In every aspect of our work, The Laundromat Project channels our belief that in an abundant community, we lift one another up, we reciprocate, and when we come into good fortune, we pay it forward.
In that spirit, we’re excited to share that our annual People-Powered Challenge will look a little different this year. While typically the challenge is a peer-to-peer fundraiser, this year we are fortunate to have received a generous gift from MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett, so we’re choosing to spread the love.
We wouldn’t be where we are today without the greater ecosystem of creative organizations, partners, and individuals who believe in the catalytic power of art and community. Next week, we will support and celebrate 5 grassroots entities working to create change in their own communities with a no-strings-attached award of $10,000 each from The LP!
From October 25–29, join us for People-Powered Pay-it-Forward to be as inspired as we are by their incredible work.
Kelly Street Garden uses food and culture as the entry point to healing their community. The garden functions as a vehicle for addressing generational trauma which has caused many health disparities resulting from systemic racism. Make a contribution to Kelly Street—select Kelly Street Garden in the Citizen Action Groups dropdown menu. Follow on social media: @kellystgreen.
The W.O.W. Project is a women, non-binary, queer, trans led, community-based initiative that works to sustain ownership over Chinatown Manhattan’s future by growing, protecting and preserving Chinatown’s creative culture through arts, culture and activism. Support W.O.W. Project. Follow them on social media @wowprojectnyc.
The Literary Freedom Project (LFP) is committed to creating spaces that help elevate cultural narratives. Their programs value the variety of histories and cultures found in the Bronx and give educators & residents places to build community and explore social engagement. Support LFP. Follow them on social media @literaryfreedomproject.
BlackSpace bridges gaps between people, place, and power to realize racial justice with Black communities. Working on a national scale, they manifest justice through design and urban planning. Donate to BlackSpace. Follow them on social media @blackspaceorg.
STooPS connects the Bed-Stuy neighborhood with a big ol’ block party, classes, and opportunities for artistic expression in unconventional spaces—to make art accessible while honoring the local and valuing creators. Support STooPS. Follow them on social media @stoopsbedstuy.
Gabrielle joined The LP team as our Interim Director of Programs in January 2022 and will be contributing to our community engagement efforts, artist development programming, and other initiatives. Get to know more about Gabrielle below!
In what neighborhood do you live?
Washington Heights
How did you first become connected to The LP, or hear about The LP?
My relationship with The LP is a long one! I first got to know The LP in 2014 after I’d created a curriculum based on the work of poet Sekou Sundiata with MAPP International, and The LP reached out to work with me on a curriculum they were creating. Since then, there are so many collaborations—from bringing my students to The LP’s home on Kelly Street to interviewing Kemi [Ilesanmi, Executive Director] & Petrushka [Bazin-Larsen, The LP’s first Director of Programs] for my “Working with People” project, to leading the organization through its strategic planning process, all of which have been highlights of my work.
Do you have your own creative practice? If so, tell us more!
I’m a photographer and writer, and I run an interdisciplinary practice with my partner Kaushik Panchal, called Buscada. We make projects—exhibitions, public art engagements, books, and events—that create vital spaces for dialogue by fusing arts, design, and research. We often collaborate with community in contested neighborhoods with the goal of fostering more just cities. My book, Contested City, is about one of our long-time projects with housing activists on the Lower East Side.
Can you tell us about an artist or project that has inspired you?
I’m inspired by the artists I grew up around, starting with my mom, Winnie Bendiner-Viani, who’s a visual artist, and my grandfather, Elmer Bendiner, who was a writer, and extending to the people who I grew up with as family: most especially painter Jack Whitten and poet Hettie Jones. My dad Paul Viani inspired me to make photographs. The photographic work of artists like Carrie Mae Weems, Roy de Carava, and Gabriele Basilico helped me think about photographs as poems, as storytellers about place and people.
What is your favorite… film? …album? …food?
My favorite album is Horace Silver’s The Cape Verdean Blues. My favorite food is Kaushik’s chicken curry.
Where do you do your laundry?
The basement of our apartment building.
In your opinion, why does art matter?
Art matters because it helps us ask new questions and have necessary conversations.
What LP value do you most relate to and why?
I’m invested in all of the values of The LP—engaging deeply with what it means to “Be POC Centered,” for example, has reshaped the way I’ve thought about not just The LP, but about radical possibilities in other organizations I’m part of—from institutions of higher ed, to the DEI committee at my son’s public school. But, in this particular moment of The LP’s work, I am especially excited about “Value Place,” and to be helping the organization think though its process of grounding itself in Bed-Stuy. The layered meaning of neighborhoods, and the way arts practices can honor and understand these, is central to everything I do.
Artist, curator, and urbanist Dr. Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani is founder of Buscada, which creates vital spaces for dialogue to foster more just cities by fusing art, design, and research. She is author of Contested City: Art and Public History as Mediation at New York’s Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (University of Iowa Press, 2019)—finalist for the Municipal Art Society’s Brendan Gill Prize—and teaches urban studies at Bryn Mawr College & the New School. Gabrielle’s creative practice has been shown at MIT, Brooklyn Public Library, the Center for Architecture, Artists Alliance, the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, and Tate Britain. She is a life-long New Yorker.
Giovannah Philippeaux, Development & Communications Intern (CUNY Cultural Corps), had the unique pleasure of getting to know Bronx-artist and LP neighbor Sajata Epps at her live/work studio. Over a home-cooked meal and a pot of traditional rice tea, Giovannah and Sajata talked about community, art practice, and the importance of creative collaboration. As they spoke, Giovannah learned more about Sajata’s transformative trip through Asia and how those experiences have informed her art and community practices.
