UPDATE:
There is a 2 for $25 special on perks until the end of the campaign! Donate 25 today and we will send you a digital copy of the DVD and Mix Tape (including performances and sound installations from the visual opera) To get this deal email us with "special" in the subject line at agalleryofthestreets@gmail[dot]com
Gallery of the Streets
an art and organizing hybrid aimed at decolonizing imagination.
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All too often we have seen marginalized
groups excluded from, and/or exploited by, mainstream artistic and
cultural endeavors. Therefore, Gallery of the Streets' work is primarily created for, by,
and with, marginalized communities who have direct and daily experiences
with racism, sexism, xenophobia, classism and poverty,
heteronormativity and transphobia. Not only do our voices go unnoticed
and unsupported, worse yet, our cultural and artistic contributions are
co-opted and sold back to us. New Orleans-especially post-Katrina NOLA,
is a prime example of these practices. In this sense, we believe that
the process of art making as well as the work itself, can evoke
strategies and actions to transform social ills.
With your contributions Gallery of the Streets can produce our first visual opera:
ECOHYBRIDITY: LOVE SONG FOR NOLA,
a visual [black] opera in 5 movements
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ECOHYBRIDITY is a collaborative partnership with New Orleans-based artists and organizers. The visual opera marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and examines issues connected to disaster capitalism, displacement, spatial inequities, the prison industrial complex, and the privatization of public resources from a Black feminist lens. A large-scale production featuring roving performances and site-specific installations throughout post-Katrina New Orleans, the plot follows a group of nomadic “SONGBIRDS” as they journey to recover, redefine, and reclaim Home.
The visual opera draws on the vision, memory, and skills of New Orleans-based Black feminist artists and organizers—many of whom survived Hurricane Katrina. Through on-going convening, documentation, evaluation, art-making, and collective study, we focus and drive the opera’s content, movements, mapping and impact(s). We are also developing ways to support those who remain displaced and are experiencing trauma ten years later. We aim to fuse
public art and community engagement to confront power, provoke dialogue,
and develop a cultural organizing praxis.
As its long-term goal, the project aims to serve as a mechanism to
examine the creative and philosophical possibilities of Black
geographies. Our point of departure is rooted in spatial
equity—specifically as related to Black women’s lives.
Support Black Feminist Art and the people of New Orleans!
We need $25,000 dollars to produce ECOHYBRIDITY!
The production phase of this project includes working materials for 15 participants. Materials include: projectors, paints, canvas, wood, nails, hammers, tool belts, wide angles lenses fabrics, thread, needles, extension cords, sound equipment and a stipend for each participating artist!
We also have some things to give back!
Check out our perks!
"Storm Series" prints by kai lumumba barrow
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see image gallery for print selections
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can not contribute money to this Indiegogo Campaign there are
plenty of other ways to support! Please email us at agalleryofthestreets@gmail[dot]com if you are interested in any of the options below!
Artist + Organizer Collaboration to Mark the 10th Anniversary.
Our
hope is that this project can be a pilot for principled solidarity- and
movement-building. What does solidarity look like in this historical
moment? Whether in NOLA or elsewhere, we would love for you to consider
this question with your members, staff, board, and allies on the 10th
anniversary.
- If you are planning an event for Katrina +10, we are interested
in participating in/collaborating with you on your COMMEMORATION EVENTS
including marches, conferences, and vigils. We also invite you and your
members, staff, board, constituents, and allies to attend or volunteer
with the visual opera.
- If you are in New Orleans during the anniversary, we invite you
to work with an ECOHYBRIDTY artist to design an ORGANIZATIONAL DISPLAY
for the Subversive Ball.
- If you cannot join us in NOLA, we would like you to organize a
DAY OF ART and/or POLITICAL EDUCATION to examine questions of Black
displacement,dispossession, and border-crossing from a Black feminist
lens.
Giving Circles
(Creating an Ecology of Abundance, Accountability &Sustainability)We would like to set-up Giving Circles for the 10th anniversary and beyond for specific costs
such as:
- Transportation and housing for displaced Black feminist artists/organizers to come home for the 10th anniversary.
- Printing and mailing costs for “Kites” or Letters of
Solidarity from prisoners outside of NOLA to prisoners in Orleans Parish
Prison.
- Producing an exhibition catalog, 30-minute documentary, and popular education curriculum.
- Touring excerpts from the visual opera.
- An evolving fund to build ECO-HOUSE, a space for Black feminist art and creativity in NOLA.
On-Going Collaboration.To continue our
commitment to New Orleans, we would like to work with New Orleanians
throughout this anniversary year and beyond to construct strong
replicable models that can show the impact of art, community engagement,
and social change organizing. Would you consider sharing information
and/or facilitating political education about your primary issues with
Gallery of the Streets? Will you endorse the project?
The Impact
As Nomadic Interlopers (formerly known as "Outside Agitators"), Gallery of the Streets holds to a creed rooted in cooperation, respect, and shared interests. Our intention is to contribute our labor, resources, and ideas to the work going on in each location.
In this period of late capitalism, a time of
alienation, hyperreality, surveillance, spatial and carceral control, a
ruthless haint of transnational proportion is riding us for its own
pleasures.
In this period of late capitalism, a
super-security structure protects the interests of the 1 percent. And
international law enforcement controls the vision, goals, movements, and
native environments of the 99 percent.
In this period of late capitalism, Black life,
especially Black queer life, is forced by choice and/or circumstance to
perch outside mainstream narratives of Home. And yet, it is from this
position of displacement that we create memories, transformation, and
safety. Our relationship to home is charged and organic -- an experiment
in reimagining and redefining ourselves and our safety. In this place
we form deep communitytie -- rarely based on longevity or location, but
more often, based in shared experience, mutual aid, resiliency,
resourcefulness, and respect.
A Nomad Manifesto
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1. This is a beginning... This is a movement... This is neither stagnant nor beige...
2. We see more when we use multiple sights. Collective
visioning is groovy. The Nomad's work should reflect the vision and
desires of the communities that will reap the benefits, accolades,
backlash, and attack brought on by the work.
3. We call on Nommo and Sun Ra and the Funkadelic to turn
a cacophony of sound into a shared language that can produce thoughtful
and efficient decision-making, relationship-building, and shared
knowledges.
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4. We will be accountable to those whom we engage through direct and/or indirect contact. We walk with rememory.
5. We call for binaries to synthesize.
6. Our work should provide opportunities for viewers and
makers to dialogue/disagree/ask for-about-/answer
to-for-about/challenge.
7. The work should find and ride the pocket and be prepared to ride the groove until it is time to fade out ...
8. The nomad's swan song must be on the 1.
9. Be mindful of Kudzu and Passion Flowers. If desired by
the Community, the Nomad should leave a small part of its mojo behind.
But not too much...
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THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!!!
