Events

Past Event

Narrating Community Power (Narrative in the Arts)

Event Speakers
February 27, 2019
6:00 PM - 8:30 PM
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Caveat, 21 A Clinton Street, New York

Event Description: 

What makes for a good story? Good narratives recognize and account for the fact that stories are complex and influenced by the perspectives of the person--or entity--telling the stories and the context in which the stories are told.

Hear from acclaimed artists about how they approach the challenge of telling authentic communal narratives through a range of mediums from film, community screenings, and gallery-style installations to the emerging technology of artificial intelligence (AI). 

Rachel Falcone of Storyline will share their participatory approach to documenting some of the biggest economic and environmental crises of our time, sharing media from their projects Housing is a Human Right and Water Warriors. How can stories that affect so many build power and create change? 

Stephanie Dinkins will introduce her project Not the Only One, the AI memoir of an American family and platform to create dialog about artificial intelligence as it intersects race, gender, and our future histories. Not the Only One challenges linear narrative by recounting stories that collapse past, present, and future.

Fred Chong Rutherford will share a story about his grandmother, Carbon Monoxide poisoning, and stories of Gwisin 귀신 in Korea. 

Event Information:

This event is free and open to the public. Note - must be 21+ to attend. The venue is mixed seating/standing room.

Please RSVP via Eventbrite. Please email Project Manager Roshana Nabi ([email protected]) with any questions.

Sponsored by the Center for Science and Society and Caveat.

This event is part of the Narrative in the Natural Sciences and Humanities conference, February 28 - March 1. However, separate registration is required to attend the remainder of the conference.  

Event Speakers:

Kemi Ilesanmi is Executive Director of The Laundromat Project, which advances artists and neighbors as change agents in their own communities. She is inspired by the immense possibilities for joyful justice at the intersection of arts and community. She has previously worked at Creative Capital Foundation and Walker Art Center. In 2015, she was appointed by the Mayor of New York City to the Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission. She has been honored by the Metropolitan Museum and Project for Empty Space. She serves on the boards of the Joan Mitchell Foundation and The Broad Room. A graduate of Smith College, NYU, and Coro Leadership NY, she is currently a Sterling Network Fellow.

Stephanie Dinkins is a transdisciplinary artist and associate professor of art at Stony Brook University who creates platforms for dialog about artificial intelligence as it intersects race, gender, and our future histories. She is particularly driven to work with communities of color to create more inclusive, less biased AI. Dinkins earned an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and is an alumna of the Whitney Independent Studies Program. Dinkins is a 2019 Creative Capital Awardee as well as a 2018/19 Soros Equality Fellow, Data and Society Research Institute Fellow and Sundance New Frontiers Story Lab Fellow. Dinkins is also a proud Laundromat Project alumni who continues to actively support the LP in various ways. Professor Dinkins teaches lens-based practices and emerging media at Stony Brook University. 

Rachel Falcone is a documentary director/producer and multimedia artist. She is Executive Director and Co-Founder of Storyline, a nonprofit production company building power with story and strategy. Rachel co-directed the participatory web documentary and exhibition Sandy Storyline (winner of the inaugural Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes Award). She recently produced Water Warriors, a short film and exhibition about a community’s successful fight to protect their water from the oil and gas industry, which has toured more than 60 film festivals and won more than 10 awards. Other projects she’s directed include: Sanctuary, a theatre commission from the Working Theatre and Housing is a Human Right–a photo-and-audio-based project about the 2008 housing crisis–that was supported by the Laundromat Project, an organization that advances artists and neighbors as change agents in their own communities.

Fred Chong Rutherford is a writer, producer, and performer. He studies comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade and at the Magnet Theater. You can see him tell stories and do improv monthly with “Spooky Doings” in the basement of the Triple Crown. Fred is currently a writer on the sketch team “Gary from HR”, performing monthly on Monday nights at the Magnet Theater!