EVENTS

New Strategies Lab!

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Don’t miss our closing event with Marsha parilla! Dance for social justice Friday, 6-8pm !

New Strategies for New Atmospheres

Open Dojo / Studio Hours: Monday-Friday (January 28th-February 1st), 4-6pm
Workshops: Monday-Friday, 6-8pm
ALL FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC (intergenerational, elders, families, teens and children welcome)
At DS4SI: 572 Columbia Rd, Dorchester (Upham's Corner)

Part dojo / Part studio / Part workshop series
This week-long creativity lab will be part dojo (come work out--your ideas!), part studio (come try out new materials!) and part work shop series! It will be a chance to dive deeper into the design and strategy of holding spaces that build capacity and imagination for communities and community-based organizations to take on the new normal. The lab will bring together community organizing groups, artists and other radical thinkers in a container that challenges them to try out new ways of holding space, enacting social healing, and imagining new social arrangements that could challenge the status quo.

Why a New Strategies Lab?
In 2018, the scale of systemic attacks on immigrants, the environment, young people, Muslims and public systems at large has been devastating.  We believe what we are seeing now is the new normal—not individual moves that outrage us and demand protest, but a systemic move towards heightened repression, state violence, terror and hatred towards communities of color. When we respond to each new atrocity with the force it deserves—but with the approach that each atrocity is an individual one—we become emotionally drained and too worn out to imagine new solutions. To move away from a case-by-case treatment towards more sustainable practice-building, DS4SI will create a space that builds the capacity of local organizing groups and artists to find more creative and commensurate ways to address this new reality. We want to create the conditions that will help us collectively strengthen our efforts—emotionally, spiritually and strategically.

All free!
The New Strategies Lab is generously funded by the Hyams Foundation so all workshops are free!

We look forward to seeing you!
DS4SI team

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Orange Fly Contemporary Art, 2018

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Orange Fly Contemporary Art is a video installation specially developed to be viewed in the historic vault of the old Citizens Bank building (now occupied by DS4SI). The video is produced by Afro-Brazilian Artist-in-Residence Tiago Gualberto and features a partnership with performance artist Hannibal Hopson of Houston. It was filmed at the SERC (Social Response Emergence Center) which Tiago co-created with Maria Molteni and DS4SI for Project Row Houses in Houston. Orange Fly takes about 5 minutes and brings together images from different contexts and periods, seeking to navigate a non-linear route between the dream and the current social and political moment. The fly with large eyes and disposable life occupies the metaphorical role of the artist.

Destination Upham's This Weekend!

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THIS WEEKEND in Upham's Corner:


The Gentrification Game , Oct 25 & 26, 4-7pm (and November 1&2!)
Tory Bullock
A life size board game where players try to keep up with the cost of living in Upham’s! Tip: Don’t hate the player, hate the game. Check out Tory's teaser video and details here!

Print Ain't Dead: Pop-Up Bookshop, Oct 26th, 7-10pm and Oct 28, 12-5pm
Arielle Gray and Cierra Peters
A series of pop up bookshops and storytelling events that focus on the works of writers of color--particularly Afro-diasporic femmes. Check out their splash page here!

Onwards & Upwards Jazz Series, Oct 27th, 2-5p
Fredrick J. Woodard and friends
Featuring the Lance Martin Trio. Check out his facebook event here.

Radical Black Girl x L'Merchie Frazier of Cross Cultural Collective, Oct 27th, 7-9pm
A healing evening of visual art making, dance movement and open-mic performances. See flyer below!

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Announcing Destination Upham's Artists

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DS4SI is proud to announce our selected Destination Upham's Artists! Together they represent a diversity of approaches and perspectives and a collective rich in talent and vision. As we continue to work with our programming and space partners around Upham's Corner, we will update you on the exact times and locations. In the meantime, take a look at all these reasons to come to Upham's:

RESIST(D)ANCE: UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Radical Black Girl
Part open forum discussion, part rising talent showcase and part dance party--Resist(d)ance is a family-friendly celebration and call to action.

Hip hop, BreakDancing, Graffiti Art Shows +
Frenell Jean-Georges
This interactive 4 part hip hop event includes a Graffiti Art Show, a DJ Showcase & Dance Party, a Break Dance Lesson & Performance and a Local Hip Hop Music ShowCase/ Rap Cypher.

Pop-Up Bookshops
Arielle Gray and Cierra Peters
A series of pop up bookshops and storytelling events that focus on the works of writers of color--particularly Afro-diasporic femmes.

TimeSlips
Melissa Nussbaum Freeman and Red Sage Stories
A multi-sensory creative storytelling tool that uses images, smells and sounds to inspire and enable multicultural, multilingual storytelling with Playback Theatre dramatization for Upham’s seniors.

Live Jazz
Fredrick J. Woodard and friends
Four live jazz events for the whole family to enjoy. Featuring  The Fred Woodard Collective, The John Kordalewski Trio, The Kurtis Rivers Quartet, and Lance Martin Trio
 
Community Square
Cross Cultural Collective : Allentza Michel, Ashleigh Gordon, Daniel Callahan, L’Merchie Franzier, Melissa Alexis, Tiffany Cogell
The Community Square will function as both a collectively-built 3D square and a space for community members to come together for conversation & performance.

 Afro-Futurist Interviews and Afro-Mixer
Jordan Holmes
An intercultural afrofuturist audio-theater piece featuring the voices and languages of Upham’s diverse Black community of the future--complete with an Afro-Mixer listening party!

