In partnership with Kinfolk Tech, The Clemente presents Cigar Workers’ University, an augmented-reality public artwork by artist Molly Crabapple, developed with archival research and contributions by scholar Monxo López. Join us to celebrate the launch of this new initiative at the beloved El Barrio landmark, La Marqueta, and hear from the artist-historian team themselves about the creation of the monument, inspired by writer and workers' rights advocate Bernardo Vega’s acclaimed memoirs. The monument will be accompanied by a limited-edition zine and self-guided walking tour.

The work memorializes Puerto Rican and Cuban cigar rollers, as well as the enduring history of La Marqueta, a community marketplace that has been active since the early 20th century. Crabapple’s AR monument honors Vega and the cigar workers he described—reading poetry, news, and political tracts aloud to one another as they rolled cigars—capturing a moment when labor, learning, and collective life converged.

Cigar Workers' University marks the launch of Historias in Motion, a new Historias signature series of virtual monuments and neighborhood site clusters that bring Latinx histories into the public sphere through digital and place-based storytelling. The inaugural edition focuses on East Harlem/El Barrio, viewed through the lens of writer and labor organizer Bernardo Vega and his chronicles of 1930s New York.

Cigar Workers’ University will remain accessible at La Marqueta via the Kinfolk App. This project is the first in a planned series of five monuments and walking tours to be launched across New York City through the fall of 2026.

RSVP here!

Remesas y Sobremesa: An archive immune to dispossession / Un archivo inmune a la desposesión

📅 Date: Saturday, October 18, 2025
🕕 Time: 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM
📍 Location: Flamboyán Theater, The Clemente Center

Remesas y Sobremesa makes dialogue a meal, carrying memory through food, storytelling, and shared ritual. The series reimagines the academic panel through the conviviality of the table. Taking its name from the remittances that sustain diasporic bonds, it transforms public dialogue into shared tradition.

For the fourth edition, Sofía Gallisá Muriente and Natalia Lassalle-Morillo will curate and host the evening, engaging in dialogue with peers they have invited and guiding an intimate conversation over a communal meal prepared by chef Pao Lebrón.

The evening invites participants to reflect on intangible archives and memories that cannot be possessed, shared among folks with diverse migration experiences to New York.

This event is part of the Historias Initiative, under the thematic track Material Culture & Memory: Diasporic Objects and Archives.

Hosts & Culinary Experience

Hosts: Sofía Gallisá Muriente & Natalia Lassalle-Morillo
Culinary Experience by: Pao Lebrón
Guest Participants: To be announced closer to the event.

About the Hosts

Sofía Gallisá Muriente and Natalia Lassalle-Morillo are visual artists living and working in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Their collaborative practice is grounded in research-based moving image projects that bring their distinct artistic methodologies into dialogue.

Their first collaboration, Foreign in a Domestic Sense, is a 4-channel film that weaves together the testimonies and imaginaries of Puerto Ricans who migrated to Central Florida following political and environmental disasters in the archipelago. The piece won the Audience Award for Best Experimental Film at the BlackStar Film Festival and has been presented at Third Horizon, the Flaherty Seminar, and as immersive installations at the Contemporary Art Museum at USF, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, Dazibao in Montréal (CA), and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taiwan.

Their most recent work, Unruly Subjects, engages with two Puerto Rican collections housed at the Smithsonian, exploring their histories of accession into the imperial archive and how indigenous and folk art objects exist within the institution. The project proposes and mediates forms of return to the people and places these objects belong to. Unruly Subjects was recently showcased in New York as part of the 2024 Vera List Center Forum and the Smithsonian Design Triennial at the Cooper Hewitt Museum.

Sofía and Natalia have been Smithsonian Artist Research Fellows and artists-in-residence at Headlands Center for the Arts together. They also continue pursuing their individual practices and other collaborative endeavors.

🔗 www.natalialassallemorillo.com | www.sofiagallisa.com
📸 IG: @natalialassallem | @hatoreina

RSVP

This is an intimate gathering with limited seating. RSVP here!

Accessibility & Dietary Notes

• Please let us know in advance of any food allergies or dietary restrictions when registering.

• The Flamboyán Theater is not wheelchair accessible; if you require additional accommodations, please contact us so we can best support your participation.

 We look forward to sharing this evening of food, memory, and collective reflection with you.

The event will be preceded by "From Which We Descend," a hands-on archival and oral history workshop exploring memory, family, and legacy, led bycultural preservationist Djali Brown-Cepeda, founder of NuevaYorkinos. The workshop will be held on the fourth floor in Studio 406 from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM.

Join Djali Brown-Cepeda, Cultural Preservationist and Founder/Curator of NuevaYorkinos, for a day of oral history and archiving.

What does home mean? What does it look like? When was the last time you looked through photo albums with your loved ones? Spoke with your families about your personal histories?

In this workshop, Djali Brown-Cepeda walks us through her process of listening, sharing, and archiving as a cultural preservationist and community archivist. Bridging oral history and personal family photographs and ephemera, we ensure the survival of our lineages and legacies.

In this workshop, we'll:

• discuss the importance of oral history

• pen our own stories

• scan and digitize photos and ephemera

• walk away with tools on how to be our family's archivists

Please bring:

• family photo albums

• a notebook, or laptop

• an external hard drive (USB/thumb drives are great!)

How can we honor our pasts by using the tools we have access to today? How can we reframe the way we look at our day-to-day lives as budding archivists? How can we begin cultivating memory? And from this cultivation, how can we begin to activate our relationships to memory as a vehicle for grounding, self-preservation, and understanding?

RSVP here.

Djali Brown-Cepeda is a Capricornian cultural preservationist and visual storyteller. Rooted in the tenets of reclamation and rematriation, her work as a film and television producer centers oral tradition and lived experiences as a tool of cultural restoration. The founder of NuevaYorkinos, an oral history archive dedicated to documenting and preserving NYC's Latine and Caribbean culture and history through family photos, oral history, and ephemera, she is a book worm and self-taught public historian, with a penchant for all things red, black, and green. An Olorisha Yemayá, memory worker, alchemist. A steward of remembrance. A Mother to a Sun. An eldest daughter and vinyl collector of Caribbean, Afro Native, and Southern heritage. Fifth generation Gullah Geechee from unceded Wecquaesgeek territory in Lenapehoking (Upper Manhattan, New York City). She enjoys tending to her altars and conspiring with the Universe for all good things. You can find her annotating her books sipping on wine she usually can’t afford, or any pilsner or lager. Prefers a cup of dark roast coffee, speaking to spirit, and being barefoot on the grass. Wherever she goes, so do her ancestors.

(This is held in conjunction with La Incubadora, which is exhibited in the same location. You are encouraged to come and view the exhibition before or after the workshop!)

The Clemente will partner with eleven community organizations to co-present the International Indigenous Hip-Hop Festival (IIHHF), a four-day gathering rooted in the origins of hip-hop culture, which emerged in the wake of displacement caused by the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway. Linking this history to the experiences of Latinx diasporas and Indigenous communities, the festival examines contemporary struggles against the erasure of Indigenous languages and the ongoing impact of environmental disaster.

Festival components to highlight include a Grounding Ceremony and Community Care Workshops, centering Indigenous and diasporic practices of restoration, alongside the afternoon Workshops series. The Clemente contributes to Territory & Land Reclamation in the Face of Displacement, led by Monxo López, Libertad O. Guerra, and Oscar Oliver-Didier of South Bronx Unite (SBU), The Clemente, and the Shape of Cities to Come Institute (SCCI). This session traces the Bronx’s history of dispossession and community-led reclamation.

