Summer 2019 R&D Season
Cover Image: Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, and Sable Elyse Smith, Mirror/Echo/Tilt, 2019. Digital photograph, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artists
Launched in the summer of 2016, the Department of Education and Public Engagement’s Summer R&D Season is an annual research and development initiative that foregrounds the New Museum’s year-round commitment to partnerships and public dialogue at the intersection of art and social justice. Each Summer R&D Season takes the form of an artist residency and exhibition. Visitors and community partners are directly engaged through gallery activations and public and private programs. The New Museum’s Teen Apprentice Program, a paid summer internship, offers a group of teens an intensive six-week program, during which they work with teaching staff and artists-in-residence to play a crucial role in facilitating visitor dialogue and participation, while learning about the relationship between art and social justice.
“Mirror/Echo/Tilt” is the New Museum’s fourth annual Summer Art and Social Justice residency and exhibition. It features private workshops for community partners, public forums and readings, and a resource room with visions for justice contributed by visitors and facilitated by the New Museum Teen Apprentice Program.
A Possibility that Exists Alongside:
Gallery Tour with Shaun Leonardo and Poetry Reading by Nicole Sealey
Thursday July 18, 6 PM
Join artist Shaun Leonardo for an intimate walk-through of “Mirror/Echo/Tilt,” followed by a reading by poet Nicole Sealey, author of the critically acclaimed debut collection Ordinary Beast (2017). This program is part of “A Possibility that Exists Alongside,” a series of artist-led gallery talks and poetry readings highlighting the capacity of voice—through writing, speech, and movement—to challenge, provoke, and open new possibilities for the future. Attendance is free, but RSVP is required. To RSVP, please email publicprograms@newmuseum.org.
Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, and Sable Elyse Smith in Conversation with Nicole R. Fleetwood
Thursday July 25, 7 PM
Join us for a conversation moderated by cultural theorist Nicole R. Fleetwood with artists Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, and Sable Elyse Smith, to discuss their residency and exhibition. This conversation is also part of the New Museum’s Second Annual Convening for Contemporary Art, Education, and Social Justice, which focuses on transformative justice this year.
A Possibility that Exists Alongside: Gallery Tour by Melanie Crean and Poetry Reading by Jess Saldaña
Thursday August 22, 6 PM
Join artist Melanie Crean for an intimate walk-through of “Mirror/Echo/Tilt,” followed by a poetry reading by Jess Saldaña. This program is part of “A Possibility that Exists Alongside,” a series of artist-led gallery talks and poetry readings highlighting the capacity of voice— through writing, speech, and movement—to challenge, provoke, and open new possibilities for the future. Attendance is free, but RSVP is required. To RSVP, please email publicprograms@newmuseum.org.
A Possibility that Exists Alongside: Gallery Tour by Sable Elyse Smith
Thursday September 12, 6 PM
Join artist Sable Elyse Smith for an intimate walk-through of “Mirror/Echo/Tilt.” This program is part of “A Possibility that Exists Alongside,” a series of artist-led gallery talks and poetry readings highlighting the capacity of voice—through writing, speech, and movement—to challenge, provoke, and open new possibilities for the future. Attendance is free, but RSVP is required. To RSVP, please email publicprograms@newmuseum.org.
So the Body May Think, Feel, Move: Healing, Justice, and Performative Embodiment
Thursday September 12, 7 PM
This panel discussion will consider strategies for envisioning new narratives toward healing and justice, and will feature sci-fi writer and artist Ras Cutlass Mashramani; Bryan Doerries, artistic director of Theater of War; and psychologist Isaiah Pickens. Reconfiguring classic structures of heroic tales and using techniques drawn from Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, “Mirror/Echo/Tilt” considers how the body processes memories and trauma in order to imagine new possibilities. The artists interviewed scholars and practitioners across many fields—including psychology, visionary fiction, and community-based theater—to develop the project, and this panel continues these interdisciplinary dialogues.
Convening for Contemporary Art, Education, and Social Justice
Thursday July 25–Saturday July 29
The New Museum presents its second annual Convening of activists, artists, and educators to exchange knowledge and methods for teaching, learning, sharing critical discussions, and creating structural change. The summer of 2019 will focus on transformative justice.
ABOUT R&D SEASONS
Organized by the New Museum’s Department of Education and Public Engagement, R&D (Research and Development) Seasons connect projects across multiple platforms around a new organizing theme each fall, spring, and summer. Seasonal themes are generated by artists-in-residence, and the Department’s collaborations with artists lead to exhibitions, performances, conferences, screenings, publications, after-school programs for teens, Family Day activities, and archival research. Anchoring the Museum’s dedication to expanded forms of knowledge and cultural production, each theme is wide-ranging and limber, rather than illustrative; participating artists, scholars, and curators raise topical questions and often test thematic limits.