A Blade of Grass is excited to announce three upcoming programs: a roundtable discussion, a money-themed open mic, and a panel about museums and community. Please come out and participate!
All events are organized in collaboration with No Longer Empty, and they will take place at the Andrew Freedman Home: 1125 Grand Concourse in the Bronx.
To RSVP please call 646.358.1151 or send an e-mail to info@abladeofgrass.org
Artists Helping Artists
Roundtable Discussion with Caroline Woolard of OurGoods
Wednesday, May 16th at 7:00PM
This roundtable discussion will be moderated by Caroline Woolard of OurGoods, a creative community that focuses on sharing and bartering as a means of connecting. Ideas that will addressed include: collaboration between artists as opposed to the artist-curator dynamic, providing a forum for artists to share their own skills and ideas in relation to new practices of art-making. Questions will be posed relating specifically to artistic practice and social engagement in order to establish a dialogue that resonates to current issues artists are investigating in their work.
In the face of a changing social landscape, artists have become innovative with education models, cross-promotion and collaborations. Both grass roots work and institutional work have changed how artists are using their skills in order to connect to audiences in new ways, incorporating social engagement and civic responsibility as necessary parts of the artistic process. “Artists Helping Artists” will explore these alternative models for artists’ professional development. Participants will consider what these innovative efforts have amounted to, and whether or not they have been effective.
About OurGoods
OurGoods is a scalable, local initiative and part of the growing landscape of alternative models of exchange in art, design, and culture. OurGoods is specifically dedicated to the barter of creative skills, spaces, and objects. It is a community of cultural producers matching “needs” to offered “haves”.
Stories About Money
Friday, June 1st 6:00 – 7:30 PM
MC’ed by Mario Bodden, financial literacy expert, “Stories About Money” will be an open-mic style platform for people to come together and share their experiences with money. As our nation’s economy becomes more and more of a scrutinized issue, personal economies of earning and saving money become less and less apparent. “Stories About Money” provides a lighthearted means of communication on this topic, in the entertaining form of storytelling. Participants may address certain questions, such as: What was your first experience with money? When did you have a problem with money and how did you overcome it? How does money influence your life?
Please join us on June 1st tell your story!
Presented in collaboration with Mario Bodden.
Beyond Outreach: Museums, Audience and Community
Panel Discussion with Holly Block, Tom Finkelpearl, Thelma Golden and Eugenie Tsai
Saturday, June 2nd 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
The panelists, Holly Block of the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Tom Finkelpearl of the Queens Museum of Art, Thelma Golden of the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Eugenie Tsai of the Brooklyn Museum, are working in museums that are changing the way community engagement develops within arts institutions. This discussion will provide insight into this exciting practice of broadening audiences and maintaining lasting community relationships. Many museums are working to expand their connections to a wider public by forming particularly creative programming and education workshops, providing free admission, or re-imagining how a museum is supposed to look and feel. Others are radically re-thinking “outreach” by producing community-based projects or partnering with reality TV shows, working with audiences outside of the physical space of the museum.