RSVP here.

The Clemente will partner with eleven community organizations to co-present the International Indigenous Hip-Hop Festival (IIHHF), a four-day gathering rooted in the origins of hip-hop culture, which emerged in the wake of displacement caused by the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway. Linking this history to the experiences of Latinx diasporas and Indigenous communities, the festival examines contemporary struggles against the erasure of Indigenous languages and the ongoing impact of environmental disaster.

As part of its contributions, Historias will support the festival’s citywide programming while also co-developing the Rematriation Trail collaboration with the Shape of Cities to Come Institute (SCCI), South Bronx Unite (SBU), and the Mott Haven Community Land Stewards. The Trail connects historic and reclaimed sites through guided tours, workshops on environmental justice and land stewardship, and pan-Indigenous ceremonial practices, complemented by  wheatpasting of images by photo pioneers Joe Conzo and Jamel Shabazz. A public walking tour through the South Bronx will be held on October 9 from 12:00pm - 1:30pm, led by Land Stewards, SBU leadership, and Bronx historians. Beyond the festival, the Trail will endure as a collaborative project, building on signature components of Historias, including the Nueva York Chronicles platform, to ensure its legacy continues. To learn more, visit the IIHHF’s website.

At a moment when individual, collective, and structural transformation is urgently needed, can the simple act of cultivating food hold the key? Department of Transformation, The Clemente, and Project EATS (a living installation and network of urban farms created by artist, activist, and entrepreneur extraordinaire Linda Goode Bryant) are excited and thrilled to co-organize Companion Planting, a hands-on, half-day program celebrating the power of collaboration and creativity to catalyze transformative action and provide collective nourishment at the intersection of artistic practice and food justice.

Beginning at Project EATS’ Essex Market rooftop farm site, Companion Planting will begin with a mindful group movement exercise led by Sofia Reeser del Rio, Curator and Associate Director of Programs for The Clemente. This will be , followed by a session of gardening in the farm’s raised beds, before concluding with a community meal conceived by trans-disciplinary artist Zacarias Gonzalez, accompanied by a conversation exploring the intersection of creative practice, urban ecology, and food sovereignty.

Epitomized by la milpa, the traditional Mesoamerican medley of corn, beans, and squash also known as the “three sisters,” companion planting is the practice of intercropping to engender mutually beneficial relationships among diverse guilds of plants. This symbiotic interdependence—corn supporting beans to climb, beans providing nitrogen to the soil, squash providing ground cover and living mulch—is a powerful testament to a simple truth: we grow stronger when we grow together.

Organized by Sam Rauch for Department of Transformation, Companion Planting brings together two vital cultural and civic anchors of the Lower East Side: The Clemente, a multi-arts institution supporting New York City’s Latinx creative community since 1993, and Project EATS, a living installation and citywide network of small-scale, high-yield urban farms and associated programs founded by legendary artist, activist, and entrepreneur Linda Goode Bryant. Gather and grow together with us!

RSVP here!

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Zacarías González (b. 1984, Cuba) is transdisciplinary artist and filmmaker based in NYC. Their practice looks at place-specific strategies for designing with life, rather than against it, particularly within the fields of agroecology, public architecture, and public health. Their work considers interconnectedness in the face of overlapping global crises, often using food as a container in which we explore our relationships through long-term participatory projects, interventions in public spaces, filmmaking, and writing. González’s current long-term project is earth life.

Their work has been supported through collaborations with: The Institute for Public Architecture, KERMESSE and Galerie Derouillon, Creative Time, The Storefront for Art and Architecture, MoMa PS1, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn Museum, Recess Art, Socrates Sculpture Park. They have previously been a visiting lecturer at The School of Visual Arts and New School University Eugene Lang College.

Sofía S. Reeser del Rio is a New York City based curator, scholar, multidisciplinary artist, and educator whose practice. Specializing in Latinx, Latin American, and Caribbean art, she produces exhibitions that champion LGBTQ+ and self-identified female creatives from Puerto Rico. Her work integrates ecological working models, community wellness initiatives, and sustainable cultural production.

Sofía is Curator and Associate Director of Programs at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center in NYC, where she leads cutting-edge digital storytelling, archival research, and innovative community gathering initiatives. As Co-Curator of Historias and Project Lead of Nueva York Chronicles, in collaboration with Libertad O. Guerra, she is redefining how Latinx narratives are collected, archived, and shared through interactive, multimedia platforms. Her visionary leadership has been recognized through multiple awards, fellowships, and residencies, underscoring her commitment to advancing knowledge justice and rethinking art, science, and civic practice as catalysts for sustainable community engagement.

ABOUT THE CO-ORGANIZERS

Project EATS is a living installation created by artist, activist, and entrepreneur Linda Goode Bryant. For fifteen years, Project EATS has been transforming vacant lots and rooftops into neighborhood-based farms supporting farm stands, pantries, prepared food, art projects, and community programs, catalyzing creativity and cultivating not just fresh produce, but opportunities for leadership, economic empowerment, and food sovereignty across New York City. The integration of Art and Food increases the use of imagination, creativity, commitment, and determination as tool for reshaping social, economic, cultural and environmental conditions towards an empowered Life. Project EATS: Art that Feeds.

Department of Transformation (DOT) is an artist-organized group founded by designer, curator, and educator Prem Krishnamurthy, that prototypes experimental methods for togetherness, learning, and collective healing. Through workshops, events, publications, exhibitions, and institutional consulting (+ karaoke!), we support others in their own processes of change. We believe that by transforming the arts, we can transform ourselves, our communities, and our world.
DOT is proud to have a 2025-2026 micro-residency at The Clemente.

The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Education Center is a Puerto Rican/Latinx multi-arts institution rooted in the historic Lower East Side/Loisaida, where it has served as a vital cultural anchor for more than three decades. Founded on principles of artistic freedom and cultural equity, The Clemente celebrates and preserves Puerto Rican and Latinx traditions while embracing a multi-ethnic and international vision.

The Clemente’s mission is to steward a vibrant, polyphonic space that amplifies diverse voices, fosters intergenerational exchange, and supports the creation of contemporary, multidisciplinary work. Through affordable studios, performance venues, and collaborative platforms, we provide essential resources to artists, small arts organizations, and independent producers who reflect the richness of New York City’s cultural landscape. Guided by the legacy of our namesake, poet and organizer Clemente Soto Vélez, we are committed to building culturally grounded, multigenerational leadership, local power, and mutuality.

The Clemente is proud to partner with The Healing Project, South Bronx Unite, and the Mott Haven–Port Morris Community Land Stewards for a powerful afternoon of music, food, and collective reflection at Willis Playground.

This community offering highlights the H.E.Arts campaign, an effort led by South Bronx Unite to establish a hub for Health, Education, and the Arts on the historic grounds of the former Lincoln Detox Center—where members of the Young Lords once pioneered alternatives to methadone and advanced community-based wellness practices.

As part of our evolving collaboration with artist Samora Pinderhughes, the event will feature a special live performance by The Healing Project Choir. Together, we will celebrate resilience, creativity, and the ongoing struggle for community well-being in the South Bronx.

