Participants: Nandini Bagchee (Principal, Bagchee Architects), Peter Cramer & Jack Waters (artists and former co-directors of ABC No Rio), Jody Graf & Elena Ketelsen González (Assistant Curators, MoMA PS1), and Libertad O. Guerra (Executive Director, The Clemente)

Since the 1970s, municipal and city-owned buildings across New York City have been reclaimed by artists and cultural workers as sites for experimentation, including PS1 and The Clemente, both of which are housed in decommissioned public school buildings. Focusing on select case studies—including The Clemente, El Bohio, and ABC No Rio—this event considers how efforts to reclaim city-owned buildings for creative projects served to propose new models for institutionality and educational initiatives. Intersecting with larger socio-spatial forces in the city, these histories bring a new perspective to the story of the “alternative art space” movement, and the complex ecology of spaces working within these frameworks then and now. What do the varying outcomes of these projects tell us about the politics of stewarding creative and public space in NYC?