Sajata Epps, or SAJATA-E as she is known to many, is a cultivator of the Earth, a cultivator of crafts, and a cultivator of creative collaboration. As a native Bronxite, Sajata’s experiences reflect the richness and diversity of this borough. For Sajata, to be from and of the Bronx is different than being a New Yorker. As she proclaims, the Bronx “has its own culture,” a culture steeped in creative collaboration.
“When you are born in the Bronx, which is multi-diverse, you grow up with a culturally diverse background. As a Bronxite, you are a mix of everything that makes up the Bronx.”
Sajata Epps
Imagine being able to knit at the age of six, and sewing your first dress by the age of twelve. This early interest in creative expression led Sajata to pursue a degree in fashion design from the Wood Tobé-Coburn School in New York. While working in the industry for some of New York’s top brands, Sajata began to notice the extensive waste that plagues the industry. Displeased with these practices, she began to integrate sustainable practices into her work, life, and art. SAJATA-E has been running her design practice in the Bronx for the last 20 years. Driven by her passion for sustainable living, she has sought to share her knowledge with her local Bronx community.
In 2014, she helped co-found the Kelly Street Garden, a community organization that The Laundromat Project (The LP) has been collaborating with since the summer of 2014 to bring engaging creative events and programs to the historic neighborhood. It is through one such creative event that Sajata met Roslisham Ismail better known as Ise, who would introduce her to The Asian Cultural Council.
The Asian Cultural Council is dedicated to cross-cultural exchange and dialogue through art. The Council awards grants to artists and scholars, such as Ise and Sajata, to travel from: Asia to the U.S., the U.S. to Asia, or intra-Asia. The grant provides funding, program and logistics support, and mentoring to the grantees.
As a 2015 Asian Cultural Council grantee, Ise was in the U.S. to connect with other artists, expand his practice, and engage with local communities. After a studio visit with Hatuey Ramos-Fermin, Director of Programs for The LP, Ise was invited to spend some time at the Kelly Street Collaborative. His project, The Self Help Open Space Project, was inspired by the history of Kelly Street and broader South Bronx community. In 1978, Kelly Street residents banded together to rehabilitate their homes and neighborhood. Ise’s commemoration of this historic event was a one-day community gathering that centered around the preparation and sharing of an old Malay recipe for Nasi Kerabu, or blue rice and the making of a zine in collaboration with local photographer and community leader, Robert Foster along with Jennifer “Hopey” Foster. At the gathering, Sajata presented on the color changing properties of the butterfly pea flower when used as a natural dyeing agent.
Destinee Forbes, Storytelling Fellow, met with artist, scholar, and cultural strategist and organizer, Ebony Noelle Golden, on a hot and humid summer afternoon at the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics in the East Village. Destinee arrived a few minutes before the Houston, TX native who now lives and works in NYC in hopes of setting up and reflecting on Golden’s most recent live art performance piece, 125th & FREEdom presented by National Black Theatre’s Soul Directing Residency. Upon entering the building Destinee announced herself to the guard on duty and said she was there to see, “Ebony Noelle Golden, [founder of] Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative”. He responded with a laugh and his body relaxed into his chair. He said, “For Ebony? Of course! Just head on up.” Destinee smiled and headed toward the elevator doors filled with a sense of gratitude and excitement to have a conversation about cultural organizing and decentering one’s art practice with an individual who is so well-respected, adored and who is also known as the soul of The Laundromat Project’s Create Change Fellowship Program.
Destinee: I want to start off by congratulating you on the success of 125th and FREEdom!
Ebony: Thank you.
D: I think that’s really amazing– I remember when I was trying to get in touch with you a few months ago to coordinate the first art and pedagogy interview you were so busy! However, I didn’t realize just how busy you were until I read the press release for the show and on it you were credited as the writer, director, choreography, etc.
E: It’s more than a notion, as my mom would say, to do all of these things.
D: That’s really incredible – congrats with all of that.
E: Thank you. It’s really an honor to be doing the work.
D: Most definitely. So you are a dancer first, right? You started off with dance?
E: Yeah – At this point in my life I just identify as a creative, and for me that title is a way for me to be more expansive in how I do my work and define myself. I have other things that I do – I’m a strategist, an entrepreneur, I teach, I do identify as a public scholar. But really all of it is about creativity for me, it really is. I started out studying dance as a child and I’ve been asked this question a lot of times. I do feel like it’s important for me to say that studying dance in school felt like an extension of the way I was raised. I was raised by a creative mom in a creative family where music was always playing. This is a normal story for artists; music always playing, books in the house, dancing all the time. My creativity and my artistic ability was definitely encouraged.
I’ve just always been in a bigger body, and it became clear that there was this division between what the standard dancer body is and what my body is – and that has always been the case. This actually is a foundation for how I see the world. There is the standard and then there is what I see and how I’m moving. That has been sometimes a huge tension in my life and sometimes a huge opportunity. Dance is a thing.
I’ve left being a practicing artist many times for many reasons: to start a business, to go to graduate school, because of a relationship, but there really isn’t a way for me to be human in the world unless I’m moving – as long as I am in this world I need to be moving. I am moving, I’m always moving, but I also need to be dancing and I need to be facilitating dance as a choreographer, and I need to be making art. It doesn’t matter what else I’m doing. That way of coming into the world and seeing the world as an embodied practice, understanding the world as an embodied practice is never really going to go away.