NuevaYorkinos and Capicu invite you to the opening of La Incubadora, a multimedia immersive experience that uses domino and tile game culture as a vehicle to celebrate Black, Caribbean, and Chinese heritage of Lower Manhattan. Through archival materials, interactive games, and community-driven programming—including workshops, artist talks, open mics, and film screenings—La Incubadora seeks to create space for Black, Brown, and immigrant New Yorkers to convene, connect, and navigate the realities of an ever-changing city, together. Come join us for our Opening Night Reception! We'll start the night with a panel and open-form conversation with cultural preservationist Djali Brown-Cepeda, Tido Cabrera of Capicu, and Rochelle Kwan and Alice Liu of Chinatown Records, followed by a tour of the exhibit and activation at Room 406.

RSVP here.

Panellists:

Djali Brown-Cepeda is a Capricornian cultural preservationist and visual storyteller. Rooted in the tenets of reclamation and rematriation, her work as a film and television producer centers oral tradition and lived experiences as a tool of cultural restoration. The founder of NuevaYorkinos, an oral history archive dedicated to documenting and preserving NYC's Latine and Caribbean culture and history through family photos, oral history, and ephemera, she is a book worm and self-taught public historian, with a penchant for all things red, black, and green. An Olorisha Yemayá, memory worker, alchemist. A steward of remembrance. A Mother to a Sun. An eldest daughter and vinyl collector of Caribbean, Afro Native, and Southern heritage. Fifth generation Gullah Geechee from unceded Wecquaesgeek territory in Lenapehoking (Upper Manhattan, New York City). She enjoys tending to her altars and conspiring with the Universe for all good things. You can find her annotating her books sipping on wine she usually can’t afford, or any pilsner or lager. Prefers a cup of dark roast coffee, speaking to spirit, and being barefoot on the grass. Wherever she goes, so do her ancestors.

Tido Cabrera, born and raised in New York, is a cultural producer and community organizer. He is the founder of Capicu! NYC, a party and lifestyle brand that celebrates Nuyorican, Afro-Caribbean, and Latin American heritage through dominoes, DJs, and dancing.

Rochelle yiuyiu Kwan is a DJ historian & educator homebased on Lenape land in New York City's Manhattan Chinatown. She takes on her childhood name yiuyiu 瑶瑶 for Chinatown Records 華埠錄音 to activate the music, memory, & history of the community archive of over 30 record/CD/tape collections inherited from her family & neighbors. She has the most fun bringing the music out of the archive onto the streets & into the living rooms we share – all alongside her family, neighbors, & loved ones, who first made her into a DJ and taught her so much along the way. As a community-taught & -powered DJ historian, she especially loves training up our next generations of DJ historians of all ages to bring the music of our homes & families to life with us. She leads storytelling projects and training with Think!Chinatown and so many more community classrooms, so we can all learn to look to our loved ones to pass down & celebrate our histories together. She will always be a dancer first.

Alice Liu is a longtime resident, intergenerational small business owner, and community organizer born & bred in NYC's Chinatown. With her family, she heads Grand Tea & Imports, a tea and Buddhist goods store in the heart of Chinatown. She is Think!Chinatown's star Community Outreach & Production Lead, with her love for hanging out with and learning from neighborhood aunties & uncles. As a budding DJ historian with Chinatown Records, she embraces her childhood as a 90's kid who grew up alongside Mandarin and Cantonese hits that spanned from the 80's to whatever is on the radio at the moment. As an adult, whenever these songs pop back into her life, they feel like a visit from an old friend. In recent years, she has been centering this feeling when she makes playlists for family gatherings, smiling whenever she catches stoic aunties and uncles unknowingly humming along.

A4 brings together Asian diasporic artists from experimental/countercultural music scenes and community leaders to discuss the lack of access Asian diasporic communities have to countercultural arts. Artists in the diaspora, especially those who work within experimental and countercultural scenes, often challenge traditional boundaries of genre and aesthetics. In doing so, they often look inward towards their own cultural roots, as well as practices from various other cultures. It is only natural then that Asian countercultural artists would wish to perform for an audience that would deeply understand the cultural implications of their transgressive work.

Yet in organizing around aesthetic ideologies, countercultural music scenes and audiences, especially in New York City, exhibit a widening class and racial divide. The dominance of white curatorial spaces often distances Asian diasporic communities from artists and venues. Further, who gets to be an artist within countercultures must also be critically examined. While arts movements often idealize working-class politics, the level of professionalization of music writ large necessitates capital investment (in the form of schooling, PR, marketing, agents/managers) to even consider becoming a working musician in any genre, including countercultural ones.

Who is countercultural music for? Who should countercultural music be for? How can we organize in a way that changes who this music scene is being developed by and for? Join us for a panel discussion on these questions, the current state of the problem, imagining better futures, and more.

Panelists include Che Chen, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and curator for Four One One; Amirtha Kidambi, musician, bandleader of Elder Ones, educator, and activist; Thanu Yakupitiyage, also known as DJ Ushka, who traverses genres across electronic club & bass music; and Shahana Hanif, City Council Member for New York City’s 39th District.

The discussion will be co-moderated by Ravish Momin, drummer, producer, and educator; and Leo Chang, musician, scholar of experimental arts, and operations associate at A4. The evening will begin with a short performance by panelists Che Chen and Amirtha Kidambi, followed by an hour of structured panel discussion. There will be time for Q&A and mingling following the panel.

The event is co-presented with the Clemente, a Puerto Rican and Latinx cultural space rooted in the Lower East Side. This event is open to all, particularly performers, community and arts organizers, and cultural workers of all backgrounds.

This event is FREE and open to the public. We suggest a $5 donation to go towards keeping A4’s programs free.

RSVP here.

Agenda:
6:30-7:00 pm (30 min) – Performance
7:00-8:00 pm (60 min) – Panel
8:00-8:15 pm (15 min) – Q&A
8:15-8:30 pm (15 min) – Mingling

Recording: The panel discussion will be recorded and published on A4’s YouTube channel after the event.

Accessibility: Due to renovations happening at the Clemente, the space is temporarily not ADA accessible. There are five steps leading up to the door of the theater and three flights of stairs to the bathroom. We apologize for the inconvenience.

If you need CART Transcription, ASL interpretation, large print, or any other accommodations for this event, please email programs@aaartsalliance.org at least one week before this event.

To keep everyone safe and healthy, if you are not feeling well, please stay at home. We will provide masks and hand sanitizer.

Bios

About Che Chen
Che Chen is an improviser, composer, bandleader, multi-instrumentalist and concert organizer based in Queens, NY. An energetic presence in New York City’s experimental underground since the early 2000s, he has tread an idiosyncratic path from noise-song duo True Primes to playing in groups led by drone minimalists and Japanese outsider artists, to studying guitar in Mauritania and improvising with veterans from NYC’s storied free jazz community. Organizing concerts has always been a parallel activity, stemming from a firm belief that music must take place in community: he currently curates for FourOneOne. Chen’s performances explore improvisation as an extension of listening, setting the spontaneous invention of his playing within electronic drones, noise, and an immersive sense of space.

About Amirtha Kidambi
Amirtha Kidambi is invested in the creation and performance of subversive, anti-hegemonic music, from free improvisation and avant-jazz, to Indian carnatic and devotional, experimental bands, electronic music, noise, and new music. She is an educator, activist, and organizer working to challenge systems of white supremacist, colonial, capitalist patriarchy, and is co-founder and co-organizer of South Asian Artists in Diaspora and Musicians Against Police Brutality. As a bandleader and composer, she is the creative force behind the incendiary protest group Elder Ones and has received critical praise for her albums Holy Science (2016) and From Untruth (2019) on Northern Spy records from the New York Times, Pitchfork, Wire Magazine and Downbeat among others.

