#InstaSelfieParadise | Expanded Practice | Small Solos Exhibition Catalog

#InstaSelfieParadise

The 26th Annual BRIC Student Art and Media Education Exhibition

Expanded Practice A Survey of Work by BRIC’s Teaching Artists Small Solos Vandana Jain | Melissa Godoy Nieto May 14 – June 15, 2014 1

Student artist Kassidy Tucker from Miss Moran’s 3rd Grade Class at P.S. 119, where students studied Tibet this year with Teaching Artist Bill Brovold.

Mr. B (Sound Club guru), Mitchell Enoe, Shanoah Chaneyfield, Ashley Hart, and Miss Hawley rock the Campos After School Family Engagement.

#InstaSelfieParadise

The 26th Annual Student Art and Media Education Exhibition Curated by Hawley Hussey Keats’ famous line, “Truth is beauty, beauty is truth,” should be regarded as an obvious fact, not an enigma. What is enigmatic is that a whole society — and our modern technological one, which we cannot lose if we would, is the first such one in human history — that a whole society can think that it flourishes when, in fact, its mountains of waste matter reveal a paralyzed and psychopathic state, in the sense of having no feeling, no response to the wondrously complex and sensitive perceptions that are the human spirit itself.

– Robert Motherwell, testimony to the Select Subcommittee on Education, Environmental Quality Education Act of 1970 It has been forty years since the painter Motherwell made these remarks before the U. S. Congress. I am thankful that Congress tapped an artist to speak about the environment. What would Motherwell think about 2014 and the state of things? Environment as it relates to art and to education? I am sure he would be pleased that we found courage from his words. As artists and as educators we want our children to perceive beauty. In this way they will develop empathy for the world around them. They might even make a conscious decision to not litter or bully or maybe even put down whatever device they’re

holding to have meaningful and undocumented time with friends or family.

This year’s student exhibition is a mash-up of BRIC’s school partners all engaging in a common dialogue about nature, spirit, and how the use of social media impacts the way we engage with our world. Make no mistake; we had fun making each and every piece you see in this show and documenting every moment of it. Third graders built a Tibetan temple in their classroom while high school students became master dreamcatcher weavers. We are bringing science, language, and history together with contemporary art, media, and culture, and we invite you all to interact with our work! Write a poem to a pollinator and dream about saving them. But first, take a selfie! There my friends is the grand disconnect we are embracing as we gather round a hashtag and use our smartphones to make meaning, to have fun, and even to learn something! We hope our own hashtag, #InstaSelfieParadise, trends with smiling families sending wishes to butterflies, bats, and bees around the globe. We share our creativity with this social media culture because we embrace the potential of a positive message gone viral!

It is with love and respect that we dedicate this, the 26th Annual BRIC Student Art and Media Education Exhibition, to BRIC’s beloved Board member, Mary Anne Yancey, who passed away in 2013. Board chair from 2002 to 2007, Mary Anne was an enthusiastic supporter of BRIC’s education program, and we think she would have just loved every minute of this exhibition.

Have fun! Take a selfie, post on Facebook, shoot a Vine, upload to Instagram, and make sure to add the #InstaSelfieParadise hashtag to join our online celebration of art, imagination, and consideration for the world around us.

Hawley Hussey Director of Contemporary Art Education 3

Art Education Residencies

Bronx Envision Academy, The Bronx, Grade 10 Artist Teacher: Ellie Balk Classroom Teacher: Ms. Wilson “The butterfly effect” stems from the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world might ultimately cause a hurricane in another. Students created a chain of butterflies that has the power to ignite imagination and create positive change.

Juan Morel Campos School, Williamsburg, Grade 12 Artist Teacher: Ellie Balk Classroom Teachers: Ms. Sirulnick and Ms. Ritter Seniors explored ideas of “sociological imagination” by illustrating collaborative stories and using color to express and evoke emotion.

Spring Creek Community School, East New York, Grade 6 Artist Teacher: Anne Polashenski Classroom Teachers: Ms. Khan and Mr. Ward

P.S. 119, The Magnet School for Global and Ethical Studies, Flatbush, Grade 3 Artist Teacher: Bill Brovold Classroom Teacher: Ms. Moran

Students learned about tribal face tattoos from several cultures in Brazil, Burma, and New Zealand, exploring the symbolism and meaning behind the tradition. Inspiration for the students’ face tattoos came from the Maori people of New Zealand. Bold strokes, strong angles, and gentle curves were used to create designs that carefully followed the contour of each student’s face, allowing them to reflect on their identity and individuality.

