating platform in the Bronx River and a devised a multidisciplinary performance work about food justice with three dozen community members and students at UC Berkeley. Residencies include: 2016-17 NYLA Live Feed; 2014-16 BAX Artist in Residence; 2014 LMCC Process Space; 2013-14 NYU’s Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics Artist in Residence; 2013 Wave Hill Winter Workspace; Grants include: 2015 Surdna Foundation, Dance/USA; 2016 MAP Fund.
Website: www.angelaspulse.org
Twitter / Instagram: @AngelasPulse
Project: @dancingwhileblack

Nova Mandarke was raised around music. Living next to the famed Palladium Nightclub in the mid 90s, Nova met music artists like Method Man, Q-Tip and even Biggie Smalls. Living near the Lower East Side and attending elementary school at P.S. 63 (3rd St & Avenue A), Nova became very familiar with the neighborhood. Spending countless days and nights hanging out in the Lower East Side, Nova began to love the neighborhood and it’s immense diversity which has influenced some of the sounds in his music. Two weeks after turning 11, Nova experienced a tragedy that would shape his future. His father was murdered due to drug dealing activities. The death of his father sent Nova into a spiral of depression that would only be beat with the power of music. His older brother and fellow artist, Rated, introduced him to Kanye West’s The College Dropout and it was at this moment, Nova knew music was his calling. At the age of 14, Nova recorded his first song and by 2011 had released his first mixtape, The Love @ 1st Sight, under the name Young Nova. After taking a few years to master his craft, Nova Mandarke plans to take New York hip-hop to a new level. He will be releasing the Rico Suave (Dave East – KD) produced track Right Here on November 4th exclusively on iTunes, Spotify and Tidal, with a follow up release near Thanksgiving.
Website: www.nvmndrk.com
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/NovaMandarke\n
Facebook: www.facebook.com/NovaMandarke
Twitter/IG: @NovaMandarke

Associate Producers: Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei
Audio Engineer: Timothy McAleer

In the 3rd episode of art Work, we gather round with Geoffrey Jackson Scott, Betty Yu, and Megan Marshall to talk about generosity! Generous labor? Laborious generosity? We talk Thank You emails, listening, compensation… and so much more! We have our first segment of “+1/-1”, a lightning round segment where our guests get to literally ‘+1’ or ‘-1’ a statement (caveats a plenty). Pizza Rat, anyone?

Betty Yu is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, educator and activist. She is a co-founder of the Chinatown Art Brigade, a cultural collective telling stories of Chinatown tenants fighting gentrification through public projections. Her documentary “Resilience” about her garment worker mother fighting against sweatshop conditions, screened at national and international film festivals including the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival. Yu’s multi-media installation, “The Garment Worker” was featured at Tribeca Film Institute’s Interactive. She co-created “Monument to Anti-Displacement Organizing” in the Agitprop! show at Brooklyn Museum. Betty was a 2012 Public Artist-in-Resident with the Laundromat Project and is a 2015 Cultural Agent with the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC) a people-powered social justice and art network. Ms. Yu is currently on the Board of Directors of Working Films, Deep Dish TV and Third World Newsreel, progressive media and film organizations.\r\n\r\nBetty received the 2016 SOAPBOX Artist Award from the Laundromat Project. She holds a BFA from NYU\’s TSOA and a MFA in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College. Betty is a 2016 A Blade of Grass Fellow for Socially Engaged Art for her project with Chinatown Art Brigade. Ms. Yu\’s organizing recognitions include being the recipient of the Union Square Award for grassroots activism and a semi-finalist of the National Brick “Do Something” Award for community leadership in Chinatown.
Website: www.bettyyu.net
Twitter: @bettyyu21, @CtownArtBrigade
Chinatown Art Brigade: www.chinatownartbrigade.org

Geoffrey Jackson Scott is a Brooklyn-based creative producer, independent curator, engagement strategist, and cultural organizer. He is Co-Founder and Creative Director of the communications and engagement strategy firm Peoplmovr. Geoffrey is also often seen at the Public Theater and Museum of Moving Image, as part of his work with Peoplmovr.
Instagram / Twitter; @peoplmovr

Megan Marshall serves as the Director of Internal Operations at New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW).  Prior to NYTW, Ms. Marshall served as the Controller at New York City Opera (NYCO) under George Steel and was on the team to through NYCO’s bankruptcy.  Previously, she served as Payroll Manager for The Public Theater. Ms. Marshall has also worked in various capacities for Vineyard Arts Project on Martha’s Vineyard, Theatre for One with Tony-Award-Winning Set Designer Christine Jones, artist Soibhan Cronin who works/performs in San Francisco, Santa Fe, and New York, Brooklyn Academy of Music, P.S.122, and O&M Press Company. She received her MA in Performing Arts Administration from New York University and her BA in Theater Management from College of Santa Fe in New Mexico.
Twitter: @meganemarshall
NYTW: www.nytw.org

Many thanks to Megan for coordinating space.
Associate Producers: Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei
Audio Engineer: Timothy McAleer