About Shahana Hanif
Council Member Shahana Hanif represents New York City’s 39th Council District, which includes parts of Kensington, Borough Park, Windsor Terrace, Park Slope, Gowanus, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, and the Columbia Waterfront. She is the first Bangladeshi and Muslim woman elected to the New York City Council and the first woman to represent the 39th District. Born and raised in the 39th District to Bangladeshi immigrant parents, Council Member Hanif has dedicated her career to advocating for working-class families and advancing a city built on care, equity, and safety. Her personal battle with Lupus, diagnosed at age 17, and her experiences with the challenging healthcare system and City services, inspired her commitment to public service.

About Ravish Momin
Ravish Momin is an Indian-born drummer, electronic music producer, and educator residing in New York City. Momin studied privately with US Jazz master-drummer Andrew Cyrille while he worked as an engineer in New York City in the late 1990s. A Structural/Civil Engineer by training, he quit his engineering practice in 2003 to become a professional musician. His current projects include duos with dragonchild (DA Mekonnen of Debo Band) and Faraway Ghost (Iranian singer/songwriter Kamyar Arsani.) As Sunken Cages, Momin plays electronic drums. While rooted in Indian and Black Music traditions, he is also influenced by the street sounds of underground dance music from Sao Paolo to Durban to Mumbai.

About Leo Chang
Leo Chang is a Korean improviser, composer, performer, and scholar of experimental music. Born in Seoul, Leo lived as an expat in Singapore, Taipei, and Shanghai, until moving to the United States in 2011. His art is an act of homemaking inspired by various musical and ideological movements that have sought to question power dynamics and imagine egalitarian possibilities. His primary methods are free improvisation, written text, graphical notation, and electronic processing. In the past six years, he has been focused on building electronic performance setups derived from Korean folk practices and instruments. Leo holds a PhD in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is also A4’s Operations Associate, where he manages grant reports and various administrative responsibilities.

A soloist on stage in a duet with an invisible counterpart. The musicians are separated by place, time, and war. One plays live in New York, the other appears via a recording made earlier in Kyiv. This format was first realized in November 2024 as a “signal” from wartime Kyiv to peaceful Berlin. In its current edition, that same signal now travels across the ocean to New York. The Ukrainian musician does not know whether the dialogue with his counterpart will succeed. In New York, it unfolds as a conversation the other side cannot hear.

The musical experience of the evening will suggest a complex entanglement of pieces from composers Anna Arkushyna, Ihor Zavhorodnii, and Albert Saprykin in their attempt at personal and collective research on the topic of fragile connections and uncertainty in dialogue during the war and beyond.

Presented by Leah Batstone and the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in collaboration with Kyiv Contemporary Music Days, in partnership with The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center.

RSVP here.

About the Artists:

Kyiv Contemporary Music Days (KCMD) produces festivals, concerts of chamber, orchestra, and electroacoustic music, live streams, masterclasses for composers and performers, and lectures for professional musicians and a wider audience. Since February 24, 2022, we also try to preserve the Ukrainian music community and make sure Ukrainian voices are heard internationally.

Founded in 2020, the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival (UCMF) is dedicated to showcasing Ukraine’s complex and diverse contributions to contemporary music through performances, educational opportunities, and community engagement with composers, scholars, and performers. The Festival is one of its kind in North America, actively engaging the intersection of new music, current events, and Ukrainian culture.

Nazarii Stets is a Ukrainian double bass player focused on contemporary music and the promotion of modern Ukrainian repertoire. Born in 1991 in Kopychyntsi, Ukraine, into a musical family, he began his musical journey on the violin before switching to double bass after seven years. He studied double bass at the Ternopil Music College under Vasyl Felenchak and then earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees at the National Music Academy of Ukraine named after P. Tchaikovsky, studying with Oleksandr Melnyk from the National Opera of Ukraine.

Gleb Kanasevich is a clarinetist and composer based between Detroit and the East Coast. As of July, 2022, he is a permanent member of Detroit-based Hub New Music, with whom he tours regularly and performed at many of the country’s most renowned concert series, venues and festivals. He is an active soloist and session musician, having recently worked with John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, Cleveland-based death metal band Noxis, and on soundtracks for Netflix and A24 films. He has been closely working with the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in New York City since 2021, frequently covering the festival’s electronic and live sound needs, concert production, and clarinet duties.

2nd Latine Children’s Music Day | Arte Pa’ Mi Gente 

When: Saturday, August 9 @ 1PM – 5PM

Where: The Clemente 

Organized by: Teatro Sea

FREE and open to all!

Join us for the 2nd Latine Children’s Music Day — an afternoon filled with music, culture, and fun for the whole family! This year featuring special Guests: Mariachi Academy of New York

This renowned group is dedicated to preserving mariachi tradition by training young Latinx musicians in the art of mariachi. Their powerful performances and deep cultural pride make them one of the most exciting youth ensembles in NYC. 

Brought to you by Teatro SEA as part of one of The Clemente’s seasonal staple events: Arte Pa’ Mi Gente Festival — celebrating Latinx art, music, and identity for the whole community. Don’t miss this magical day of joy and heritage, with live music, colorful characters, kid-friendly activities and more!

MORE INFO HERE

School may be out for summer, but the season of learning never ends! Department of Transformation is pleased to announce Let’s Stay Together, an intimate prototype for a public skill-building workshop. Whether you’re an educator, artist, designer, curator, musician, therapist, writer, thinker, chef, facilitator, gardener—or, really, any kind of maker!—this experimental workshop is an opportunity to pause, reflect, and connect with other curious humans around cultivating tools for collaboration, conflict, and co-creation.

Space is limited—RSVP today to hold your spot!

Led by award-winning designer, curator, and DOT founder P! Krishnamurthy, we’ll gather together to unpack the kit of experimental creative and relational tools that DOT has brought to schools, museums, festivals, and other institutions around the world—from Texas to Thailand and tons of places in between. Together, we’ll help develop skills that can sustain and enrich the lives of emerging and established creative practitioners alike. Expect participatory learning, stretching our individual envelopes, connecting with new creative folks—and even, perhaps, a little karaoke! ;)

Please note that due to ongoing construction, Studio 309 is only accessible by stair. Please contact us with any questions or concerns about accessibility access.

🤑Current Students / Recent Graduates $20

🤑🤑Educators: $30

🤑🤑🤑Professionals: $40

Note on fees: This four-hour workshop is offered on a sliding scale based on career / professional experience. We ask participants to self-identify their level of income and experience, and to use this in guiding their contribution to DOT. Your contribution allows DOT to make workshops and programs accessible for a wide range of participants. Please register here.

The Response: Echoes Beneath the Rain

When: Thursday, July 17, 2025 @  7:00 – 9:00 PM

Where: Flamboyan Theater @ The Clemente

Live performances by: Olive Toran, Natie , Brittany Harris

RSVP HERE!

Join us for an immersive sonic installation by Olive Toran in collaboration with Rainproof NYC and Rebuild by Design.

 Let the storm speak. Rain is more than weather-it’s memory, warning, and connection. This immersive installation weaves sound, images, and community voices to explore how water arrives, disrupts, and how we respond. 

Plus: A spotlight on Rainproof NYC Partners driving local solutions to flooding.

Acrylic Painting Nach dem Sturm “After the Storm” by Marie Amoyi

*Attendance is limited, and registration is required to confirm your place. Only registered guests will be admitted.

