Celebrating the transformative impact of Latinx communities in New York City
Historias is an expansive citywide initiative that weaves scholarly research, oral histories, and cultural programming to re-center Latinx narratives in NYC. Unfolding between 2024 and 2026, presented in partnership with the LxNY Consortium with lead support from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Historias marks the largest initiative in The Clemente’s 30-year history.
Historias, meaning both histories and stories, is more than just a celebration—it is an urgent political intervention. Historias aims to fill voids in the collective understanding of New York City's evolution by presenting a more honest, thorough, and intersectional perspective that celebrates the profound impact of Latinx communities.
Read the Artnet article about Historias
Historias: Unfolding in Three Phases
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Historias Sembradas
Sown Histories
Fall 2024–Spring 2025Historias Sembradas will introduce the initiative's key themes in the spirit of “thinking in public” through a series of partnered public programs and community events, collective research, and artist commissions. In this phase, Historias will begin cultivating narratives by testing ideas, seeding partnerships, and developing new artistic inquiries, setting the stage for deeper exploration.
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Historias Entrecruzadas
Interwoven Histories
Fall 2025Historias Entrecruzadas will begin weaving and presenting a diverse spectrum of narratives, unveiling the Nueva York Chronicles. This digital platform will document Latinx cultural movements from the 20th century to the present, hosting oral histories, video content, and digital artist commissions that will be activated by public programs and symposia across NYC.
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Historias Reveladas
Histories Revealed
Spring 2026Historias Reveladas is the final, culminating phase of Historias, presenting a cacophony of public output to historicize our collective city. Alongside the long-anticipated reopening of The Clemente’s historic, newly ADA-compliant Lower-East-Side cultural center, Historias will bring to life a citywide festival featuring a building-wide exhibition at The Clemente, ambitious art commissions, historical walking tours, and symposia. This phase synthesizes the research and artistic works from the previous phases, celebrating Latinx contributions across NYC and promoting cross cultural collaborations.
Historias Thematic Tracks:
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Urban Ecology: Latinx Spatial Stewardship
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Migration & Spiritual Belief: Crossing Borders
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Embodied Heritage: Music, Food, Play, and Street Life
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Everyday Poetics: Ritual and Resistance
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Material Culture & Memory: Diasporic Objects and Archives
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Labor & Commerce: Building Economies and Collective Power
In Community: Advisors, Collaborators, and Participants
Leveraging a Diversity of Knowledge and Expertise
Historias is guided by an esteemed network of advisors from within and external to the LxNY network, bringing diverse perspectives to the project.
External Advisory
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Historian, author of the forthcoming book Nueva York: Making the Modern City.
Pedro A. Regalado is Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University. He researches and teaches the history of race, immigration, planning, and capitalism in urban America. His first book, Nueva York: Making the Modern City, is a history of New York City’s Latinx community during the twentieth century, from the “pioneers” who arrived after World War I to the panoply of Latinx people who rebuilt the city in the wake of the 1975 fiscal crisis. Across a range of topics, from urban renewal to the rise of Latinx bankers, US military operations in Central America to drug workers who repurposed tenement buildings, Nueva York demonstrates how the democratic ideals of the city hinged, in large part, on the experiences of Latinx New Yorkers. Regalado’s work has been featured in The Journal of Urban History, Boston Review, The Washington Post, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Before joining Stanford's Department of History, Regalado was a junior fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Born in the Dominican Republic, he was raised in New York City’s Washington Heights. He earned his BA in History from Loyola University Chicago his MA and PhD in American Studies from Yale University.
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Poet, critic, translator, and board member of The Clemente.