In our second episode of art Work, Kay Takeda and Shaun Leonardo join Risa to share what leadership looks like in their work and ways to share power and be creative as administrators. Also, we get to have a closing round of “In First Place”, a segment celebrating place-based projects either past or to-come. Learn more about our guests Kayand Shaun on Episode 2 of art Work and our guest musician, Public Access T.V., below:

Kay Takeda has worked for over 20 years to advance artists and the arts in the areas of grantmaking, programming and capacity-building. She is currently the Vice President of Grants & Services at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) where she develops and oversees its grantmaking and professional development programs, and community initiatives including Arts East River Waterfront focusing on community partnerships to activate new public waterfront space in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Prior to LMCC, she worked with Arts International, where she oversaw a roster of national grant programs providing support for visual and performing artists working internationally; and with the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art at Snug Harbor, where she managed a contemporary exhibition program, international residencies, and a studio program for visual artists in a 15,000 sq. ft historic space. She has served on the boards of the artist-run Goliath Visual Space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Tickle the Sleeping Giant, Inc./Trajal Harrell. She is a member of the selection committee for the New York Dance & Performance Awards (The Bessies) and lectures widely on professional issues affecting artists.
Twitter: @KayTakeda
LMCC: www.lmcc.net

Shaun Leonardo’s artwork negotiates societal expectations of gender and sex, along with its notions of achievement, collective identity, and the experience of failure. In his work as an educator, Leonardo promotes the political potential of attention, self-reflection, and discomfort as a means to create awareness, disrupt meaning, and shift perspective. He is currently Manager of School, Youth Community Programs at the New Museum and has worked as an educator at the Fortune Society, Socrates Sculpture Park, Cooper Union’s Outreach program and The Point (Bronx). Leonardo is a Brooklyn-based artist from Queens, New York City. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and has received awards from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; The New York Studio School; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; Art Matters; New York Foundation for the Arts; McColl Center for Visual Art; Franklin Furnace; and The Jerome Foundation. His work has been presented in galleries and institutions, nationally and internationally, and was recently featured in the exhibitions Crossing Brooklyn at Brooklyn Museum, Radical Presence at Studio Museum in Harlem, and Between History and the Body at 8th Floor Gallery. Leonardo’s current collaborative work, Mirror / Echo / Tilt, is funded by Creative Capital.
Website: www.elcleonardo.com
Facebook / Instagram: @elcleonardo
New Museum: www.newmuseum.org
Assembly: www.recessart.org/assembly

Public Access T.V. are a band firmly planted in the Lower East Side. Before they released their first song, played their first show, or even had a name, Public Access T.V. was a band. Best friends out every night together, sharing clothes, cigarettes, pocket change, and most importantly living together in a dilapidated East Village loft where they could stay up all night playing music… loudly. Singles “Monaco” and “In the Mirror” along with Public Access EP, lead to critical acclaim, and tours in the US and UK supporting acts like Weezer and Gang of Four. Everything was moving on the correct trajectory when in April 2015, while PATV were on tour in California, they flicked on the TV to see live pictures of their Manhattan loft on every single news channel. It was on fire from a gas explosion and then collapsed into rubble.\r\n\r\n”We wrote there, rehearsed, recorded, lived, everything,” says John. It was home and then it was completely gone. Demoralized and thousands of miles from NYC, PATV did the only thing they could think of. As John says: “We told our agent to book as many gigs as possible – because we didn’t want to deal with the reality of the situation. We actually had nowhere to go.” But, as things happened, that chain of events was to set PATV on an entirely new and fruitful path. Among those frantic gig bookings were a bunch of festivals in Europe, as well as dates with The Strokes, Fidlar and Palma Violets. Eventually, the group released their double A-side single “In Love and Alone / Patti Peru” this fall to critical acclaim. In Love and Alone was debuted by Zane Lowe on Apple’s Beats 1 with him exclaiming, “We Love Public Access T.V”. and giving the track his signature stamp of approval by playing it twice in a row. The track has since gone onto receive multiple plays on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 6, and is in rotation on Radio X. With the release of these songs, PATV took off on a nationwide tour supporting Hinds.
Website: http://www.patvmusic.com
Facebook/Twitter/IG: @PublicAccessTV
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/publicaccesstv

Associate Producers: Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei
Audio Engineer: Timothy McAleer

In our very first episode of art Work, we welcome to the table Marýa Wethers, Dan Fishback, and Rasu Jilani to talk about curatorial practices! If curation is community service, what is a “good” curator? Our guests weigh in and discuss just what are the right questions, how to fail within the context of curation, and reflect on how they bring their full selves to their work. Learn more about our guests, Marya, Dan, & Rasu on Episode 1 of art Work and our guest musician, Nova Mandarke!