D: That’s really interesting, this idea of understanding through embodiment. To be so expressive through the body and the need to use the body as a medium for expression requires an acknowledgement of the relationship between spiritual and political – to insert the body in certain spaces or move it in different ways can be seen as a political act especially when it deviates from the norm, or standard. How did you approach reconciling this relationship through movement?
E: I do think that my body in the dance classroom was politicized before I politicized it, and before it became a practice of resistance for me to dance. I don’t think that I ever woke up as a young person, or as a young adult, and said I will dance in spite of. I don’t think I was dancing for political reasons at first. I’m definitely dancing for political and spiritual reasons now. I knew then that I had a special gift – not that I thought I was a better dancer, but that I had a talent. That type of self-awareness for a young black girl in the hood who’s not training at Houston Ballet, but taking dance classes at school and in the community is significant. It’s significant, and in hindsight, looking back on it, definitely political, definitely spiritual. I mean I was just in a room with grown women who were older than me yesterday and they were talking about how they used to dance – they no longer dance – and you can tell by the way they look. So I think the larger environment imposes these standards and puts a politic on practice that I did not initially put on myself. I definitely know that moving my body is a political statement. Moving my body on stages and public spaces is a political statement. I definitely know what it feels like to not do that, and what it does to me and what it does to anyone who’s around me. And I know when I am doing that, that I have a clearer insight into everything––both in the positive and in the tense or challenging. I’m able to understand better when I am in this creative practice.
D: So it amplifies everything that you do. Even the other things that you’re doing like being a teacher and a cultural organizer.
E: That’s right. I often say this, and if I’m not clear about anything else in the course of this interview, it is that if I don’t dance, if I don’t make art. I can’t do anything else. My wellness is dependent on my art making. It is not some grand notion of being on Broadway or just making art to make art, or to make a lot of money making art. It is ultimately very, very personal – it’s for my wellness first. The first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth reason why I’m making art is for me. I might be telling stories that other people can attach to, that other people can relate to, but if it does not bring me the type of understanding that I need about what it means to be well in this world then it really doesn’t matter.
D: I want to know a bit more I want to know about your history as a community organizer and teacher in relation to your relationship with The LP.
E: I’ve been a teacher for a while and I’ve taught in many different places. I’ve taught in DC, I’ve taught in North Carolina, I’ve taught in Texas, I’ve taught here [New York]. My work as an artist, as a teacher, as a cultural organizer, are all one breath and that’s important for me. I am not dividing up my practice in any way. This is sometimes challenging because people think that you must do one thing, and if you’re going to do anything well you must focus, but all of these things are my focus. For me, the question is: how do I bring all of the sides of who I am into whatever I do? As a cultural organizer and as a person who builds strategy rooted in what people do, I need to do. I need to lift up the everyday ways of folks in order to understand. You know, lift up, study, be engaged in order to build strategies that are about affirming people and their culture, and what they do and how they do it.
I was hired as a consultant after a friend of mine mentioned that The LP was hiring and recommended I apply. The real beauty of this opportunity was that I’ve been able to grow as an artist, as an educator, as a strategist, as an entrepreneur because The Laundromat Project has invested in me. For me at this point it’s much more than client/consultant relationships with The Laundromat Project. That language doesn’t really resonate, and I think that is because the people who brought me in, Kemi, Petrushka, and Risë¹, are people who want to go beyond the standard. They create standards.
¹Destinee Forbes: Here, Ebony makes reference to The LP’s founder, Risë Wilson, The LP’s Executive Director Kemi Ilesanmi and the former Director of Programs at The LP Petrushka Bazin Larsen, who is also the co-founder of Sugar Hill Creamery in Harlem.
So initially the first thing that Kemi asked me to do was to come in and do a bunch of interviews and site visits and sit with people and talk with people and use that information to come up with a report that really highlights how the organization should best move forward in its cultural organizing practice. To have an organization invest in you and your creative growth is inspiring and makes me want to do more for that organization. At the root of being an artist, an organizer, an educator, you want to give the most you can. I did that. I got to see such good work, I got to ask such deep questions, I was all over the city, and I basically reported back to the organization – and this is a standard kind of recommendation report with best practices and learnings and so on and so forth. But I was able to do this with an eye on all of the information I have been taught.
To be a cultural organizer is to embody that practice in such a way that, again, everything that you touch and everything that touches you is relevant. The mentality from which I work is the triad model of thinking about art and culture, policy and practice, and wellness and transformation. The idea is holistic sustainability of a community. Working for legislation and everyday practices that support the holistic sustainability of a people, of a community. If an organization can move with that in mind we’re in a good place. If The Laundromat Project can continue to think about the holistic sustainability of the communities it reaches, it impacts, and is accountable to, then they understand cultural organizing.
D: From your words and expressions I sense such love. When you said when an organization supports you wholly it inspires you to want to do more, to want to give back… to want to give back that love. And like you said, not many people get to experience that, and I think that’s beautiful.
E: Yes, Completely.
D: So, you mentioned this in regard to your own philosophy as a creative, but why is it integral for artists, especially artists coming through the Create Change program, to have these strategies, or to have the mindset of having a holistic practice when creating art that’s related to community engagement?
E: It just depends on what the artist wants to do in terms of the impact of their work and their energy and their resources and their life force, to be honest. The arts industry, the arts field in New York City, has a lot of people and a lot of interests tugging and pulling on the artists, right? And you do have to decide what your true north is. You have to decide what your core values are. You have to decide what and to whom you are accountable. I think, and what I’ve said over the years, is that artists have to consider their studio practice and their community practice and what values translate those spaces. I often also say that cultural organizing and working as an artist through a lens of cultural organizing is an attunement – it is a way. And sometimes you may not be moving in that way — you may not be sometimes, but you want to have a diverse skill set if you want to reach a diverse group of people.