The prayer wheel is a device to send good thoughts out into the universe. The beautiful designs on the outside are for all to see and messages are written on the inside. The sound that comes from spinning these wheels helps deliver these good messages across the globe.

P.S. 8, Brooklyn Heights, Pre-Kindergarten Artist Teacher: Lizzy LeBlanc Classroom Teachers: Ms. Claus and Ms. Levkulic Pre-Kindergarten students played with mixedmedia art materials and explored the magic of transparent materials that resemble glass. In this site-specific installation, the viewer is invited to walk through the translucent works of art, transforming how the veil of color and markmaking shifts their perspective.

Juan Morel Campos School, Williamsburg, After School Family Engagement Artist Teacher: Laura Pawson Students, faculty, and parents became weavers of dreamcatchers! The circular dreamcatchers reflect the circular mandala nearby in the student exhibition, and both provide an opportunity to interact. Visitors can compose a wish to the pollinators and tie this message to the dreamcatchers with ribbon.

P.S. 48, Mapleton School, Bensonhurst, Kindergarten – Grade 2 Artist Teacher: Celia Caro Classroom Teachers: Ms. DeVincenzi, Ms. Siravo, Ms. Lampon & Ms. Trapani, Ms. Rizzi-Chrisafulli, Ms. Balestieri, and Ms. Cardenas Students were introduced to the kinetic sculpture of Alexander Calder and Wrenford Thaffe, and from that inspiration created mixed-media mobiles featuring birds and stars.

P.S. 119, The Magnet School for Global and Ethical Studies, Flatbush, Grade 3 Artist Teacher: Bill Brovold Classroom Teacher: Ms. Moran The mandala is a central figure in Tibetan imagery. It is created by collaboration and the result is impermanence. Often made of sand and taking monks many weeks, they are then immediately destroyed upon completion. Students studied Tibet and then collaborated to produce a work of art that takes the viewer inside the world of a mandala.

I.S. 136, Sunset Park, Grade 8 Artist Teacher: Alice Mizrachi Classroom Teacher: Mr. Aguilar Community is the immediate world in which we live. Within a community we can consciously transform our neighborhoods into hubs that are mindful of the environment, improve our quality of life, and look towards the future in solving some of the concerns of today. Students will showcase a site-specific collaborative installation imagining their future community, using recycled materials and incorporating the five senses.

P.S. 198, Flatbush, Grade 5 Artist Teachers: Ceila Caro and Vickie Tanner Classroom Teachers: Ms. Murphy, Ms. Watt CASA program funded by NYC Councilmember Jumaane Williams Recognizing art’s intrinsic ability to nurture Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) the EQ (Emotional Intelligence) Project is an interdisciplinary arts program that seeks to develop and deepen children’s SEL through workshops in the visual and dramatic arts. Students explored their EQ by creating portraits of their alter egos in a wide variety of mediums including drawing, collage, puppetry, and painting.

students explored geometric design, experimented with patterns, and learned how to work collaboratively to create art. Each student chose a geometric shape to symbolize himself/herself, and designed a pattern that integrated their symbol. Students worked laboriously to tool their brass sheet on both sides to achieve deep surface dimension, then considering how their individual pieces of art would come together, to form a larger, more complex picture, both visually and symbolically.

Media Education Residencies

Brooklyn Community High School of Communication, Arts and Media; Bedford-Stuyvesant; Grades 9-12 Artist Teacher: Julian Klepper Classroom Teacher: Mr. Mendola

P.S. 371K, Sunset Park, Grades 9-12 Artist Teacher: Pamella Allen Classroom Teacher: Ms. Stankiewicz Using expanded visual resources, cues and modeling, ELL and District 75 Citywide Program students explored geometry, color theory, and collaboration through the creation of a colorful collaged mandala. By making illustrations using tessellation and repeat pattern designs on cut and folded paper as well as primary and secondary colors, the subjects of math and art were integrated.