ARTIST BIOS:

Olive Toran is a multidisciplinary artist and environmentalist, working with poetry, photography, storytelling, and music to explore the emotional and ecological landscapes of our time. Her work centers memory, connection, and renewal, inviting audiences into spaces of reflection and healing. Her works include Inner and Outer Transformations: The Climate Crisis, an immersive multimedia exhibit on personal healing and climate action. Olive’s work has also appeared in Culture Push Issue 21: Community and Climate Adaptation and is shaped by years of hands-on learning, including time in India exploring participatory development and waste management systems. Her art is grounded in over a decade of lived experience, working across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean in climate and health and climate adaptation. Olive created the People’s Toolkit for Flood Mitigation and leads networks to amplify community knowledge and climate action. She is a certified herbalist and board member of Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards (SAWS). She currently serves as the Atlas of Disaster Outreach Coordinator at Rebuild by Design.

Explore Olive’s work here>>

Natie is a creole musician/singer-songwriter from Reunion Island, based in NYC. After a world tour in Beyoncé & Jay-Z’s band in 2018, Natie launched her solo career with the release of her music video “Identity” & her debut EP “In the Key Of Fall.” Through her music, Natie aims to share the experience of being creole (mixed race) and uprooted, with authenticity and grounding, in the hope of fostering more openness and belonging. With these values in mind, the artist has launched her own festival, Kréol Fest, an artistic celebration of creole culture from around the world. Her multilingual/soothing EP “Home: a place within aux parfums d’ailleurs” also came out last year with a stunning cinematic music video shot in both her homes, untitled ‘Ter La’. Natie’s recent performances include Global Fest with the Ragini Ensemble, Summerstage with Ganavya, and a solo performance for 100 Years 100 Women at Lincoln Center. She recently performed in her home island for the 20th anniversary of the festival Sakifo.

Instagram | Spotify | Youtube | Explore Natie’s work here>>

Brittany Harris is a Detroit native with dual Bachelor’s in Music Education and Cello Performance (Western Michigan University) and a Master’s in Film Scoring (NYU, 2022). Since 2015, Brooklyn-based freelance, recording, touring, and off-Broadway cellist. Performed at SNL, The Tonight Show, Carnegie Hall, The Apollo, Lincoln Center, and on tour with Escape The Fate and the Emo Orchestra. Brittany performs with FEMPIRE (with Sarah Overton) and as a solo artist, blending classical, rock, jazz, indie folk, and soul. Works as a TV/film/media composer, sound designer, studio/touring cellist, music copyist, arranger, transcriber, and music analyst for Ethos. Credits include work for Babyface, Loren Allred, Rob Lewis & Orchestra, Broadway/off-Broadway, Machinal (MTC City Center), and co-creating the podcast Good Night Black Child—a space for bedtime stories and meditations centering the Black and Brown diaspora.

Explore Brittany’s work here>>

Transforming Texts- An experimental reading group

When: Wednesdays March 5, April 2, May 7, June 4, 2025 @ 6-8 PM

Where: Room 309 @ The Clemente

Organized by: Department of Transformation

RSVP HERE

Can we redefine our futures by redefining our forms? How might the act of reading together—over a cup or three of tea— itself be transformational? Join us on Wednesday, July 2, for the fifth meeting of “Transforming Texts,” Department of Transformation’s experimental reading group. 

This month, we’ll discuss “Darjeeling: The Colorful History and Precarious Fate of the World’s Greatest Tea” by Jeff Koehler, in a session co-facilitated by tea expert Max Falkowitz, featuring a very special Darjeeling tea service! 

“Transforming Texts” is led by Prem Krishnamurthy and Sam Rauch of Department of Transformation, with contributions from a rotating cast of brilliant co-facilitators. This program is free and open to the public, supported by The Clemente. Graphics by Mark Foss @markjfoss

For more info, contact hello@dept-of-transformation.org 

PEST

When: Opening Friday, June 27 @ 6-9 PM | Closing Sunday, August 3 @ 2-4 PM

On view: June 27 - August 3, 2025

Where: 4th Floor at The Clemente

Artists: Mike Estabrook, David B Frye, Robert Goldkind, Vandana Jain, Katarina Jerinic, Mark Power

Organized by: ABC No Rio Visual Arts Collective

RSVP HERE!

What gets under your skin?

PEST examines the persistent, the unwanted, the overlooked—and the deeply unsettling. Curated by members of the ABC No Rio Artist Collective, this group exhibition brings together artists who probe the idea of the "pest" in its many forms: the literal and metaphorical, the social and psychological, the seen and the felt.

Whether creepy, crawly, or conceptual, pests are things we endure, resist, or attempt to erase—yet they remain, multiplying at the edges of our comfort. PEST explores what it means to be irked, to feel annoyance or unease, and to confront the entities and forces we often wish would just go away.

Through installation, video, sculpture, and mixed media, participating artists interrogate our complex relationships with pests: how they disrupt, how they adapt, and how, in some cases, they mirror aspects of ourselves and our societies.

CRUCES: Thinking in Public Forum

When: June 14 @ 10am–5:30pm

Where: The Clemente, 107 Suffolk St, NY, NY, 10002

Keynote Speakers: Chat Travieso and Johanna Fernández,

Roots & Resistance: Reclaiming Historias in the Bronx
For this keynote conversation, historian Johanna Fernandez and artist Chat Travieso will explore the legacy of music, resistance, and the reclamation of space in the South Bronx.

Artistic Keynote Performance: Shaun Leonardo, performing Rehearsal

A rehearsal is unscripted, unfixed – a workshop of the workshop – a moment of planning and execution in one. It need not reach resolve or finality. A rehearsal might provide the time and space for an unsettled moment of reckoning or simply serve as training for how we might exist with one another.

For CRUCES, Rehearsal will cull participatory somatic responses from the historically grounded morning sessions to transition attendees to the future-facing afternoon sessions. 

Delegates: Oscar Oliver-Didier, Gabriel Hernández Solano, Rev. Juan Carlos Ruiz, Suhaly Bautista-Carolina, Elena Martinez, Marlene Ramirez Cancio, Cristina Pérez Jiménez, Lizania Cruz, Dylan Gamboa, Jorge Matos, Ligia Guallpa, Monxo López, Yazmany Arboleda

RSVP HERE!

*All passes include a community lunch

CRUCES: Thinking in Public Forum is a daylong convening of cultural workers, artists, community leaders, scholars, and neighbors, designed as an open, participant-driven space for collective inquiry and exchange. As the culminating event of Sembradas (Phase 1 of Historias), this forum inaugurates CRUCES (Crossings), a signature series of public convenings dedicated to fostering dialogue and collaboration within and beyond the Latinx community. Rooted in the principles of knowledge justice, the forum surfaces collective, situated knowledge and responds to the intentional erasure of culture-specific histories by centering public storytelling, memory work, and shared authorship as vital practices of resistance.

Inspired by unconference models, the event invites unstructured dialogue across three core frameworks:

• Democratizing Scholarship – Advancing inclusive knowledge-making by cultivating scholarship as a communal and iterative process that values co-creation and mutual learning.

  
  
  

• Community-Based Research – Grounding inquiry in lived experience, memory, and intergenerational dialogue to expand the boundaries of knowledge production and foster deeper exchange between communities and institutions.
  
  
  

• Formats for Collective Thinking – advancing participatory methodologies such as creative archiving, mapping, annotation and oral traditions to serve communities in this political moment.
  