Cultural organizing, when I first started getting into it 12-13 years ago wasn’t a popular thing. It was coming from very specific organizations and very specific leaders in the field who would not stop using the language, who would not stop talking about intersectionality, of cultural wellness, public health, art, politics, and would not stop. And it is not the same as arts activism – It is just not the same. So these things kind of get all conflated and then it’s up to the artist to distill.
And I think for me working with The LP has provided a way for me to even learn how to distill this information and to share it with other practitioners from the perspective of not forcing, but sharing. Offering an experience through what was Field Day², through the coaching, through all of the different ways in which cultural organizing can be explored, and then seeing how they reflect the pedagogy. And some of them go on to do extremely powerful work because they’ve decided to lean into this direction or into this way of working.
²Destinee Forbes: Field Day was a free public event initiated in 2013. The event served as The LP’s annual festival of neighborhoods showcasing arts and culture and celebrating community in Bed-Stuy, Harlem, and Hunts Point/ Longwood. It was at the Field Day festival where Create Change fellows would activate their group projects with larger audiences in and around our anchor communities.
D: After having conversations with Petrushka [Bazin Larsen], Hatuey [Ramos Fermín], Ladi’Sasha [Jones] and Kemi [Ilesanmi] about the formation, growth, and codification of The LP’s Create Change program one thing that I have been taking away from those conversations is the emphasis on decentering one’s art practice, which it seems you also agree that this type of work is required of artists engaging in this work.
E: Totally.
D: Can you speak more on the idea of decentering one’s art practice, and why that is so important?
E: From the self?
D: Yes.
E: Decentering the self in the art practice? Is that what the question is?
D: Let me think about it. Yeah, I guess so.
E: Like I shared, the art that I make is about me first. I’m not looking at the world without looking at myself first. And I do think as a black woman, I need to see the world through myself. Having a deep understanding of who I am through what I make is important. It’s not the only reason why I make, it’s not the only approach to making, but for me it has become – I’ve become very reflective and I do think that my art practice allows me to do that. My teaching practice allows me to do that as well. I don’t teach things that I don’t have a connection to. I don’t make art about things I don’t have a connection to, and I don’t consult with organizations I don’t have a connection to.
To get to this point in relationship to what Petrushka was saying about decentering one’s art practice within the cultural organizing methodology – the first step in understanding this is as one of my teachers, Tufara Waller Muhammad³ said, “it ain’t about you, boo.” So the practice that we’re doing when we are in community moves us from us. When we’re working in community we have to know that the community is as important as we are, and we have to move with the understanding that if we’re a community engaged artist, if we’re a socially engaged artist, we need to step out of the center. So whatever work you need to do to honor who you are and center yourself, do it, but once you step into community, not that you need to treat yourself like trash but you need to understand that the center of a community engaged process is the community. This is a hard thing for some people to understand. And I won’t move on it. Cultural organizing as a practice, as a pedagogy, as an artistic methodology, de-centers the self. It de-centers the ego and allows for there to be a collaborative connection with community.
³Destinee Forbes: Tufara Waller Muhammad is a cultural organzier and strategist from Little Rock, Arkansaa with roots in Fort Worth, Texas. Muhammad uses art to empower and inspire activism. She coordinated cultural programs at Highlander Research and Education Center from 2004 to 2015. She also is a member of Alternate Roots and served on the Executive Committee.
D: Right, because it is not about creating art that’s in a vacuum. That’s so important. In my opinion all art produced should have that mentality and framework.
E: Oh, well. Some people would fight you on that.
D: That’s true.
E: I will say that… Some people will fight you on that. But, if you want to engage, sure.
D: Well, only if the ego surrenders, right? – I think that’s a question of the ego coming in again.
E: It totally is. I don’t disagree with you. I do think in terms of this question [about decentering] in relation to my work in terms of education, and I think that coaching and consulting – I think that consulting is a way of being like a teacher. I’ve come to understand my work with organizations as a teaching and learning exchange. Working with the Create Change artists is definitely a teaching and learning opportunity, but again it’s collaborative. I sit down with the staff and I ask them what do you want me to teach under the umbrella or under the auspices of cultural organizing? And depending on what it is we call people in, we develop kind of a two-day or three-day curriculum with resources – like the mapping tool kit – and activities and discussion prompts. All of that because this thing about pedagogy is super, super important. And scaffolding information using cultural practices, using popular education practices, using intentional dialogic practices is super important.
Doing this has allowed me to build residencies, to build curricula, to build tool kits in collaboration with other consultants and teaching artists and staff. I have trained the teaching artists, the commissioned artists, the fellows. I have sat with incoming staff members. I have provided resources and have been a listening ear for the organization. So yeah, I’ve been in it, and still doing it all through collaboration, liberation, listening, deep listening, and learning exchange. Now, another way I’ve come to think about my work with The LP, and with other organizations to be honest, is through the lens of strategic partnership. The organizations that I work with provide certain aspects and elements that make the partnership go. And I do too, or my team does. It’s reciprocal. I just think that the idea — I’m coming away from the idea that you give more than you get and that we all can just move with the shared resources that each partner brings to the table and allows us to move forward with justice at the center and at the core of the way we engage each other.
D: I want to go back to the topic of creating curricula and that process for you, especially in relation to the theme of abundance we have this year. So I was wondering what was that process like for you? How did you approach building a framework for abundance?