Students in this filmmaking seminar explored one topic through both documentary and narrative filmmaking. The result was a documentary and a mockumentary about hip-hop culture and today’s youth. “The Ballad of Jay Kurtis (Never Let Talent Stop You)” is a comedy that tells the story of a young, aspiring hip-hop artist from Brooklyn.

(10 min)

P.S. 310, Fort Hamilton Parkway, Grades 2-4 Artist Teacher: Dana Perrotti Classroom Teacher: Ms. Fang Students made masks inspired by traditional ceremonial masks from around the world. They considered material, technique, performance, and representation in creating their masks. A recurring theme in this Residency was pattern in design. Students demonstrated a firm grasp of this concept through their individual use of repeating lines, shapes, and colors. Just as individual elements build upon one another to form a dynamic pattern, when displayed together, the masks unite to tell a colorful, intricate story.

P.S. 310, Fort Hamilton Parkway, Grades 2-4 Artist Teacher: Dana Perrotti Classroom Teacher: Ms. Fang In this culminating project entitled “Big Patterns,” students were introduced to the technique of metal tooling. Over the course of the Residency,

Brooklyn International High School, Brooklyn Heights, Grades 9-11 Artist Teacher: Lindsay Catherine Harris Artist Teaching Assistant: Miranda Bushey

P.S. 503, The School of Discovery, Sunset Park, Grades K-2 Artist Teachers: Ceila Caro and Vickie Tanner Classroom Teachers: Ms. D’Alessandro, Ms. Winson, Ms. Seidenberg, Ms. Abrahams & Ms. Robbins, Ms. Paradise, Ms. Kwok, Ms. Erickson, Ms. Sabala, and Ms. Cordes

Students from Bangladesh to Guyana explored “Notions of Home” through video and animation in a 12-session selective. These stop-motion animations are part of a larger exploration of digital storytelling. (2 min)

This Emotional Intelligence (EQ) interdisciplinary program seeks to develop and deepen children’s SEL through workshops in the visual and dramatic arts. Students explored their Emotional Intelligence (EQ as opposed to IQ) by creating portraits of themselves, their classmates, and their alter egos in a variety of media and emotions. They worked in drawing, painting, and collage, and examined both historical and contemporary portraiture. Their culminating work is an interactive installation assembled by their families and teachers that invites viewers to discover and investigate their own feelings.

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Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology, Bushwick, Grades 9 & 10 Artist Teacher: Liam Billingham School Principal: Michael Prayor Over the course of 10 sessions, students collaborated to create a public service announcement about the importance of breakfast. Students honed their skills in storytelling, storyboarding, cinematography, and editing to produce this PSA. (2 min)

Secondary School for Journalism, Park Slope, Grades 9 & 10 Artist Teachers: Shaun Seneviratne and Greg Anderson Elysee Classroom Teachers: Mr. Andrews and Mr. Slabodsky Students in the school’s Digital Journalism class produced segments for a BRIC and Secondary School for Journalism television show. The focus was on research, interviewing, and producing “opdocs.” This project, titled “Overcome,” asks the question, “What motivates our teachers to come to school every morning?” (5 min)

John Jay Educational Campus, Park Slope, Grades 9-12 Artist Teacher: Shaun Seneviratne Artist Teaching Assistant: Yvonne Shirley Classroom Teachers: Mr. Andrews (Secondary School for Journalism) and Ms. Davidson (Millennium Brooklyn) CASA Program Funded by NYC Councilmember Brad Lander During this 16-session after-school video residency, students from four different schools collaborated and explored narrative filmmaking, from script-writing to post-production. For their final projects, they selected a genre and a quote from a grab bag of choices, and created short videos around these prompts. (5 min)

Millennium Brooklyn High School, Park Slope, Grade 10 Artist Teacher: Tim Fielder Classroom Teacher: Ms. Davidson Over the course of 10 sessions, Artist Teacher Tim Fielder integrated digital animation into Caryn Davidson’s studio art classroom. Students developed characters, wrote short narratives, produced storyboards, and created digital animations. (3 min)

BRIC House Parties, Digital Remix Activity, All ages Artist Teacher: Amanda Long

John Jay Educational Campus, Park Slope, Grades 9-12 Artist Teacher: Tim Fielder Artist Teaching Assistant: Sha-nee Williams Classroom Teachers: Mr. Andrews (Secondary School for Journalism) and Ms. Davidson (Millennium Brooklyn) CASA Program Funded by NYC Councilmember Brad Lander

Every second Saturday of the month, BRIC throws a House Party filled with art, media, dance, and music. Artist Amanda Long works with BRIC staff to create interactive media arts activities, where visitors of all ages engage with stop-motion animation and green screen technology (and puppetry, mask-making, instrument making, dancing, and lots of fun). (5 min)

During this 16-session after-school animation residency, students from four different schools strengthened illustration skills, learned 2D animation techniques, and developed short narratives.