  
  

This forum offers a space to reimagine authorship and cultural stewardship—where Latinx and allied communities are not merely subjects of study, but active participants in shaping the narratives that define them. Together, these projects invite reflection on who gathers knowledge, for what purposes, and under whose authority—while generating meaningful, community-rooted insights into Latinx cultural life in New York City.

In doing so, Historias poses a central question: How can we collectively build knowledge infrastructures that honor the complexity, creativity, and enduring contributions of Latinx communities across this city?

Breakout Session Topics:

Schedule:

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM | Central Convening & Keynote Framing with Johanna Fernandez and Chat Travieso

11:15 AM – 12:15 PM | Morning Breakout Sessions: Tracing the Past

12:10 PM – 1:15 PM | Midday Share-Backs & Communal Lunch

1:15 – 1:45 PM | Participatory Keynote Performance with Shaun Leonardo

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Afternoon Breakout Sessions: Imagining the Future

3:15 PM – 4:15 PM | Collective Synthesis & Action Wall

4:15 PM – 5:30 PM | Karaoke Practice! (with D.O.T.) + Afterparty

To conclude a generative day of embodied archiving, speculative visioning, and collective creating, Clemente residents Department of Transformation (D.O.T.) will lead a closing session that synthesizes the conceptual strands explored by each breakout session cohort. Through a show-and-tell presentation and rapid proposal prototyping process called Idea Machine, participants will be empowered to come together, think boldly, and take a concrete step towards manifesting the future we dream up together. 

Led by founder Prem Krishnamurthy and curator Sam Rauch, Department of Transformation is an artist-organized group that investigates new formats for collective learning and healing.

*The Clemente is proud to be in the process of a major capital project to bring our historic building into ADA compliance for greater accessibility for all. In the meantime, please note that our building is inaccessible for wheelchair users and potentially other mobility impairments. Don't hesitate to contact info@theclementecenter.org for questions or accessibility requests; we will do our best to accommodate.

Plantando Bandera: Pre-National Puerto Rican Day Parade

When: June 7 @ 2-5 PM

Where: Grand Street Settlement, 80 Pitt St, NYC

Free & Open to the Public | All Ages Welcome

RSVP HERE!

Celebrate Puerto Rican culture, resistance, and legacy at this special pre-parade gathering honoring the 2025 cohort of artists, organizers, and cultural leaders. Co-organized with the National Puerto Rican Day Parade Committee, this year marks the 130th anniversary of the Puerto Rican flag.

Featured guests include honorees Hermes Croatto and Mariana Reyes Angleró, who will speak about La Goyco, and Marcelo Matos of La Casa de la Plena, who will lead a youth-focused workshop. Libertad Guerra and Victor Rivera will offer reflections on Clemente Soto Vélez, and Mujeres con Sazón will lead From Jayuya to New York: Boricua Cuisine is Culture.

We especially welcome families and community groups with youth programs—join us for live music, hands-on activities, storytelling, and intergenerational celebration.

The afternoon will feature:
A hands-on community workshop
Short presentations by the honorees
Live music and celebration
Opportunities to connect and share stories

This is more than a tribute—it’s a space for intergenerational exchange, creative expression, and collective pride.

Come celebrate those who carry the legacy forward—before we take to the streets.

___

SCHEDULE (2:00 PM – 5:00 PM)

• 2:00 PM – Doors Open
  Roy Brown Playlist
  Archival Image Projections
  Children’s Art-Making Table
  Refreshments Available

• 2:10 PM – Welcome Remarks
  

• 2:15 PM – Segment 1: Libertad Guerra + Victor Rivera: Clemente: Donde la Vanguardia Abraza al Pueblo

  Brief framing of Clemente Soto Vélez’s legacy and the Historias initiative
  Featuring excerpts from the CENTRO documentary: A Revolt Through Letters: Clemente Soto Vélez

• 2:55 PM – Segment 2: Hermes Croatto: Taller de Música Jíbara y nueva canción

  Musical exploration of Puerto Rican Jíbaro and Nueva Canción styles
  Live performance and interactive engagement

• 3:20 PM – Mujeres con Sazón: Desde Jayuya a Nueva York, Gastronomía Boricua es Cultura
  Coffee from Jayuya story

• 3:35 PM – Segment 3: Mariana Reyes & Marcelo Matos: Taller de la Plena

  Hands-on rhythms, percussion, and history of Plena and the history of La Goyco and Casa de La Plena. Community participation encouraged!

• 4:00 PM – Closing Celebration
  Final Remarks + Plena/Salsa/Roy Brown Playlist

Transforming Texts- An experimental reading group

When: Wednesdays March 5, April 2, May 7, June 4, 2025 @ 6-8 PM

Where: Room 309 @ The Clemente

Organized by: Department of Transformation

RSVP HERE!

Can we redefine our futures by redefining our forms? How might the act of reading together itself be transformative? Transforming Texts takes place monthly in 2025 as part of the Department of Transformation’s residency at The Clemente. This free and open program invites participants to propose complex, challenging, and otherwise urgent texts for collective investigation. Through a collaborative process, the group will both identify specific readings and develop experimental formats for engagement, drawing on a wide range of disciplines and modes of practice to cultivate a community of creative connectivity while building an ongoing bibliography of transformative texts for our times. 

This month, we’ll discuss “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” the foundational text of critical pedagogy by Brazilian philosopher and teacher Paolo Freire, which proposed education as the practice of freedom. In a session co-facilitated by Katie Freeman and Sam Rauch, we’ll explore the liberating potential of learning through a combination of movement and collective knowledge-production exercises from Brazil to Indonesia.

Transforming Texts is led by Prem Krishnamurthy and Sam Rauch of Department of Transformation, with contributions from a rotating cast of brilliant co-facilitators. This program is free and open to the public, supported by The Clemente. Graphics by Mark Foss @markjfoss

For more info, contact hello@dept-of-transformation.org 

Alternative Futures: Community-based Practice in New York

When: June 3 @ 6:30 - 8:00PM

Where: The Clemente

Participants: Elena Ketelsen González , Azikiwe Mohammed, Cinthya Santos Briones, Sienna Fekete

More info and RSVP HERE

Join ICI and The Clemente for a public conversation that explores the evolving landscape of alternative, community-based curatorial practices in New York today. Amid the current climate of political and financial uncertainty, artists, curators, and organizers are reimagining what it means to engage in projects that are not just created for communities, but emerge from them.

The panel discussion brings together four cultural workers—Elena Ketelsen González (Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1), Azikiwe Mohammed (teacher and maker), Cinthya Santos-Briones (interdisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural worker), and Sienna Fekete (Senior Arts Manager, The Lower Eastside Girls Club)—who have each developed models that center kinship and belonging. They will discuss how their practices are reorienting curatorial and artistic work away from traditional methodologies and outcomes (such as the art object or the exhibition) and toward meeting material needs and building infrastructures of support, visibility, and resistance. Through youth programs, food banks, healing spaces, and other initiatives, the panelists’ work asks us to expand our understanding of what curatorial practice is and who it can serve.

The program is hosted at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, a model organization for collective and knowledge justice practices in the Lower East Side for over 30 years. It is presented in partnership with the Historias Initiative, a multi-year program led by The Clemente in collaboration with LxNY and supported by the Rauschenberg Foundation. Historias celebrates the transformative impact of Latinx communities in New York City through research, artistic interpretation, and public engagement.