The Gentrification Game
Tory Bullock
A life size board game where players try to keep up with the cost of living in Upham’s! Tip: Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Destination Upham's is funded in collaboration with the Fairmount Cultural Corridor, the Barr Foundation and the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA).
 

Stay tuned for Dates and Locations!

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SERC at PolicyLink's Equity Summit in Chicago

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Equity Summit, Chicago
Thursday, April 12th and Friday, April 13th
 

For anyone attending Policy Link's Equity Summit in Chicago, come check out our SERC!  It will be in the Randolph 2 Room (Concourse Level) of the Hyatt Regency. If you'd like to lead something there, please contact us. If you'd like more information about the social emergency and our on-going artist and activist led Social Emergency Response Centers, click here.

The Creative Force of Black History

Artists, historians and activists came together at DS4SI to explore how Black History is a creative force for imagining, depicting and creating the present and future. Listen to some amazing ideas from our panelists and audience.

Panel included:

Hosted by Beatriz E. Balanta, PhD

Assistant Professor of Art History, SMU | Meadows School of the Arts

Featuring:

Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, HonAIA
Professor of Urban Policy and Health, The New School
Author of Urban Alchemy: Restoring Joy in America's Sorted-Out Cities

Faith Smith, PhD
Brandeis University
Editor, Sex and the Citizen: Interrogating the Caribbean (2011)

Home / Portal: Christopher Cozier and Friends This Thursday!

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HOME Series: The Portal

How do we find home?

DS4SI wraps up this season's HOME Series with a return visit from Trinidadian contemporary artist Christopher Cozier. Cozier will present on his piece Home/Portal, inspired by his time in the Upham's Corner area, that has since engaged artists from Kingston, Jamaica to Bogota, Columbia, Port of Spain, Trinidad and here in Boston. Collaborating artists from those cities will join us via Skype, while local artists from HOME 1 and HOME 2 (Intelligent Mischief and Keith Deviere Donaldson) will join us in person. Together we will explore how we find--and make and connect--home in a time of global environmental and political crises. 

 

THIS Thursday, November 9th, 6-8pm

Design Studio for Social Intervention
1946 Washington St, Roxbury, MA

#feelsthatway

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UPDATES for SERC this weekend!

EXCITING UPDATES:

FRIDAY

6-7pm: Sheldon Scott, DC-based performance artist, "Artists' Responsibility In These Times"

7-8:30: Come bang a taiko drum! Join The Genki Spark in their interactive "Joy Bubble" intervention

SATURDAY:

4-5pm: Heal Flow Yoga with Ivor Edmonds from Taireiki Yoga

4-5:30pm Open Mic! Join us for dance performances by Smallie Michelle and McKersin Previlus, spoken word by Ashley Rose, Emceed by GaJah

SUNDAY:

12-1pm: Sheldon Scott, DC-based performance artist, "Artists' Responsibility In These Times"

1-2:30pm: Film screenin: Ovarian Psycos (radical women's bike crew in LA)

4-5pm Yoga with Michelle Mendes

Visting artist: Carrie Schneider !

DS4SI is super excited to host Houston-based artist Carrie Schneider as part of our on-going Art Unfolded Series. She will be at the Studio Wednesday, October 12th, from 5:30-7:30.

Carrie Schneider is an artist interested in collapsing moments across time and the ability of people to reimagine their space. Her projects include Hear Our Houston(2011) a hub of public generated audio walking tours, Care House (2012) an installation in the house she grew up in considering the roles of caregiving/caretaking and the bodies of mother/home, The Human Tour 2013  with collaborator Alex Tu, a 40 mile caravan tracing the outline of a human onto the streets of the city, Sunblossom Residency  (2009-2015) in which middle schoolers who are resettled refugees chose seven multidisciplinary artists to teach them their processes of making, and Incommensurate Mapping  (2014) an exhibition which excavated the Contemporary Art Museum Houston's past visions of its potential futures and invited visitors play with/in the institution. Schneider co-organized Charge , a Houston convening of local and national presenters to platform artist-led models, advocate for equitable compensation of artists, and consider artists’ work in the larger economy. She teaches art to kids and loves dancing queer tango.  http://www.carriemarieschneider.com/

 

Presenting the People's Redevelopment Authority

The People’s Redevelopment Authority asks the question, “What if residents had the formal authority to engage in urban development?” What kinds of policies would they make and what kinds of spatial strategies would they choose to forward? How would they work with planners, architects and other spatial specialists to prototype and implement new ideas?

Combining the best practices from creative placemaking and participatory planning, the PRA will demonstrate how residents can frame and lead urban development, rather than being the recipients of it. As a kick off, Fairmount Cultural Corridor partners are hosting a 4-part series to engage folks in digging in to a REAL People's Redevelopment Authority.

We invite everyone—residents, practitioners, community leaders, merchants, artists, youth—to be a part of the People’s Redevelopment Authority.

 The People’s Redevelopment Authority is a project of the Design Studio for Social Intervention and the Fairmount Cultural Corridor.

 
 
 

The Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) partners with communities, artists, and social justice practitioners to imagine, demonstrate, and collectively rebuild places to be more just and vibrant. Get in touch to inquire about art commissions, residencies or to hire us to run a creativity lab or other generative process for your organization, coalition or campaign.