Students gained 21st-century digital skills while having fun and telling original stories. (3 min)

Urban Assembly for Music and Art (UAMA), Brooklyn Heights, Grades 9-12 Artist Teacher: Lindsay Catherine Harris Artist Teaching Assistant: Greg Anderson-Elysee In an after-school program, students learned to produce short video segments for their own online channel, “X-Channel.” The two videos in this exhibition were produced while on a field trip to BRIC, where students had the chance to interview Brooklyn Independent Media Producers and other passers-by. (2 min)

I.S. 136, Sunset Park, Grade 7 Artist Teacher: Helen Park Classroom Teacher: Ms. Conte Over the course of 10 sessions, students learned digital photography and Adobe Photoshop by exploring self-portraiture. Through examining the work of portrait artists, from Rembrandt to Chuck Close, the students were asked to consider the difference between a self-portrait and a “selfie.”

After producing a photo shoot, each student created their first project in Photoshop — combining image and text to communicate who they are as individuals.

Vandana Jain, Alphabet (detail), 2003-2011

Vandana Jain and Melissa Godoy Nieto In a moment when manifestos are written in 140 characters or less, and images from across the world can generate thousands of “likes” in mere minutes, artists Melissa Godoy Nieto and Vandana Jain, featured alongside BRIC’s annual student exhibition, spark a meaningful conversation about the ways that art can communicate. At once reverent and visionary, they source from deep-rooted cultural traditions of the past and engage with the ever-evolving idea of visual language. At the same time, both of these artists foreground marginalized voices within contemporary discourse.

Melissa Godoy Nieto, a multidisciplinary artist and designer from Tijuana, Mexico, creates site-specific installations with paint, yarn, and other materials. Taking inspiration from mythology, textiles, and pre-Hispanic culture, she produces works that reference “the vibrant palette, dynamic and hand-crafted aesthetic of Mexican culture,” as she states. The presence of Godoy Nieto’s boldly colored figures extends into the gallery through the artist’s signature use of yarn. With beams of fabric, she connects the bottom of each panel to small concrete discs installed at varying distances on the gallery floor. With these means, Godoy Nieto pays homage to the graphic, interlocking lines of hand-woven textiles while also creating a meditation on contemporary identity. She also suggests a continual process of deconstructing and reconstructing images rooted in ancient histories – and made newly relevant by a reinterpretation of their symbolic and emotive force.

For this exhibition Godoy Nieto also composed a series of paintings of abstract busts in bright and metallic colors. Somewhere between portraiture and sartorial sketches, each painting depicts a faceless black figure from the waist up, donning outfits that range from a sharp gray suit to a bodice of gold and turquoise plumes. Corresponding with the graphic patterns of their attire, the black heads contain constellations of repeated shapes and vivid washes of color in place of recognizable facial features. Though her materials of choice and handmade application hark back to craft traditions, the overall impression of her eye-popping wall paintings is unmistakably contemporary — these stylish characters recall fashion photography, design sketches, and “look books.”

In a practice that spans painting, prints, and mixed-media installations, artist Vandana Jain manipulates the seemingly pervasive language of logos and corporate branding to examine the influence of consumer culture on modern life.

Her series Alphabet, is comprised of twenty-six hand-embroidered panels, each depicting a corporate logo that corresponds with a letter in the English alphabet. Inspired by Jain’s profession as a textile designer and our ubiquitous daily exposure to corporate iconography, she initiated Alphabet with the orange curvilinear AT&T sign.

The logo, whose negative space separates into multiple compartments, reminded her of the array of intersecting stitches in 18th- and 19th-century American embroidery samplers. In addition to aesthetic similarities, the painstaking process of constructing Alphabet echoes the function of such samplers as “résumés” for young women hoping to marry. Samplers served as a means to both familiarize one’s self with the written word and to display an industrious work ethic to potential marital partners. Using Alphabet to comment on globalized, corporate culture, Jain notes that today, most mass-market textile handiwork is produced by young women in developing nations.

