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ARTS IN THE WOODS 2018

Arts in the Woods is an annual summer retreat from daily survival for queer and transgender artists.

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ARTS IN THE WOODS 2018

ARTS IN THE WOODS 2018

ARTS IN THE WOODS 2018

ARTS IN THE WOODS 2018

ARTS IN THE WOODS 2018

Arts in the Woods is an annual summer retreat from daily survival for queer and transgender artists.

Arts in the Woods is an annual summer retreat from daily survival for queer and transgender artists.

Arts in the Woods is an annual summer retreat from daily survival for queer and transgender artists.

Arts in the Woods is an annual summer retreat from daily survival for queer and transgender artists.

Kristen P lovell
Kristen P lovell
Kristen P lovell
Kristen P lovell
2 Campaigns |
New York City, United States
$1,530 USD 27 backers
20% of $7,500 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal
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Highlights
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Overview
Arts In The Woods is an annual retreat for 35-40 trans/non-binary visual artists, performers, dancers, musicians, designers, makeup artists. Many of the artists are taking a break from transience or staying in transitional housing situations or just having trouble navigating life. The other half are at different points in their journeys. The program uniquely encourages collaborations between different generations of artists. Donate now & receive a link to WRRQ's new film Wild Ponies!

Arts in the Woods is a year-round art-and-food-based community-building project culminating in an annual summer retreat. For six summers now, AITW has provided respite and a supportive year-round community for queer/trans people surviving transience and homeless shelter systems. This is a week intended for all of us to commit to renew and restore our energies.

Everyone at camp experiences trauma in our daily lives and works through them the best way we know how. Together, we can share the sustainable resources and practices we've cultivated that enable us to survive. 

Arts in the Woods uniquely encourages collaborations between different generations of queer visual artists, filmmakers, performers, dancers, musicians, makeup, and culinary artists. Half the artists are young people (ages 18-29), who are offered a break from transience and homelessness and reside in NYC and CT.  Established artists from NYC’s queer community participate as mentors, often sparking relationships that continue back in the city. Year-round community dinners and “wrrqshops” create space for those relationships to continue.

Last year, AITW went to the mountains of Westchester County and took the leap from "CAMP" to actual camping. For five days we worked together on a music video called "Open The Door." 

In 2018, AITW will be held at Pompanuck Farm Institute, in the foothills of the Adirondacks of Cambridge, New York. A field trip to the Soul Fire Farm is in the works.

 

YEAR-ROUND COMMUNITY PROCESS

Camp will be a creative culmination of months of planning dinners at WRRQ HQ in Brooklyn, followed by eight creative WRRQshops, organized in partnership with New Alternatives, Trans Filmmakers project , the Triangle Community Center (CT), Queer Anga, No Longer Empty, and the Kingsborough Community College Farm.

The WRRQshops function as an 8-month planning process that builds community and ongoing support for the young people, and allows for a longer creative process for the summer retreat. They always include a full meal for participants, provided by our culinary arts team.  Our dinners, WRRQshops, and retreats supplement survival needs for low-income members of our communities, in a way that preserves their dignity and flattens class divides.

 

DONATE TODAY AT ANY LEVEL & RECEIVE A LINK TO WILD PONIES!

Wild Ponies is a music-and-animation-filled short film (36 minutes) following the adventures of Rocky (Kei’Ayra Campbell-Smith), a fierce black trans woman living with HIV, as she navigates her life and reconciles her past on one magical night in NYC. The movie's cast, crew, soundtrack, and locations are rooted in queer and trans life in NYC and include cameos from local luminaries including Merrie Cherry, Sequinette, and the legendary activist Miss Major.

WRRQ asserts a holistic approach to queer filmmaking: telling stories that most powerfully need to be heard, on our own terms, without ignoring our need for sustenance on both personal and structural levels, and lifting up our artists and communities in the process. 2018 sees the completion of a 4-year process for WRRQ, resulting in a 36-min film Wild Ponies.

We're in the final finishing stages of post-production and would love to share our film with you! Make a donation at the price of a movie ticket & we'll send you a SECRET LINK as soon as it's ready.

 

WISH LIST

Please reach out to us if you have access to the following items or can create a wish list for us!