Urayoán Noel is the author of eight books of poetry—most recently Transversal (University of Arizona, 2021), named a Book of the Year by the New York Public Library and longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award—and of the critical study In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (University of Iowa, 2014), winner of the LASA Latino Studies Book Award and an MLA honorable mention. As a translator of Latin American poetry, Noel has published Architecture of Dispersed Life: Selected Poetry by Pablo de Rokha (Shearsman, 2018), a finalist for the National Translation Award and longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award, as well as no budu please by Wingston González (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018) and adjacent islands by Nicole Cecilia Delgado (UDP/DoubleCross/La Impresora, 2022), among other works. A Letras Boricuas fellow in poetry (Mellon Foundation/Fundación Flamboyán) and the recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Howard Foundation, and the Schomburg Center, Noel has been both fellow and faculty at CantoMundo and the Macondo Writers Workshop, has performed internationally (Poesiefestival Berlin, Barcelona Poesia, the Toronto Biennial of Art, the Havana Book Fair, etc.), and is an editorial advisor for Latino Poetry (Library of America) and a board member of the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center. Noel’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Poetry, and Bomb, and has been exhibited at the Museum of the City of New York, Taller Boricua, and the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico. Urayoán Noel lives in the Bronx and serves as Director of Graduate Studies for the MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish at NYU.
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Associate Director at Performance Space New York.
Ana Beatriz Sepúlveda-Echegaray is a cultural worker, organizer,curator, and producer who currently serves as Associate Director at Performance Space New York (formerly PS122). Since joining Performance Space in 2018 she has developed and shepherded programs that center community and being in community above all else. With artist Monica Mirabile, Ana Beatriz brought back and reshaped P.S. 122’s Open Movement, a free open space for movement improvisation, artist-led workshops and cross-pollination. Curating PSNY’s Open Room, Ana Beatriz has engaged artists to reconceive the organization’s lobby as a community gathering, coalition building space, and site of installation and performance. Alongside the Strategy Group (a collective of five artists that were part of Performance Space’s 02020 Cohort) Ana Beatriz led the process of revisiting and experimenting with organizational structures that culminated in the most recently adopted Strategic Plan and accompanying programming. Before working at Performance Space, Ana Beatriz held various positions in museums, galleries, artist studios, and collectives in both Puerto Rico and New York. Her main interests lay in the intersection between art and social justice, with an emphasis on the empowerment and inclusion of underrepresented communities in the cultural sector.
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Artist, performer, and Co-Director of Recess Art.
Shaun Leonardo’s multidisciplinary work negotiates societal expectations of manhood, namely definitions surrounding black and brown masculinities, along with its notions of achievement, collective identity, and experience of failure. His performance practice is participatory and invested in a process of embodiment.
Leonardo is a Brooklyn-based artist from Queens, New York City. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and is a recipient of support from Creative Capital, Guggenheim Social Practice, Art for Justice and A Blade of Grass. His work has been featured at The Guggenheim Museum, the High Line, and New Museum, and profiled in the New York Times and CNN. His solo exhibition, The Breath of Empty Space, was presented at MICA, MASS MoCA and The Bronx Museum. And his first major public art commission, Between Four Freedoms, premiered at Four Freedoms Park Conservancy, in the fall of 2021.
The LxNY Historias Working Group
Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute
Pregones | Puerto Rican Traveling Theater
People’s Theater Project
Bronx Music Heritage Center
Brooklyn Arts Exchange
New Latin Wave
Historias growing list of Artists, Partners, and Contributors
Ana Sepúlveda, BAAD!, Bobby Sanabria, BORIMIX, Bronx Music Heritage Center, Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), Brooklyn Public Library, BRIC, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI), Centro PR, Charles Rice-Gonzáez, DJ Tresdos, Edra Soto, Edwin Torres, Elena Martínez, Emanuel Xavier, Esperanza Mayobre, Francisca Benítez, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Flushing Town Hall, ID Theater, Incite Institute, Jonathan González, Jesús Hilario-Reyes, Justin Denis, Kinfolk Foundation, Kristin Prevallet, LAZO Collective, Latino Arts and Activisms (LAAS), Library of America (LOA), Lucia della Paolera, Gabo Camnitzer, Melody Capote, Miguel Luciano, Miguel Trelles, Mariposa Fernández, Molly Crabapple, Monxo López, Natalia Lassale Pedro Regalado, Papoleto Meléndez, People’s Theater Project (PTP), Performance Space, Pregones/PRTT (Puerto Rican Traveling Theater), Public Art Fund, Risa Puno, Rosalba Rolón, Sheila Maldonado, Seth Tillett, Street Lab, Sofia Gallisa, South Bronx Unite, Tenement Museum, Teatro LATEA, Teatro SEA, Urayoán Noel, Vanessa González, Vera List Center, Xenia Rubinos, Yanira Casto,Yasmin Ramirez, Yesenia Montilla.