E: Approaching abundance. Well, I asked them what do you sense? What does abundance mean for The LP? Why? And so again, coming up with this way of weaving abundance into the conversation, into the facilitation, was starting with listening. Here’s the thing. Everyone is talking about abundance.
D: Really?
E: Not just here in New York City. But some are. And so I was like OK, I am actually invested in this conversation so how are we going to build a space for folks to really talk about abundance?
There are certain things that I do with an organization which is about building a facilitation plan. My team did research, we came up with resources about abundance, we looked at what The LP already was doing and has done in the past that affirmed abundance, and we used cultural practices and discussion prompts to get people building out what they understand abundance to be. I’ve been doing this work with The LP for so long that we have a template for how the cultural organizing intensive should go, and we can take out – this is what it means to really be investing in working together. The Create Change program is a flagship arts training program. It’s a flagship arts professional development program. Being able to come back to it as a teacher and then as a learner, being able to look at this idea of cultural organizing from many different angles and themes offers a tremendous learning experience.
My work is to listen to what The LP is saying about how the model needs to be activated, and then following through. That’s what I do as a teacher – asking, “What needs to be taught?” I would say there is some meditation that I do around how I’m going to engage with folks, and I will say that the meditation on abundance is very political. We’re living in a time where people don’t feel like they have access. Some people don’t have access. So the idea of abundance in spite of had to become an embodied meditation. So I was thinking about how is joy a practice of abundance? How is art a practice of abundance? How is breath a practice of abundance? How is being in and of community a practice of abundance? How is being seen by your community, visible in your community, a practice of abundance? All of these often get ignored when talking about abundance.
D: Yeah, exactly. So focusing more on what you have, instead of the have-nots and feeling whole within ourselves, which relates to Grace Lee Boggs’ quote, “We are the leaders we’ve been looking for.” Her words were a big source of inspiration for The LP’s theme of abundance. However, it’s interesting to hear how you get to that point through engaging in the topic through meditation.
E: Yes, and through art making and through living a life where I grapple with access and where I experience abundance, and where I am paying attention to the people who don’t feel abundant. Again, it’s people-work. It’s deep listening. It’s being in the practice of community, not just around people, but in the practice of community. And again, at this point in my life I am blessed and very grateful to be doing work that is connected, grounded, purposeful, impactful to me and to other people.
D: In “The Alchemy of Abundance” facilitation you had with the 2019 Create Change fellow cohort, what was it like trying to create and apply a framework of abundance to their practice?
E: The thing about having these types of conversations with people sitting in a room is that you don’t know where people are coming from, you don’t know the struggles that they’ve had, and everyone has a particular and personal journey to the concept. The way that I try to craft the experience is to keep it broad enough so people don’t get backed into a corner by thinking, “I’m not abundant because etc…” The idea really was to weave together a collective understanding of abundance that’s rooted in community power, and not in capitalism. All the fellows knew the theme and the topic before we began the facilitation so the idea was to not absorb where people were struggling, but to help people journey. I definitely was careful, with building a space for shared understanding and shared definitions. So that by the end of the weekend we had gotten super clear about what abundance means to us and how to build and work in community through an abundance mindset, framework, and practice.
It was a big journey and it was a big weekend, but we were able to journey together. To have the space to be visionary was very critical and important, and I think one of the reasons why maybe there wasn’t as much struggle with [conceptualizing the theme] is because we came into the room having already peppered the pot with the idea that we are abundant by default. We need to live in our current practice of abundance, as challenging as that may be, as challenging as that may feel, and we need to continue visioning around abundance, visioning what we see, what we want to see, what we want to live, what we want to have, how we want to move – it’s inspiring. It brings breath into the room. It brings joy into the room. It brings hope into the room. It brings creativity into the room. And this is something that I’ve been talking about in my rehearsal rooms as well as with clients, we know how to fight – most of us – but how many of us have the stamina to be in the continuous practice of visioning the life, the world that we want to live?
Talking about abundance can be a struggle for some people and not a way to vision, and I think ultimately in the facilitation of “The Alchemy of Abundance” intensive the alchemy is in the changing of that conversation. The alchemy is the thinking that anything can be changed to gold.
D: How do those outside of the Create Change program activate this philosophy of abundance?
E: By activating the muscle. We need to activate the memory. We need to activate the legacy of abundance that comes from many of our communities, and we need to build, strategize and collaborate and work from there. One of the most revolutionary and innovative things we can do is remember. What would it be like if we could remember and activate all the ways in which our communities have practiced abundance? What would our communities, our cities, our countries, our world be like if we moved from capitalist ideology that some people should have more and others less – to believing everybody is abundant and we have everything we need. What if we really reoriented our way of understanding of interrelating from one that is about lack to one that’s about abundance? What would the world be like? I know I’ve thought about this before and it is wonderful to be able to come back to that again, to come back to that again as a two-day conversation, as a two-day reawakening with the fellows, and The LP staff.
I think it’s medicine. It’s spirit medicine, it’s community medicine – to take a moment in the day and bring into clear focus and insight how you’re practicing – I’m practicing – abundance. I know it’s become an important part of my day and it’s really linked to gratitude. I am so abundant and I am so grateful for this abundance. I am so abundant and I am so thankful for this abundance.
D: I think that’s a perfect place to end! That was really great, really inspiring. Thank you!
