Join us on Saturday, January 27th, 2024 for Rituals of Social Transformation, a showcase of the work of More Art’s 2023 Engaging Artists Fellows, featuring work and conversations by Carrie Sijia Wang, Danielle Cowan, Jessica Angima, Mei Ling Yu, Nava Derakhshani, and Ray Jordan Achan.

Rituals of Social Transformation invites participants to delve into the evolving practices, cultivated research findings, and transformative routines of More Art's newest cohort of Engaging Artist Fellows.

As we explore the alchemical power of building community, developing radical empathy, and stewarding our own communal and personal rituals of care, connection, and transformation, we get a peek at the journeys and processes our fellows have undertaken over the last year. This public presentation of ongoing work will illustrate the 2023 cohort’s exploration of and attention to themes of information accessibility, community care, storytelling, and visibility.

Rituals of Social Transformation will be presented at Head Hi in Brooklyn, NY on January 27th, 2024 from 4pm-8pm. Head Hi is a small space and given the current surging numbers for Covid we’re requesting folks wear masks while not eating or drinking in the space.

Follow along on social media and subscribe to our newsletter for updates and Fellow spotlights.

LOCATION & ACCESSIBILITY

Rituals of Social Transformation will be presented at Head Hi, located at 146 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11205. Google Map directions.

By subway*: Take the A or C to High Street, then take the B69 bus to the Flushing Ave/Clermont Ave stop; or take the C to Jay St-MetroTech then take the B57 bus to the Flushing Av/Clermont Ave stop; or take the 5 to Borough Hall, then take the B57 bus to the Flushing Av/Clermont Ave stop; Take the M to Flushing Ave, then take the B57 bus to the Flushing Ave/Vanderbilt Av stop; or take the G to Clinton-Washington Avs, then take the B69 bus to the Flushing Ave/Vanderbilt Av stop.

By bus: Take the B57 or B69 to Flushing Ave/Vanderbilt Av; the B69 to Flushing Ave/Clermont Ave; the B62 to

By ferry: Take the Astoria (AST) route to Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Parking: On-street and metered parking are available on Flushing Avenue, Vanderbilt Ave, and on many of the adjacent streets. Non-metered parking is available underneath the BQE along Park Avenue. The nearest parking garage is located at 275 Park Ave. Here are more parking options.

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The presentation space is ADA accessible, with sidewalk level access to the front door opening and no steps. The main doors do not have automatic options, but can be locked in open position and are wide enough to accommodate walkers and wheelchairs. There is an ADA-accessible, gender-neutral restroom on the ground floor.

A digital, screen reader-friendly program can be accessed at bit.ly/rost-program and will be available via QR code or shareable link at the event.

Artist presentations and conversations will be available to experience virtually on Zoom here, which will be active at the presentation times specified in the program. Closed captioning will be available on Zoom.

Please send any additional accessibility needs and requests to info@moreart.org at least one week prior to the event.

Allergen-friendly light bites and refreshments will be available.

Masks are requested while not eating or drinking due to the recent surge in Covid cases. Masks and hand sanitizer will be passed out at the entrance and available throughout the space.

Featuring work by:

Ray Jordan Achan (he/him/his) is an Indo-Caribbean, Brooklyn based theater-maker. Ray is the Founding Artistic Director of EXILED TONGUES, a performance collective that provides financial, artistic and collaborative support to artists of the global majority who center diasporic consciousness. Ray's performative work primarily deals with the intersection between racial and climate justice, particularly as they relate to the NYC coastline. He is the recipient of the 2022 NYSCA Individual Artist Grant for his site-specific documentary theater project, "Our Bang for Their Buck: No Pipeline for LNG", the 2022 Creative Equations Fund from the Brooklyn Arts Council and a commissioned artist with Works on Water for his site-specific documentary theater project, "(Re)Imagining Greenpoint's Green Waters". Ray is a Rising Producer Fellow at the Creative & Independent Producer Alliance, and an Associated Artist at Culture Push. Ray is a graduate of Wesleyan University with a BA in Government and Theater with Honors. rayjordanachan.com | exiledtongues.com

Jessica Angima is a first-generation Kenyan American organizer, meditation teacher and social practice artist. In a constant state of process, she facilitates intimate community through the exploration of art, justice, and contemplative practice. Her identities as the daughter of Kenyan immigrants and a Black American woman deeply inform her community-based practice. Her work primarily focuses on deep vulnerability, using meditation and creative practices as methods of awakening consciousness. Jessica blends dharma, ancestral wisdom and poetics to decenter European thought frames and lead herself and others toward liberation. With over 400 hours of meditation instruction training, she has worked with BRIC, Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Dia Art Foundation, Google, SELF Magazine, SHAPE Magazine, theSkimm, Tricycle Magazine and more. Jessica was a 2019 Create Change Fellow at The Laundromat Project and holds an MA in Arts Politics from New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She is a member of Inner Fields Collective and serves as Deputy Training Director at Arena. Jessica lives in Brooklyn, NY on unceded Lenape territory with her cat and her books.

Danielle Cowan is a blind, queer and Blackarican native New Yorker dabbling in organizing, performance and poetry. Her art comes from fascination with what it means for a body or place to hold multiple sometimes conflicting identities and playing with ways to write within shared histories and trauma. Her work has been published in Causeway Lit’s Revolution Issue, Mobius: the Journal of Social Change and elsewhere. She was an artistic investigator for Rattlestick Playwrights Theater’s Block by Block Project and was a spring 2022 Office Hours Poetry Workshop fellow.

Nava Derakhshani is a multimedia artist with a background in Architecture and Sustainable Development. Born to Iranian parents in eSwatini, her work explores themes of migration, identity, belonging, and gender. She is a 2020 graduate of the International Center for Photography, NYC, and works in images, as well as form and sculpture.

Carrie Sijia Wang (she/her) is an artist and educator based in New York. Combining art, technology, and research, she makes performances, videos, and participatory experiences to explore the humanization of machines and the mechanization of humans. Wang is an inaugural Working Artist Fellow at Pioneer Works, 2023 More Art fellow, Year 8 member of NEW INC, and 2020 Mozilla Creative Media Award recipient. She has shown and presented work with venues including Rhizome, New Museum, Onassis Foundation, ACM SIGGRAPH, and A.I.R. Gallery. Her work has been featured in publications including the Business Insider, Slate, and Computerworld. As an educator, she has designed and taught classes and workshops covering topics like creative coding, making artistic chatbots, and countering digital surveillance. She currently teaches at NYU in the Interactive Media Arts department.

Mei Ling Yu (She/They) self-identifies as a cis-gender, queer Chinese-American and Gong Fu Cha Practitioner. Born, raised and based in New York City, on unceded Lenapehoking land. Mei Ling is deeply passionate about radical healing, spirituality, and well-being. A life-long devotee of Tea, Cha, the healing arts, somatic practices and experienced in practicing Gong Fu Cha, 4 years now. Mei Ling is a child of Toishanese immigrants, coming from an ancestry of village farmers and Chinese medicine people. Mei Ling aspires to study spiritual herbalism and farming to reconnect and deepen their practice with medicine of the East and West, integrating ancient and modern practices.

More Art’s year-long Engaging Artists Fellowship is designed to help emerging NYC artists and community organizers develop and sustain a socially engaged and public art practice. The Fellowship program curriculum includes mentorship, peer networking, access to programming opportunities in New York City, and workshops and artist talks tailored to the interests/needs of the cohort. The infrastructure and laboratory provided by More Art allow selected emerging and underrepresented artists to gain a deeper understanding of the history and vitality of public and socially engaged art and encourage artists to expand and develop social practice.