From ME to WE: Jamming with Manny Vega | An Interactive Art-Making Workshop on Diasporic Histories

When: Saturday May 31st @ 1-4 PM

Where: The Metropolitan Museum, 1000 5th AvenueNew York, NY, 10028

Artist: Manny Vega

More info HERE!

Developed as part of The Clemente’s Historias initiative and in conjunction with the re-opening of The Met’s newly reinstalled galleries for the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, this interactive workshop invites participants to reflect on New York City as a mosaic of diasporic journeys.

Led by renowned visual artist Manny Vega—whose improvisational, memory-rich practice draws from Afro-Caribbean, Latin American, and global traditions—this two-part workshop centers the city as a living archive shaped by generations of migration, adaptation, and cultural fusion. Just as The Met’s collections gather objects that reflect the diverse civilizations of the world, this workshop explores how our own stories form a collective tapestry of identities, rituals, and inherited memory.

Visitors are welcome to join either or both of the following drop-in projects, active from 1:00 to 4:00 PM:

Project 1: RECASTING THE PAST

Participants will collaborate with Vega in crafting a mosaic that reinterprets a selected artwork from The Met’s collection. By recontextualizing this object through contemporary materials, the group engages in an act of cultural translation—connecting past to present, and individual to collective.

Project 2: FRAMING WHAT CARRIES US

Drawing on prompts around memory, heritage, and the symbols that ground us, participants will create personal emblems that speak to their diasporic lineages. These elements will be woven into a large-scale communal artwork conceived by Vega, a visual record of the many pathways—personal and ancestral—that converge in New York City.

Through mosaic and collage,From ME to WEcelebrates the shared yet distinct narratives that define NYC as a diasporic city—one built, carried, and continually remade by movement, memory, and imagination.

Esto No Tiene Nombre

When:  May 17, Doors at 3:30 pm, show runs 75 min, Talkback session afterwards

Where: Teatro LATEA @ The Clemente

Writer and Performer: Denice Frohman

Director and co-creator: Alex Torra

Talkback Participants: Denice Frohman, Carmelita Tropicana, Frances Negron-Muntaner

RSVP & Tickets HERE!

The Clemente will host artist, writer, and performer Denice Frohman; director and co-creator Alex Torra; and projection and set designer Nia Benjamin in a micro-residency to produce Esto No Tiene Nombre, a one-woman show that chronicles the oral histories of Latina lesbian elders. Curated by Jacqueline Woodson, renowned author and 2020 MacArthur Fellow, the play presents a tapestry of vignettes exploring Latina lesbian activism, expression, and desire, from pre-Stonewall police raids in Philadelphia to first kisses. The title is inspired by Esto No Tiene Nombre, the first Latina lesbian magazine, founded in the 1990s by Colombian poet and activist Tatiana de la Tierra.

This work is rooted in archival interviews conducted by Frohman as part of I See My Light Shining: Oral Histories of Our Elders, a year-long project featuring more than 20 oral history interviews from Latina lesbian elders in New York City.

Esto No Tiene Nombre

When:  May 16, Doors at 6:30 pm (Show runs 75 min, Talkback session afterwards)

Where: Teatro LATEA @ The Clemente

Writer and Performer: Denice Frohman

Director and co-creator: Alex Torra

Talkback Participants: Denice Frohman and Suhaly Bautista-Carolina

RSVP & Tickets HERE!

The Clemente will host artist, writer, and performer Denice Frohman; director and co-creator Alex Torra; and projection and set designer Nia Benjamin in a micro-residency to produce Esto No Tiene Nombre, a one-woman show that chronicles the oral histories of Latina lesbian elders. Curated by Jacqueline Woodson, renowned author and 2020 MacArthur Fellow, the play presents a tapestry of vignettes exploring Latina lesbian activism, expression, and desire, from pre-Stonewall police raids in Philadelphia to first kisses. The title is inspired by Esto No Tiene Nombre, the first Latina lesbian magazine, founded in the 1990s by Colombian poet and activist Tatiana de la Tierra.

This work is rooted in archival interviews conducted by Frohman as part of I See My Light Shining: Oral Histories of Our Elders, a year-long project featuring more than 20 oral history interviews from Latina lesbian elders in New York City.

Esto No Tiene Nombre

When:  May 15, Doors at 6:30 pm, show runs 75 min

Where: Teatro LATEA @ The Clemente

Writer and Performer: Denice Frohman

Director and co-creator: Alex Torra

RSVP & Tickets HERE!

The Clemente will host artist, writer, and performer Denice Frohman; director and co-creator Alex Torra; and projection and set designer Nia Benjamin in a micro-residency to produce Esto No Tiene Nombre, a one-woman show that chronicles the oral histories of Latina lesbian elders. Curated by Jacqueline Woodson, renowned author and 2020 MacArthur Fellow, the play presents a tapestry of vignettes exploring Latina lesbian activism, expression, and desire, from pre-Stonewall police raids in Philadelphia to first kisses. The title is inspired by Esto No Tiene Nombre, the first Latina lesbian magazine, founded in the 1990s by Colombian poet and activist Tatiana de la Tierra.

This work is rooted in archival interviews conducted by Frohman as part of I See My Light Shining: Oral Histories of Our Elders, a year-long project featuring more than 20 oral history interviews from Latina lesbian elders in New York City.

IX Kerouac Festival: New York

When: Thursday May 8th @ 6 - 9 PM

Where: Flamboyan Theater @ The Clemente

Organized by: Culture Lovers (Vanesa Álvarez & Marcos de la Fuente)

Participants: Live Poetry by Hala Alyan, Manuel Mata, Cristiane Bouger (w/ band), Paola Assad & Inés López, Elisabeth Sweet | Videos by: Emmanuel Vizcaya, José Lameiras , Warren C. Longmire | Art Installations: The Whispers by Ismael Faro, HOWL CAMERA by The VERSEverse

The Kerouac Festival of Poetry, Music, and Performance returns for its 9th edition in New York on Thursday, May 8, and Friday, May 9. This vibrant two-day celebration of experimental poetry, live music, digital art, and community will bring together voices from across the globe. Hosted and curated by Galician-Brooklyn-based poet and performer Marcos de la Fuente, the festival continues its mission to honor the rebellious spirit of Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation through boundary-breaking artistic expression.

This year’s edition features an exciting international lineup including Hala Alyan (USA-Palestine), Mónica Carrillo Zegarra (Perú), Nancy Mercado (USA-Puerto Rico), Cristiane Bouger (Brazil), Essau Landa (Mexico), Gabael Otzoy (Guatemala), Isabel Castelao-Gómez (Spain), and more. Performances blend poetry with music, cello, DJ sets, and visual media—making Kerouac NYC not just a reading, but an immersive experience in different languages.

More info HERE!

NADA Presents at NADA New York 2025

When: May 8th, starting at 3pm

Where: NADA Art Fair, The Starrett-Lehigh Building601 W 26th Street, 3rd Floor

More info HERE

Join The Clemente and Historias at NADA New York 2025 for their programming schedule, NADA Presents. For the 11th edition of the fair, NADA will host a signature series of conversations and performances curated by Amanda Riesman held at The Starrett-Lehigh Building, with programs occurring daily from May 7–11. The Clemente will be hosting talks discussing Domino Table Talks, one of our Historias Signature Series.

Collaboration and Knowledge Justice in Latinx Cultural Production

Thursday, May 8, 3pm

This conversation will introduce the Historias initiative and The Clemente's artist-driven model that’s rethinking how institutions support Latinx cultural work—especially across public art, knowledge, justice, and representation.