This month, we’ve been reflecting on the key ideas and methods that The Laundromat Project holds close to heart, and that have guided our practice as an organization over the past 15 years. This is a time of great uncertainty, but we also see inspiration in the form of resistance and movement building. How are LP practices—making art, building community, and creating change—put into play when faced with new challenges? We’ve been wondering: how does concept affect strategy, and meditation inform action? And who better to ask than the artists we’re in community with and working alongside through our Create Change program.
We talked with a few current Create Change Fellows in response to the question:
“What’s a lesson you’ve learned about community building, adaptability, and resilience in your practice over the past few months?”
Since we’ve been called (in this storm of a year) to respond to the unexpected, we are thinking about how we can reframe this moment for ourselves and our community at large as a time to re-center in order to bring a clearer, more intentional collective vision to our futures.
Selamawit Worku
“I have learned several lessons that have expanded my practice and work: I learned that community-building can exist within yourself on a cellular level as the systems within your body come together to combat or prevent the invasion of a lethal virus, and it can simultaneously exist outside of yourself with fellow artists, family, and friends coming together with fury and resilience to face systemic racism and inequality. I have expanded my understanding of adaptability and resilience by studying nature, specifically spiders and plants, to learn new regenerative ways of existing and creating; observing how they adjust to disruptions, and create space or resources for themselves. I have taken those lessons and understood that it has always been possible to have a practice that is fair and equitable towards all beings and bodies, but it’s that many non-Black people and institutions have pretended they don’t know how, or never had to be forced like they are now. In the process of watching this truth be confirmed, the resilient and fair are floating to the top, my practice has felt strengthened, and I have been able to identify new individuals who I can build with.”
Sariyah Benoit
“I paint and spend a lot of time in my head. For me, these past few months reminded me that humility is necessary. My community work is now, more than ever before, conversations with my family and loved ones. Community work means different strategies and personalities. Humility encourages listening and receives feedback well. It also makes adaptability easier, because a humble spirit doesn’t dwell on hurt. At least that’s how it works in my life. I’m very proud, so staying humble is necessary for me to move forward with generosity and keep working on my contributions to this revolution. I have spent my past few months learning this from LP artists and I am so grateful for that opportunity.”
Selamawit Worku
“I have learned several lessons that have expanded my practice and work: I learned that community-building can exist within yourself on a cellular level as the systems within your body come together to combat or prevent the invasion of a lethal virus, and it can simultaneously exist outside of yourself with fellow artists, family, and friends coming together with fury and resilience to face systemic racism and inequality. I have expanded my understanding of adaptability and resilience by studying nature, specifically spiders and plants, to learn new regenerative ways of existing and creating; observing how they adjust to disruptions, and create space or resources for themselves. I have taken those lessons and understood that it has always been possible to have a practice that is fair and equitable towards all beings and bodies, but it’s that many non-Black people and institutions have pretended they don’t know how, or never had to be forced like they are now. In the process of watching this truth be confirmed, the resilient and fair are floating to the top, my practice has felt strengthened, and I have been able to identify new individuals who I can build with.”
Gisela Zuniga
“2020 has emphasized how vital it is to nurture love and patience for ourselves, and for those just now joining us in this work. Witnessing how neighbors and strangers alike choose to contribute, in however small a way, to healing the collective wound reminds me that this recovery is not a sprint but a marathon. That it will take learning resilience beyond any one moment or year, but learning it to sustain the life blood of our communities generation after generation.”
A Black woman in a rested state is a radical act. —The Nap Ministry
Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. —Audre Lorde
I will turn 50 on December 16th. A week later, I begin a two month sabbatical that will be dedicated to resting, dreaming, reading, napping, daydreaming, writing, and just being still for a while. I look forward to this full body and mind reset at my half century mark.
This year also marks my eighth at the helm of The Laundromat Project where I began as employee number two in fall 2012. Since then, I have been inspired by dozens of Create Change artists, fulfilled the founding vision of a home in Bed-Stuy, and practiced abundance through art, change, and community across New York City. I am now one of 12 staff members and our budget has grown seven-fold. And thus, now is a good time to rest, reflect, and recharge for a moment.
It was with abundance in mind last year that The LP overhauled our employee policies to be more in line with our values, especially those based on love and being people of color (POC) centered. We have a majority POC staff and fundamentally believe that if POC staff are thriving, then everyone thrives. With input from staff and full approval of our board, The LP’s new staff culture guide added policies on professional development, articulated guidelines of inclusion, and instituted a sabbatical policy for all team members, among other changes. Regardless of role, every staff member receives seven weeks of paid sabbatical leave for every seven years worked.
In our POC-centered principles, The LP commits to nurturing leadership. During my time away, the organization will be ably led by Deputy Director Ayesha Williams and Director of Programs Hatuey Ramos-Fermín, with support from Board Chair George Suttles and other board members. We have a collective leadership system that has helped us successfully navigate previous parental and medical leaves. Each of these temporary absences has ultimately led to greater LP strength through useful organizational innovations borne of necessity and circumstance.
And so, for the first several weeks of the new year (bye-bye, 2020!), I aim to be a Black woman at rest. My spouse and I will be spending most of it on the coast of central California on land stewarded by the yak tityu tityu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe. As the health pandemic narrowed our geographic choices, we decided warm, quiet and beautiful were the most important criteria. While my husband works to strengthen national democracy, I plan to read fiction for the first time in a long while, conduct oral history interviews with family members, and to take frequent naps on the sunny deck of our rental home. I know from past experience that my mind wanders in the most glorious ways when I am at rest. Those free-roaming thoughts will surely inform and deepen my future work at The LP.