Marýa Wethers is an Independent Manager, Producer & Curator based in NYC since 1997. Marýa is currently the Director of International Initiatives at Movement Research and Project Manager for Angela’s Pulse/Dancing While Black, David Thomson and others. From 2007-2014, she worked in the Programming Department at New York Live Arts (formerly Dance Theater Workshop/DTW) as the International Project Director of the Suitcase Fund program, where she developed a cultural exchange program with contemporary dance artists in the USA and Africa, and managed the program activities in Eastern/Central Europe.
Marýa is a Guest Curator of the Queer New York International Arts Festival (2016 & 2015 editions) and curated the Out of Space @ BRIC Studio series for Danspace Project (2003-2007) with a particular focus on work representing the perspectives and experiences of artists who are of color, queer, and/or female. She has served on selection panels for several presenting and funding organizations in NY and nationally, including the NEA, LMCC, Brooklyn Arts Council, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, and as an Advisor to NEFA’s National Dance Project program. She has served as a guest lecturer for presenting/service organizations and college/university dance programs in the tristate area. Marýa is a core member of the Movement Research Artists of Color Council and was a member of the New York Dance & Performance/Bessie Award Committee (2006-07).
Her writing has appeared in the Configurations in Motion: Curating and Communities of Color publication, organized by Thomas DeFrantz at Duke University (2016 & 2015), and her essay UnCHARTed Legacies: women of color in post-modern dance, was published in the 25th Anniversary Movement Research Performance Journal #27/28 (2004). Marýa has been featured in interviews/articles in the MRPJ #47 (Fall 2015) and Gay City News (June 2006).
Marýa is a recipient of a National Performance Network Mentorship & Leadership award and two APAP Cultural Exchange Fund grants. Marýa graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1997 with a BA in Dance and a Minor in African-American Studies.

Dan Fishback is a playwright, musician, and director of the Helix Queer Performance Network. Previous work includes “The Material World” (Top 10 Plays of 2012 – Time Out New York) and “thirtynothing” (2011), which were both developed at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and performed at Dixon Place, and “You Will Experience Silence” (2009), which the Village Voice called “sassier and more fun than ‘Angels in America.’” As a singer songwriter, and with his band Cheese On Bread, Fishback has toured Europe and North America, and has released five full-length albums. As Helix director, he teaches workshops, organizes public events, and curates and produces a variety of festivals and series, including “La MaMa’s Squirts.” He is currently working on a new play, “Rubble Rubble,” and a new album with Cheese On Bread.
Twitter: @dangerfishback.

Rasu Jilani is an independent curator, social sculptor, and entrepreneur. His work investigates the intersections of art, culture, and civic engagement to raise critically-conscious conversations between artists, their local communities, and the wider public. Jilani’s projects are dedicated to promoting awareness around pressing social issues through exhibitions and community-driven programs.
Website: www.rasujilani.com
Twitter: @rasuisms
IG: @rasupreme
Project: www.griotsinthestuy.com

Nova Mandarke was raised around music. Living next to the famed Palladium Nightclub in the mid 90s, Nova met music artists like Method Man, Q-Tip and even Biggie Smalls. Living near the Lower East Side and attending elementary school at P.S. 63 (3rd St & Avenue A), Nova became very familiar with the neighborhood. Spending countless days and nights hanging out in the Lower East Side, Nova began to love the neighborhood and it’s immense diversity which has influenced some of the sounds in his music. Two weeks after turning 11, Nova experienced a tragedy that would shape his future. His father was murdered due to drug dealing activities. The death of his father sent Nova into a spiral of depression that would only be beat with the power of music. His older brother and fellow artist, Rated, introduced him to Kanye West’s The College Dropout and it was at this moment, Nova knew music was his calling. At the age of 14, Nova recorded his first song and by 2011 had released his first mixtape, The Love @ 1st Sight, under the name Young Nova. After taking a few years to master his craft, Nova Mandarke plans to take New York hip-hop to a new level. He will be releasing the Rico Suave (Dave East – KD) produced track Right Here on November 4th exclusively on iTunes, Spotify and Tidal, with a follow up release near Thanksgiving.
Website: www.nvmndrk.com
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/NovaMandarke\n
Facebook: www.facebook.com/NovaMandarke
Twitter/IG: @NovaMandarke

art Work is a monthly, roundtable-format podcast that celebrates the work (see: labor, skill, thoughtfulness) of artists and cultural workers in New York City, with a particular focus on performance as well as community engagement. Hosted by FABnyc’s Executive Director Risa Shoup, each episode features 2 to 3 guests from the arts and culture sector reflecting upon a weekly theme. With this podcast, we want to celebrate contemporary performance and art bring to the table arts and cultural leaders from the Lower East Side and beyond, and elevate the performance lens as a powerful way of navigating the world have a means of expression to talk about difficult issues & political discourse as it manifests in the contemporary art realm\r\n- debunk the myth that the creation and production of art and culture functions only as a form of entertainment and does not consist of “real work” We’re also excited to feature a range of LES-based / LES-grown musicians who will be graciously providing some sweet tunes to bring us into and out of each episode.

Associate Producers: Risa Shoup and Denise Shu Mei
Audio Engineer: Timothy McAleer