Through this lens, international brand expansion constitutes “today’s linguistic primer.”

Each panel in Alphabet took approximately forty hours to compose, and over the course of nine years, Jain gradually grew the series from AT&T to Zildjian, a company that sells high-quality cymbals.

The logos in between range from Hallmark’s resplendent crown and McDonald’s iconic “Golden Arches” to more obscure symbols of such smaller businesses as Victor, a pest control company. The effect is a colorful and lively collection of symbols that are at once contemporary in their graphic sensibility and reminiscent of longstanding fiber art traditions. For Jain, the act of transforming these glossy commercial logos with thread and needle subverts their potency and regains agency over the barrage of advertisements, brands, and corporate images that populate her life. The tactile nature of embroidery, coupled with its craft associations and history in domestic, often female, local economies, soften the logos and attempt to humanize the organizations that they represent.

House of Brands focuses Jain’s logo research on

the domestic space; this large wall image acts as a meditation on the kinds of products that have influence in the home. Jain repeated recognizable logos to create unique patterns, essentially wallpapering the rooms of a cutaway dollhouse by theme. The living room is dominated by entertainment logos, such as the trademarks for video games, cable networks, and a Steinway piano, while the bathroom is filled with those related to beauty and health. Whereas Alphabet infused logos with the mark of the artist’s hands, House of Brands stands as an eerie harbinger to a world where logos run rampant and even the home is devoid of the human touch.

Godoy Nieto’s work takes an inward look into her own cultural influences, raising questions about how to preserve and interpret historic cultural images in the present day, while Jain’s manipulation of corporate logos calls upon the viewer to think critically about the global symbols of communication and the ways we consume visual culture at large. Between the two exhibitions, the 26th Annual BRIC Student Art and Media Education Exhibition continues these conversations and stands as a stunning testament to the power of self-fashioning in an increasingly media-saturated society. Entitled #InstaSelfieParadise, the exhibition navigates the terrain of social media platforms and makes direct reference to the prevalence (and power) of self-taken photographs posted on Twitter and Instagram. The young artists in this exhibition grew up in the era of smartphones and intimately understand the instant feedback networks of the Internet. They accept the current technological landscape and pose new questions about how artists can embrace the devices of the moment to create populist art and to organize around social justice issues. There is nothing wistful in how they treat technology. Instead their visions of utopia, their #paradise, lies in their occupation of these sites—both physical and virtual—and the opportunities to promote their faces, ideas, and values within them.

Margo Cohen Ristorucci

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SMALL SOLO: Melissa Godoy Nieto Curated by Elizabeth Ferrer Melissa Godoy Nieto is a multidisciplinary artist and designer who was born in Tijuana, Mexico, and lives and works in Brooklyn. Her mixed-media paintings draw inspiration from pre-Columbian history and art, textiles, and hieroglyphics, while also exploring the conundrum of individual identity in the contemporary era. For this exhibition, she produced six new paintings depicting deity-like figures, represented in bright hues. They are painted on eight-foot-high wood panels, with strands of yarn radiating out from the panels’ lower edge. With imagery and color palette, the artist references Mexico’s rich native history, including its textile traditions and the value placed on the handmade. The artist also intends these works to reference emotional identity and fragility. Godoy Nieto’s works meld the ancient with contemporary, mirroring her own sense of hybridity from living in two cultures.

Godoy Nieto earned her BA in Industrial Design from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. She has completed residencies and workshops at Flux Factory, Queens; Centro de las Artes, San Luis Potosí, Mexico; and The Workshop Estudio, Guadalajara, Mexico. Her work has been exhibited at The Candy Factory, Brooklyn; SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York; Galería Vértigo, Mexico City; and General Public, Berlin. She has performed as part of the Greenpoint Pre-Apocalyptic Theatre Festival and the Northside Festival, both in Brooklyn; among others. Godoy Nieto is a co-founder of The Poetry Club Art Space, Brooklyn, and Head Visual Artist for The Tablets, a music group that will perform at BRIC during the run of the exhibition. melissagodoynieto.com

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION (All works courtesy of the artist.)