I look forward to that and to sharing my reflections when I return in early March — refreshed, recharged, and ready to dive into The LP’s next chapter. I’m so proud to be part of an organization that walks our talk by prioritizing care and renewal for all members of our team. Thanks to Tricia Hersey of the Nap Ministry and ancestors such as Audre Lorde, we understand that rest is essential for the work ahead. Àṣẹ.
I have two sheroes who exemplify Black abundance. They each quietly contributed what they had to help shape a world towards Black dignity and excellence. In 1995, after decades of saving money earned from washing other people’s clothes, Osceola McCarty donated $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi to support scholarships for Black students. Her action inspired others in her hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi to do the same, almost tripling her original donation. Her scholarship still supports Black students today. During the Civil Rights Movement, Georgia Gilmore helped power the pivotal Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–56 by cooking and selling a mean meal of pork chops, stewed greens, peach pie, and other soul food specialities. She organized other women to participate, and they called themselves The Club from Nowhere. The money they raised by selling their dishes at local churches, cab stands, and beauty salons helped finance alternative transportation systems—cars, wagons, gas, insurance, repairs—during the 381-day boycott. Even with modest means, these visionaries understood their own power to make a difference in Black life and to inspire others to join them. It is only fitting to remember them both during Black Philanthropy Month.
In this time of twin pandemics that are ravaging Black and brown communities, including artists and cultural workers, I am buoyed by current examples of Black generosity and self-determination. So many folks have risen to this moment by setting up mutual aid and care networks that build on Black legacies of collective support, including susus, social aid clubs, and Black Panther principles. Like so many, artists looked around to their family, friends, neighbors, community organizations and immediately understood the stakes. Many decided to act.
When COVID-19 hit, Olaronke (Ola) Akinmowo took a dream that had been percolating for some time and decided to launch a mini-grant program in April. Ola, who works mainly as a set decorator for film and TV, initially took some of her own earnings from a consulting job to seed five grants of $250 each to single Black mother creatives anywhere in the country. As founder of The Free Black Women’s Library (TFBWL) with a large social media following, Ola also posted her intention to her network. They showed up and showed out, making generous donations that have enabled Ola to make grants totaling over $32,000 to 132 Black single mothers who are also painters, writers, dancers, filmmakers, doulas, chefs, tattoo artists, farmers, yoga instructors, and more. They have used the funds to pay utility bills, buy medicine, reboot websites, feed their children, and more. They also used this support to make art.
For Ola, the Sister Outsider Relief Grant is a way to say, “I believe in you; I see you, mama” to all the Black women making magic everyday in a world that does not often appreciate them in their fullness. It is also an affirmation of her own power to manifest dreams, live her values, and activate community. In her world vision, Black mothers matter and they can win. It is with that wind in her sail that she is launching the third application round on August 30: stay updated by checking out TFBWL’s social media. She aims to grant a total of $50,000, including the prior two rounds. If you want to support, send donations via Venmo to @olaronke, or via CashApp to $TFBWL.
As if on a similar wavelength, two other artists have taken this moment to share their art and galvanize their communities in support of Black and progressive causes. Within days of George Floyd’s murder, Paul Mpagi Sepuya made a list of organizations that support Black lives, LGBTQIA+ folks, voter fairness, criminal justice reform, community arts, and more. He then asked his network of gallerists, curators, collectors, and social media followers to back up their #BLM social media posts with concrete contributions to Black communities. He created an open print edition of one of his beautiful photographs and sent it as a thank you acknowledgement to anyone who “invested” at least $250 in any of the organizations he had identified. All a person had to do was send him a receipt. In just two months, Paul raised $217,000 in total, including $8,000 for The LP. In like fashion, as Black Lives Matter protests and demands unfolded around us, Damien Davis identified 13 Black arts and LGBTQIA+ organizations that he wanted to support right now. With Benefit Suite, he paired each organization with a unique sculpture of an Afro pick / power button named after a Black person killed by police or vigilante violence. The LP was thus honored to lift up the memory and life of Sandra Bland. For each piece, a collector had to make a donation of at least $1,800 to the organization. Damien sold all 13 works and raised over $30,000 in less than two weeks. Each of these stories are examples of artists and cultural workers leaning into Black abundance as birthright.
Like Ms. McCarty and Ms. Gilmore before them, Ola, Paul, and Damien recognize that mobilizing resources is a liberation technology that can be used to affirm and support Black lives and entities. They also understand the pain and the possibilities of this moment and so brought what they had—art, ingenuity, passion, networks—to the ongoing fight for Black culture and justice. Like so many others today who are marching, demanding, and dreaming Black futures, they are creating the modern scaffolding for long-term sustainability of Black networks and organizations. In kinship, I’m also deeply inspired by all Black cultural workers who are owning their power as resource organizers, from Black Artist Fund and Jar of Love Fund to See In Black, and many more. Their collective generosity and actions are the embodiment of words by poet Gwendolyn Brooks: “We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other
Create Create Change Fellows Kyra Assibey-Bonsu and Madjeen Isaac are artists who share an interest in engaging with Black immigrant communities. For our Creative Conversations series, Kyra and Madjeen talked about their experience and approach to working with Black immigrant communities, and how their practices highlight the lives of those from these communities.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Who are we?
My name is Madjeen Isaac, I am Haitian American, born and raised in Brooklyn NY.
My name is Kyra Assibey-Bonsu. I’m a Ghanaian first and an accidental Texan second. Both are inescapable truths.
What is your practice and what do we specialize in?
Madjeen: I am a visual artist specializing in oil painting. I also personally dabble in collage and photography and have been called to expand and explore other mediums!