Featuring Libertad O. Guerra (Executive Director of The Clemente), Shaun Leonardo (Artist, Educator, and Historias Advisor), Cinthya Santos Briones (Artist and Community Organizer), and Jonathan Gonzalez (Artist). Moderated by Sofía S. Reeser del Rio, (Curator and Associate Director of Programs of The Clemente).

Domino Table Talks

Thursday, May 8, 4pm

Join artist Edra Soto and Public Art Fund Senior Curator Melanie Kress for a conversation about Graft, Soto’s first large-scale public art exhibition in New York City, and the role of dominoes in Soto's work. Graft is a monument to working class Puerto Rican communities where tables and seating invite visitors to enjoy a moment of rest, connection, and reflection–or a game of dominoes. Soto, who is presenting a solo booth with Morgan Lehman Gallery for NADA New York, and Kress will speak about their collaboration with The Clemente for Domino Table Talks, a signature project for Historias that hosts intimate, intergenerational conversations designed to document the oral histories of the community through the lens of domino culture.

Domino Table Talks Episode Screenings and Domino Play

Thursday, May 8, 5pm

Domino Table Talks episodes will screen on rotation until the end of the fair, while guests are invited to join a domino game at tables set up in the space for play.

Transforming Texts- An experimental reading group

When: Wednesdays March 5, April 2, May 7, 2025 @ 6-8 PM

Where: Room 309 @ The Clemente

Organized by: Department of Transformation

Can we redefine our futures by redefining our forms? How might the act of reading together itself be transformative? Transforming Texts takes place monthly in 2025 as part of the Department of Transformation’s residency at The Clemente. This free and open program invites participants to propose complex, challenging, and otherwise urgent texts for collective investigation. Through a collaborative process, the group will both identify specific readings and develop experimental formats for engagement, drawing on a wide range of disciplines and modes of practice to cultivate a community of creative connectivity while building an ongoing bibliography of transformative texts for our times. 

Transforming Texts is organized by Department of Transformation founder Prem Krisnamurthy and curator Sam Rauch, with additional co-organizers to be announced. 

To register, RSVP HERE

For more info, contact hello@dept-of-transformation.org 

Jonathan Bruce Williams + Payal Parekh: Conscious Connection

When: Sunday May 4, 2025 | Workshop @ 4–6pm |Reception @ 6–8pm

Where: Studio 309 at The Clemente

RSVP!  

Please join Department of Transformation, Jonathan Bruce Williams, and Payal Parekh for Conscious Connection, an experimental movement and mindfulness workshop conceived for the opening of Consciousness Energy Grid, a presentation of new animated lightbox sculptures by Williams on view from May 4–11 by appointment at The Clemente.

Departing from Consciousness Energy Grid’s sculptural exploration of bodily vulnerability, altered states, and the transformative valence of movement and light, Jonathan Bruce Williams begins this experiential program by demonstrating the creative use (and abuse) of mobile communication technologies to form a chain of uncanny connection that summons the ghosts in our collective machines. Payal Parekh follows by leading participants in an embodied practice that includes stretching, meditation, reflection, and discussion based on Blessed Rest by Payal, an affirmational card deck conceived as a supportive reminder that rest is our collective birthright and a critical aspect of healing.

Following Conscious Connection will be a reception to celebrate the opening of Consciousness Energy Grid.
This program is free; RSVP is requested. Participants are encouraged to wear movement-appropriate clothing and to bring a yoga mat, if possible.

—

BIOS:

Jonathan Bruce Williams is a Lower East Side-based artist and technologist who creates art systems at an intersection of research, imagination, and light. His work explores perception, psychology, and technology through custom-designed apparatuses aimed at healing. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Currently, he is training to become a 200-hour Yoga Alliance certified instructor, focusing on Ashtanga and Vinyasa, integrating movement and mindfulness into his creative approach.

Payal Parekh is a New York-based art advisor and yoga teacher with a passion for promoting wellness and diverse art perspectives. She holds a BA in Art History from Mount Holyoke College 2001 and an MA in Contemporary Art from Sotheby's Institute, London. Payal Arts International, founded in 2008, focuses on consulting artists and advising collectors. As a 500-hour nationally certified yoga teacher, she believes in the power of movement and meditation to improve physical and mental health. Payal has led meditation sessions at Christie’s, David Zwirner Gallery, The Armory Show, Perrotin New York and The Baltimore Museum of Art. In addition, she has served on the board of the American Visionary Art Museum and is currently a member of the Skowhegan Council and an FCA Friend (Foundation for Contemporary Arts) in New York. Her new self-care deck, Blessed Rest by Payal, offers tools for self-reflection and self-care practices to manage stress.

Department of Transformation (D🌍T) is an artist-organized group that prototypes new formats for togetherness, learning, and collective healing. Through workshops, events, publications, and commissions (+ karaoke!), we support others in their own processes of change. We believe that by transforming the arts, we can transform ourselves, our communities, and our world.

Department of Transformation is generously supported by the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center.

For all inquires, please contact hello@d-o-t.nyc 

Section: New York – A Preview Workshop of Splitting/Absence

When: Saturday, May 3rd, 2025 @ 7:30 PM

Where: Teatro LATEA @ The Clemente, 107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY, 10002

Artists: Composed by Sokio | Words by Natasha Tiniacos

Reserve your tickets HERE!

As part of the Historias initiative, The Clemente Center and New Latin Wave present Section: New York, a preview workshop of Sokio’s opera Splitting/Absence, in development with National Sawdust. This multi-phase operatic work explores the life and legacy of 1970s artist Gordon Matta-Clark, whose radical interventions redefined urban spaces. Each chapter of the opera is supported by a different commissioner, with Historias commissioning the New York chapter.

Composed by Sokio, with words by Natasha Tiniacos, Splitting/Absence blends electronic and classical elements to create an immersive operatic experience—bringing Matta-Clark’s transformative vision to life through music, architecture, and storytelling. The opera offers a deeper exploration of Matta-Clark’s impact on contemporary art and urbanism.

Don’t miss Sokio’s talk at the Metropolitan Museum the day before this event, on Friday May 2nd at 6:30 PM, where he’ll be discussing the transformative exchange of influence between art scenes in Latin America and New York City, focusing on the unique dynamics between Gordon Matta-Clark and his father, the renowned Chilean surrealist Roberto Matta.. Link to Sokio’s Met talk HERE!

Artist Bio:

Sokio Díaz Gallardo (Chile, b. 1973) is a composer, producer, music supervisor, and cultural organizer. He leads the performance of his opera Splitting/Absence and is the director and co-founder of New Latin Wave and a member of the LxNY consortium—both initiatives dedicated to amplifying Latinx voices in arts and culture.

Known for his innovative fusion of electronic and classical music, Sokio explores themes of space, transformation, and urban landscapes through operatic storytelling. Based in New York’s Lower East Side, he continues to push creative boundaries across multiple disciplines.

His latest works include: the chamber opera Paraíso which premiered on June 16, 2023, at National Sawdust; his role as music supervisor for Sebastián Díaz’s documentary A Thousand Pines; and his work as a curator, co-creating the series “Futuros, New Ideas in Composition” at Lincoln Center with Amanda Riesman.

Further details, including the full list of participants, will be announced soon.

This event forms part of Carnegie Hall’s Nuestros Sonidos festival.

Presented by The Clemente Center and New Latin Wave as part of the Historias initiative