All works acrylic paint and mixed media on wood 80 x 36 in.

Looking Under Water, 2014 Rusting in Continuous Waves, 2014 Persistent Dance, 2014 Companion, 2014 Huipil, 2014 Lunar, 2014

All works acrylic paint on canvas 24 x 18 in.

Portrait in Deep Sea, 2014 (Portrait) Spring, 2014 (Portrait) Dancing in Metal Fatigue, 2014 (image this page, right) (Portrait) Neos Aurum, 2014 (image this page, left) Portrait in Sand, 2014 Portrait in Parallel Waves, 2014

SMALL SOLO: Vandana Jain Curated by Elizabeth Ferrer Vandana Jain works with such non-conventional mediums as embroidery and wallpaper to examine contemporary and traditional systems of communication. She appropriates and recontextualizes corporate logos to explore the influence of consumer cultures on modern life. Alphabet is a series of 26 hand-embroidered panels depicting a corporate logo for each letter in the English alphabet. With the rise of globalization and Internet culture, the artist suggests how corporate logos have become a pervasive international language, familiar to those in both the First and Third worlds. In House of Brands, well-known logos and trademarks create a colorful and playful dollhouse structure and draw attention to the role products and consumption play in the home.

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION (All works courtesy of the artist.)

Alphabet, 2003-2011 Wool on linen 16 x 16 in. each, 76 x 136 in. overall House of Brands, 2014 Vinyl 13 他 x 10 ft. (image this page)

Jain earned a BA in Art and Art History from New York University. She was awarded the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant and has completed residencies at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Program, New York; and the Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens. Her work has been exhibited at the Skylight Gallery, Brooklyn; Station Independent Projects, New York; Spattered Columns Gallery, New York; the Queens Museum; the Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA; and Lakeeren Gallery, Mumbai; among others. Jain has created visual art for special projects such as plays by Nina Morrison at Dixon Place, New York, and the Living as Form archival exhibition presented by Creative Time, New York. She is based in Brooklyn. vandanajain.net 9

Expanded Practice: A Survey of Work by BRIC’s Teaching Artists Curated by Jennifer Gerow Pamella Allen | Ellie Balk | Bill Brovold | Celia Caro | Donna Maria deCreeft |Tim Fielder Lindsay Catherine Harris | Judy Hoffman Amanda Long | Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira Alice Mizrachi | Dana Perrotti | Anne Polashenski | Devin Powers | Emma Tuccillo The artists in this exhibition have developed this work in tandem with teaching pre-K through 12th grade students in public schools in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, binding these two sides of their practice together in a close relationship. Juxtaposed in the Project Room, Gallery, Swing Space and Box Office of BRIC House, the work on display

by BRIC’s Teaching Artists and their students presents a revealing conversation between artists’ personal practices and the curriculums they teach.

This exhibition attempts to put on display not just the objects but the dialogue and ideas imparted by these artists.

Ellie Balk facilitates the discovery and interpretation of connections between people and culture through interactive, participatory visual artworks.

She creates color systems to organize data into abstracted architectonic public murals, inviting the community to engage with both the space and one another. Like Balk, musician, composer, and visual artist Bill Brovold creates musical instruments that educate. His use of everyday materials and simplified moving parts allows a visual instruction on abstract ideas of rhythm, tone, and beat. In her interactive video installations Amanda Long takes a cue from early animation technology like the Phenakistoscope to illustrate the concepts behind digital technology. This custom software enables her to collaborate with the audience, creating a dynamic, evolving animated mural that blurs the line between artist, performer, and observer.

Tim Fielder’s graphic animations source images from Afrofuturism, pulp, and action films as build-

ing blocks for the construction of new worlds. His work takes on difficult topics in recent history— race, gender inequality, Nazis—and places them in a new historical precedent where a black female aviator saves the world from Nazi henchman. In Turkish Delight, Flim Flams Anne Polashenski takes images of sultans from the Ottoman Empire and strips them of their imperial garb, to then dress them in female clothing—corsets, crinolines, and ballerina costumes. The artist’s use of incongruent costumes and overwhelming decorative motifs further “obliterates” the power these figures once represented. Celia Caro reinterprets art historical precedents by melding alternative art processes as varied as cyanotype, quilting, and illustration to come up with an entirely new take on these traditionally feminine art forms.

