ABOUT CREATE CHANGE OPEN STUDIOS
This year’s Open Studios invite you into a space of transformation, experimentation, and possibility. As part of our 2025 Create Change Artist-in-Residence program, each event offers an intimate glimpse into the creative laboratories of artists who are working at the intersections of community, memory, and imagination.
Guided by this year’s theme, Quantum Leaping, our Artists-in-Residence are engaging in bold acts of time travel—rooting deeply into the past and present to uncover liberatory pathways for the future. In a moment when the world demands new ways of being, these artists are asking: What becomes possible when we leap toward collective freedom?
Through storytelling, performance, installation, and community dialogue, each Open Studio showcases works-in-progress that challenge linear thinking and embrace multiple narratives. These gatherings are not final presentations—they are thresholds, invitations to witness and participate in the artistic process as it unfolds in real time.
Together, we’ll explore legacies embedded in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn and throughout New York City—honoring cultural memory while imagining blueprints for a more just world.
ABOUT CREATE CHANGE
The Create Change Artist in Residence (AiR) program offers emerging and mid-career artists the opportunity to develop participatory art projects within their communities. Over the course of a year, AiRs lead public discussions, workshops, and other events while working alongside fellows and community members. They receive financial support, including an $18,000 honorarium and a $10,000 production budget, as well as mentorship and access to valuable professional resources. A specialized Bed-Stuy Residency is also available for artists committed to engaging directly with the Bedford-Stuyvesant community.
This year’s theme for the Create Change Lab is Quantum Leaping. In challenging times, we are called to delve deeply—not only into the present but also into the past—to uncover pathways toward liberation for ourselves and the communities of our future. Much like experiments in a lab, this space is designed for testing ideas, mixing perspectives, and catalyzing change. The legacies of our projects preserve the historical DNA of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, and the greater New York City area its rich cultures while emphasizing the importance of exploring multiple possibilities and narratives that speak to collective freedom. After the Lab, participants emerge transformed, equipped with a blueprint of actionable strategies to ignite meaningful change in their communities.
Open Studios are free and open to the public and the media.
Future locations will be updated on https://laundromatproject.org/
Please email [email protected] to RSVP or to request additional information.
CREATE CHANGE AiR’S OPEN STUDIO DATES
2025 Create Change Artists-in-Residence include:
Keshad Adeniyi
Zakiya Collier
Dahkil Hausif
Russell Frederick
Leslie Mejia
Briana Calderón Navarro
2025 Create Change Artists in Residence Open Studio Dates July – October
Briana Calderón Navarro
Community Fridge Restoration Tour
JULY 23, 6:30PM – 7:45PM
LOCATION: The Living Gallery – 1094 Broadway Brooklyn, NY 11221
The Community Fridge Revitalization Tour is a multi-stop campaign in Central Brooklyn that brings together artists and organizers to rehabilitate four longtime community fridges in need of structural repairs. By working together and sharing resources, we are revitalizing these essential resources for thousands of people experiencing food insecurity.
Keshad Adeniyi
A Note From the Field 003: The Story From Within
AUGUST 13, 6:30PM – 7:45PM
LOCATION: 35 Meadow Studios – 35 Meadow Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206
As an Artist in Residence for the Laundromat Project, I was slated to produce an art show composed of works created not only by myself but also by both demographics of youth. These works were informed by The Story From Within curriculum. Its goal was to inspire artworks that spoke to healing, community building, and the sociopolitical conditions of youth who fell on the spectrum of criminal legal system involvement.
Leslie Mejia
The Bronx in Color: Healing Grounds
SEPTEMBER 10, 6:30PM – 7:45PM
LOCATION: TBA
“The Bronx in Color: Healing Grounds” is the expansion of a multi dimensional initiative where the community is invited to reimagine the “healing journey” by centering Art, Play, and Joy through engaging in our “Wellness Playground”. This programming initiative takes Artistic therapeutic tools and introduces the community to new ways of taking care of themselves and each other with the overall goal of de-stigmatizing mental health wellness practices and bridging access to tools folks can add to their wellness tool box. Given that the Bronx has one of the highest rates of psychiatric hospitalizations in New York City and that the majority of its Medicaid-insured residents live areas with mental-health provider shortages, this project has potential to make a significant impact. I started the first iteration of the “Healing Grounds” project this September to commemorate suicide awareness/prevention month. We curated a space where wellness practitioners offered free services and consultations, Artists engaged in ceremonial art-making, and community was invited to collaborate in play, rest and creativity.
The Bronx in Color: Healing grounds (2.0) will be a 4-5 Wellness playground workshop series with community partners leading up to an exhibit& culminating event occurring in the Fall 2025 (coinciding with Suicide/Mental Health awareness).
Russell Frederick & Dahkil Hausif
Dark Room Diaspora: Giving Old Images A New (A.I.) Life
OCTOBER 1, 6:30PM – 7:45PM
LOCATION: TBA
Dark Room Diaspora is a project centered on the work of photographer Russell Frederick, a long-time Bed-Stuy resident who has been documenting the area since 1999. With an archive of 40,000 to 50,000 images, the goal is to create a unique image-generating program that authentically represents Black and Brown individuals, capturing the humanity within the community.
To achieve this, we will scan Frederick’s extensive collection of negatives, slides, and photos to develop a language model that accurately reflects his style. Collaborating with institutions like NYU or New Inc, we aim to secure the necessary computing resources (GPUs) and involve local programmers of Black and Brown descent to guide the development process. We will also hire interns and assistants to manage the high-quality scanning of these images.
The output will be an app using a subscription model, allowing the public to access an image generator that reflects the unique style of Russell Frederick. This platform will serve as an alternative to existing models like Leonardo or Midjourney but will focus on providing a data set that specifically represents Black and Brown communities.
This model is designed to be replicable, potentially allowing photographers with extensive libraries of their own to create their own image generators. We may even bundle artists with similar styles into a collective program. By doing so, artists can regain financial control over their work, which is often licensed and used without fair compensation. This project offers a direct way for communities to support their artists, keeping the resources and profits within the community. Our goal will be to present our findings and coding as an open source solution for other artists, as well as continue to develop relationships with institutions that will make the processing equipment available.
Zakiya Collier
Collective Remembrance: For the Art of Preserving Bed-Stuy Restoration History
OCTOBER 15, 6:30PM – 7:45PM
LOCATION: TBA
In an ever-changing Brooklyn, Collective Remembrance expands the documentation of and access to histories of Central Brooklyn and its Black Communities by preservation the archives stewarded by the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (Restoration) community. Using an intergenerational and creative, collective archival approach that directly fosters and resources relationships between Restoration’s key elders and community and local Black archivists and memory workers, this project shares and documents Black Brooklyn history, strengthens the Black memory work ecosystem, and uplifts the contributions that have nurtured Brooklyn’s character, art, culture, and sustainability. Participants will center their stories and be supported in the stewardship of their histories through oral histories, archival training workshops, a co-curated exhibition, public panels, and a preserved digital archive.
*NOTE: Open Studio locations will be updated as they are confirmed.