My current bodies of work are a tender offering to utopian urban living, rooted in hybridizing my ancestral homeland Haiti with my hometown Brooklyn. I enjoy depicting Black and Brown folks engaging in abundance, joy, liberation, leisure, and communality without the constraints of reality.
Kyra: My focus is on the elevation of marginalized communities through audio as well as by providing platforms and spaces for these voices. I intend on weaving community stories that highlight Black history. I’m a brand new audio nerd with a passion for the gift of gab, I love to chat with others about who they are, how they came to be, and where they are going.
Madjeen Isaac, Meet us at Flatbush and Beverly, 2021
How did we arrive to do what we do?
Madjeen: During my 3rd year at undergrad, I was given an assignment to explore the theme “culture”. Though very broad, I made it an opportunity to explore my Haitian American culture, identity, and upbringing in Brooklyn.
That following summer I also traveled to Haiti, spent time with family, and truly observed the landscape which ignited inspiration and provided me a newfound understanding of my lineage, Haitian history, and immigrants back home in Flatbush Brooklyn. I was taken aback at the similarities and ways of being folks and Haiti and in Brooklyn. They created a community-driven ecosystem and contributed to society through family-owned markets, restaurants, and transportation businesses.
Reimagining spaces and painting utopia landscapes have been the focal point of my work ever since. Looking back now, I was not necessarily aware of how my work would take shape. However, it led me to my current interests in how Black and Brown folks occupy, contribute, decorate, and preserve their spaces, environmental justice, and urban agriculture.
Kyra: It all started out for me in Spain working for the government and teaching computer literacy to Central American immigrants. I was entranced by their stories so much so that when I moved to Argentina, I rebranded my own storytelling event and named it First-Hand Buenos Aires. I wanted to showcase the stories of foreigners and the natives through thematic storytelling nights and bring a humanistic feel to the obstacles we all face. I fell in love with the art form of sharing oneself on stage, and I was inspired to create my own podcast, “No Country For Moving,” which is about the obstacles faced by immigrants in America. I’m currently finding new and intriguing ways to build and develop the narrative of marginalized voices through audio.
Kyra Assibey-Bonsu’s podcast, No Country for Moving
What inspires us?
Madjeen: Volunteering at my local community garden, spending time in nature, spending time with loved ones, thinking about intergenerational connection and collaboration, oral history, and storytelling.
Kyra: I enjoy community building through the preservation of Black and Brown communities because it allows for a greater understanding of how we navigate the spaces we are allowed to occupy. Most notably, I was honored to be a part of the first BlackSpace board, a collective of architects, planners, and artists that work in affirming and amplifying Black presence in the built environment through neighborhood strategy, published content, and customized learning.
Madjeen Isaac, Delicate Whirl(d), 2022
How is your practice influenced by Black immigrant communities?
Madjeen: These communities feel most familiar to me. I grew up in a predominantly Caribbean neighborhood with immigrants, first and second generations. I gravitate towards how folks merge and weave their knowledge and cultures from their native land within the Brooklyn landscape. This can be seen through the businesses they operate, the ways they communicate with one another in Patios, Kreyol, or Spanish, and simply how they choose to show up.
Kyra: Black immigrant communities have been silenced for generations.As a child of immigrants, I feel closely tied to the Black immigrant experience in particular when it comes to showing up in predominantly white spaces. Where I grew up, the Ghanaian immigrant population was perpetually growing and striving to be seen. Consequently, I love to elucidate to the public why our lives matter and how it influences the day-to-day lives of the world as a whole.
Why is it important to highlight the lives of those from Black immigrant communities?
Madjeen: I often think about what it is like to yearn for a sense of balance and belonging especially in a society that may not prioritize our rights and well-being. Not only are my paintings visual archives of my environments and my radical imaginations, but it’s also important for me to depict an ideal world where Black immigrants, first and second gens feel empowered to take up space and simply be.
Kyra: It’s important because Black voices and lives are often seen as lesser or popularized for solely commercial consumption.
What do you hope to show or inform through your practice if any?
Madjeen: We can thrive as a collective and through communal care. I would love for my paintings to be blueprints of ongoing conversations on what that looks like especially for generations to come.
Kyra: That our injustices will not define us, our triumphs will. and we can share that with generations to come.
If you could introduce or transform something within your community what would it be?!
Madjeen: I would introduce a few things that would diminish the liminal space between language and cultural barriers. This includes:
Establishing a day for community dreaming, gardening, art-making, and neighborhood clean-up. This would encourage residents to voice and actualize their interests and needs.
Free apartment renovation vouchers for longtime immigrant residents who are challenged with receiving aid and attention from lazy landlords.
Kyra: To have safe spaces through all-inclusive mediums for us to share the Black experience.
Each story about Black immigrants has the voices of Black immigrants and the history told by Black historians.
Town Halls across the nation that provide a platform for Black immigrants to discuss topics that specifically affect them.
Policy changes enforced by the federal government that requires there to be in-depth knowledge and education of African diaspora history prior to enslavement.
Madjeen Isaac is a painter based in Brooklyn, NY. Her practice is rooted in her Haitian-American identity, upbringing, and Afro-Diasporic stories. She explores themes of nostalgia and familiarity by reconstructing and assembling melanges of urban and tropical environments to create utopias and realms of her imagination.
Kyra Assibey-Bonsu is a well-versed cultural education-based storyteller who believes the story defines how communities engage and thrive. She is a passionate urbanist who actively develops spaces through entrepreneurship and immigration/migration justice, like through her podcast, No Country for Moving.