Inspiring viewers to take a closer look through her inventive use of materials, Judy Hoffman’s sculptures take the abject debris of everyday life, both organic and industrial, as inspiration for an altogether new and whimsical life form. A craftsman first and foremost, Dana Perrotti inspires material awe through her explorations in the hot and cold working properties of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. She uses traditional metalworking techniques such as copper raising, lost wax casting, blacksmithing, and oxyfuel welding to shape her creations scaled to her head and hands. Alice Mizrachi’s murals use urban detritus like subway poster maps and mirrors to reflect the beauty in the grit of the everyday.

Printmaker Donna Maria deCreeft creates installations that cross and re-cross the boundaries of the physical and metaphysical, science and the spiritual, to create art that encourages close observation and inherent mystery. Like deCreeft, Devin Powers encourages the enigmatic through his disparate sources of imagery—such as the sacred geometry of Arabic art or Western stained-glass windows—

and uses these influences on a formal level to create psychedelic, mandala-like drawings. Influenced

by Carl Jung’s use of the mandala’s repetitive geometry to access the unconscious, Pamella Allen layers personal photographs and found images in circular patterns to create private symbologies that investigate place, memory, and emotion.

Using photography to explore ideas of place, memory, and history, Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira’s documentary work has taken her to many parts of the globe to photograph indigenous communities in Guatemala, Sweden, Cuba, and Iraq. Photographed in the Amazon in Equador, NantarArutam investigates nature and the metaphysical and the ability of a photograph to capture these experiences. Through the exploration of 19th century photographic processes, analog techniques, and other alternative approaches, Emma Tuccillo creates open-ended narratives in which the viewer is encouraged to explore with his or her own personal lens. Her work is often inspired by Home, and the way it affects our memory and sense of imagination. Multimedia artist, writer, and educator Lindsay Catherine Harris creates media projects exploring identity, presence, and history. In Evoking the Mulatto she explores mixed-race identity in the 21st century through personal profiles, experiences, and opinions of young (early 20s to early 30s) mixed-race artists and activists to speak directly to the current climate of racial classification and struggles/triumphs of personal identification.

The artwork on display is a testament to the ideas and experiences that BRIC’s Teaching Artists bring to their practice and to their classrooms. It is a visual and auditory exclamation of the inspired making and learning that take place in the classrooms of our school partners.

Jennifer Gerow Curatorial Assistant

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION (All works courtesy of the artists.)

Pamela Allen Dragon Flys, 2014 Mixed media and sand on canvas 30 x 30 in.

Healing, 2014 Digital prints, rice paper, and cotton string 6 x 9 in. folded, 6 x 71 in. opened

Amanda Long Kissoscope, 2013 Video installation (image this page, left)

Hummingbird & Eagle, 2014 Mixed media on handmade paper 11 ½ x 9 in.

Winter, 2007 Artist book, mixed media 3 x 2 ¹⁄₃ closed, 3 x 16 in. opened

Ellie Balk Building Study I, 2014 Acrylic on wood 24 x 15 in. (image this page, right)

Tim Fielder Matty’s Rocket (chapter 1-2), 2013 Video and iPad with scroll through images HD 1920 x 1080, Quicktime format 18:00 min.

Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira All archival print on matte paper 12 x 12 in.

Tonal, 2013, Ecuador (image opposite page, left) Ombligo, 2013, Ecuador Little Dinosaur, 2013, Ecuador Untitled, 2013, Ecuador

Building Study II, 2014 Acrylic on wood 15 x 24 in.

Bill Brovold Sound Machine #6, 2014 Wood, cable, and mechanics 204 X 24 in.

Celia Caro Transmogrification, 2014 Cyanotype rug with pillows 52 x 82 in.

Donna Maria deCreeft Hymenoptera, 2014 Digital print, rice paper, and cotton string 9 x 6 in. folded, 9 x 77 in. opened Organisms, 2014 Digital prints, rice paper, and cotton string 5 x 8 in. folded, 5 x 77 in. opened

Lindsay Catherine Harris Evoking the Mulatto, 2012-14 Video, 6 photographs, vinyl map Variable dimensions Judy Hoffman Wildtype IX, 2013 Ceramic and oxides 8 ¼ x 7 2/3 x 4 ¼ in. (image opposite page, right) Wildtype XXI, 2013 Ceramic and oxides 14 ¾ x 14 x 7 ½ in.