Van or Bus rental for day trip

Walkie Talkies

Folding tables

Flashlights/Headlamps for campers

Lanterns

Tarps

Tents

Sleeping Bags/Pillows

Sleeping Mats

Towels

Water bottles (BPA free)

Charcoal

Kiln-dried Firewood (per camp requirements)

Bug spray supplies (natural insect repellant)/oils to show them how to make their own

________________

OUR STORY

AITW developed from a desire by more established queer artists to build stronger community webs by co-creating with young transient artists passing through queer young adult homeless shelters . All participants agree to respect and learn from each other, as we take time away from the transphobia, police brutality, money troubles, and other pervasive social ills that plague our cities.

Through workshops on writing, fashion, photo, video, music, dance, makeup, culinary and visual art, the young people get to tap into parts of themselves that often get pushed to the side when survival is the overwhelming priority. In this environment, with role models who are openly queer and practiced in the arts, we co-create an experience which allows everyone to thrive. We teach skill sets that the artists can bring back with them to the city and continue to explore. Examples include; pocket filmmaking, writing workshops, classes in natural dyes, screen printing, foraging for dye sources and pigments, practices that are nature and body-based.

 

MEET THE ARTISTS!

Kristen Parker Lovell (AITW Co-Director) a co-founder of the WRRQ Collective, is a film and television actress/producer. Most notably “The Garden Left Behind.”  A survivor of the streets who marched with Sylvia Rivera at the Amanda Milan vigil .prior to acting she worked for 10 years at Sylvia’s Place, an LGBT emergency shelter in Manhattan. Kristen founded an empowerment group, Trans in Action, which has produced three documentaries about trans representation in the media.  She is also a talented artist and performer who has helped organize Arts in the Woods for three summers now, and has been a co-director of the camp in previous years.

Quito Ziegler (AITW Co-Director) is an artist, curator and the originator of the WRRQ collective who has co-conspired many WRRQ projects with many, many collaborators including Wild Ponies, Arts in the Woods, Family Dinners at Sylvia's Place, and the WRRQshop. A long-time producer and curator at the Open Society Foundations’ Documentary Photography Project and the International Center of Photography, they now serve as faculty at the School of Visual Arts.

“Sparklez” Catiriana Reyes (AITW Producer) is a classically trained soprano, activist/organizer. She is the founder of the People of Color Student Union at Goddard College where she serves as student constituent member of the Board of Trustees. AITW is the place that allows her to merge her activist and professional lives.  

Marcela Ossio (AITW Outreach & Logistics) is an emerging landscape photographer from Queens via Bolivia. They are also a community organizer whose interests include food sovereignty, environmental justice, and the queer and immigrant movements. They are particularly interested in how these organizing efforts interconnect in an effort to achieve collective liberation, dismantle capitalism, and preserve Mother Earth and life in all its forms.

Manny Ramsey (Head Cook) is leading the kitchen team for the 2nd delicious summer in a row. Manny first came to AITW as a camper in 2014.

Lyndsey Cooper (Camp Counselor) is a recent graduate from SUNY New Paltz where she studied sociology. She loves to make terrariums and cook good vegetarian and vegan food. She was also a Hudson river sloop crew member on Pete Seegers CLEARWATER teaching young people about the importance of environmental protections. This is Lyndsey's second year at AITW.  

About the WRRQ Collective

WRRQ is an intergenerational collective of queer/transgender artists, culinary queens and activists. Our collective goals:

  • Address violence against trans women of color
  • Build a stronger network of community support for queer homeless youth
  • Nurture interdependent community across boundaries of age/race/gender/experience
  • Produce art and culture in alignment with our values
  • Defend and protect our local water and land
  • WRRQ in alliance with movements for black lives, sex workers rights, food justice, environmental justice, immigrant sanctuary, and other crises that impact our people

WRRQ began forming in 2013, when a 1-week arts workshop for queer homeless youth coincided with the murder of Islan Nettles, a black trans girl in Harlem, and a beloved community emerged. Our WRRQ together continually evolves as we creatively respond to multiple marginalized communities who require multiple supports. We make art for visual resistance and collective healing, including visual art, poetry, music, drag, and culinary arts -- with an emphasis on bringing our community’s various talents together through film. We also provide a support system for our communities by organizing community dinners, clothing swaps, vigils and street actions.

WRRQ Collective is extremely representative of diverse identities, a full rainbow of genders, two spirit, disabled, sex workers, and immigrants. Some of our members have spent time in jail, lived in homeless shelters, and in the streets. Some of us grew up wealthy or come from intellectually rich families. All of us understand that our liberation is interconnected. Our organization collectively wrrqs hard to relate to each other across our cultural differences, and finds a lot of joy in the process!

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