Wildbook IX, 2001 Artist made paper 5 x 4 ¾ in. x 1 ½ in.

Jenny, 2013, Ecuador All archival print on matte paper 6 x 6 ½ in.

Song to the Spirits, 2011 Video 1:38 min Alice Mizrachi Travelled Reflections, 2014 Mixed-media installation 60 x 26 in.

Dana Perrotti Immobile Device, 2011 Copper and brass 5 ¼ x 4 ¼ x 1 ¾ in.

Anne Polashenski Osman I With Tree Body Flimflam, 2011 Rubber stamp ink images, collage, ink and gouache on paper 12 x 8 ½ in.

Turkish Delight: Minyatür Motif Obliteration, 2012 C-print and gouache on paper 15 x 18 in.

Devin Powers Liminal, 2012 Gouache and pigment PVA on mulberry paper 25 x 37 in.

Sketchbook, 2012 Ink on paper 4 x 5 in.

Emma Tuccillo All archival pigment prints 5 x 5 in.

The Bridge, 2014 The Church, 2014 The Hudson, 2014 The Schoolhouse, 2014 The Studio, 2014 The Wall, 2014

Captive, 2012 Steel, copper, brass, and bronze 8 x 4 in.

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ABOUT BRIC Since 1979, BRIC has been the driving cultural force behind a number of Brooklyn’s most renowned and beloved arts and media programs. All of BRIC’s programs are anchored by the organization’s commitment to artistic excellence, programmatic breadth, diverse cultural representation and genuine accessibility.

BRIC presents live music and performing arts, contemporary art, and community media programs. The organization places special emphasis upon providing opportunities and platforms for Brooklyn artists and media makers to create and present new works.

In 2013, BRIC inaugurated a new era of service to the borough when it opens BRIC House, a 40,000 square-foot arts and media facility located in the cultural hub of Downtown Brooklyn. BRIC House includes a flexible state-of-the-art performance space, a major contemporary art gallery, artist workspace, and multiple television and media production studios. Designed by Brooklyn-based architect Thomas Leeser, BRIC House aims to be a true home for artists and audiences—a place where emerging and established artists create work that deepens their practice and engage with the diverse communities of Brooklyn. BRIC House opened in October 2013.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS BRIC acknowledges public funds for its arts education programs from the National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; New York State Assembly Members Inez Barron, Joan L. Millman, Felix Ortiz, and Annette Robinson; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York City Council Members Mathieu Eugene, Vincent J. Gentile, Letitia James, Brad Lander, Stephen Levin, Darlene Mealy, Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., Albert Vann, and Jumaane Williams.

Additional support is provided by Astoria Federal Savings, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Barclays/ Nets Community Alliance, Bay and Paul Foundations, Bloomingdale’s Fund of the

Macy’s Foundation, Con Edison, Laurence W. Levine Foundation, and numerous individual supporters.

Special thanks to generous supporters Howard Brickner & Tracy Makow and Viacom.

STAFF Director of Contemporary Art Elizabeth Ferrer Director of Education Jackie Chang Director of Contemporary Art Education Hawley Hussey Manager, Youth Media Education Jill Beale Education Program Coordinator Linda Mboya Marketing Manager Abigail Clark Gallery Manager Eric Araujo Curatorial Assistant Jennifer Gerow Director of Development Jilian Gersten Director of Marketing Colleen Ross Graphic Designer Matthew de Leon Interns Julia Honore Lee Bierina Nicasio Anilbelis Reyes Rafia Sultana Katherine Wilson President Leslie G. Schultz Executive Vice President Betsy Smulyan

BRIC 647 Fulton Street (at Rockwell Place) Brooklyn, NY 11217 718.683.5600 BRICartsmedia.org

@BRICartsmedia #BRIChouse #InstaSelfieParadise #BRICteachingartists IMAGE CREDITS Front Cover: Masks created by P.S. 310 students, inspired by ceremonial masks from around the world. Teaching Artist: Dana Perrotti.

Photo: H. Hussey.

Back Cover: Vandana Jain House of Brands (detail), 2014