Historias Signature Projects:
Domino Table Talks
Domino Table Talks (DTT): intimate, intergenerational conversations designed to document the oral histories of Latinx community members through the lens of domino culture. Conversations will be captured in audio recordings and videos, which will be shared with the public to offer an exploration of the game's rich history and its intersections with Latinx culture in New York City and beyond. The first two episodes of DTT were presented with Public Art Fund to activate Edra Soto’s Graft sculpture at Doris C. Freedman Plaza.
The inaugural Domino Table Talks featured the following participants: Papoleto Meléndez, Edwin Torres, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Miguel Luciano, Edra Soto, Francisca Benítez, Papoleto, Esperanza Mayobre, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Edwin Torres, and Risa Puno.
PRESS:
6sqft, Aaron Ginsburg: Central Park art installation is a monument to Puerto Rican communities
New City Art, Charles Venkatesh Young: Central Park State of Mind: Edra Soto Puts the Home in Public Art
El Nuevo Dia, Francisco Javier Diaz: Boricua artist takes a Puerto Rican home to Central Park
NBC New York, Puerto Rican artist brings sculpture to Central Park
Historias Dispatch: Discover the Stories That Shape Us
To begin to roll out digitally in fall, the Historias Dispatch will offer windows into the rich tapestry of Latinx narratives that often go unheard. The Dispatch will bring rescued stories to a broad audience through a dynamic blend of multimedia content—including articles, videos, interviews, and interactive experiences. This initiative is dedicated to showcasing diverse voices and experiences, celebrating the cultural impact of Latinx communities, and fostering a deeper understanding of their contributions.
Stay connected as we share compelling stories and insights, amplifying the voices that illuminate our collective history and cultural heritage.
Remesas y Sobremesa: Conversations that Sustain and Linger
This series invites you to gather around the table, where the warmth of food and shared meals meets thoughtful dialogue. Drawing on the idea of remittances—diasporic exchanges that sustain connections between communities—these informal roundtables bring key themes of Historias "on the table," transforming often academic or abstract discussions and grounding them into accessible, lived realities. Through public dialogue and collaboration, participants explore the ties between diaspora and origin, with each conversation lingering like a shared meal, nourishing new ideas and perspectives.
Historias Youth Video Club
Historias Youth Video Club: Rooted in the longstanding tradition of youth filmmaking on the Lower East Side, this club will empower young people to document their lives and communities. Revitalizing a legacy of pioneering work of filmmakers and educators from the 1960s, the project aims to connect multi-generational stories and foster a new generation of storytellers. Through workshops and mentorship, participants will explore untold narratives and capture the evolving identity of their neighborhood. The program culminates in public screenings of short films that reflect their unique perspectives and experiences. The inaugural iteration of the club, conceived and led by Gabo Camnitzer and Justin Denis, will take place from November 2024 to May 2025.
Upcoming Programs:
Historias: November Events
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Date: November 8, 2024 @ 6:30 - 8:00 PM
Location: The Center for Brooklyn History
128 Pierrepont St, Brooklyn, NY 11201
More info and RSVP HERE!
The Clemente and Brooklyn Public Library, in partnership with the Library of America, are proud to present a series of three events this fall celebrating the NYC launch of Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, edited by celebrated poet Rigoberto González. The series will engage new audiences through music, poetry, and performances.
This series debuts the first thematic track for Historias Sembradas, Everyday Poetics: Ritual and Resistance,which explores the role Latinx poets have played a vital role in shaping diasporic identity, institution building, and community organizing.
The work of New York poets José Martí, Salomón de la Selva, Julia de Burgos, Lourdes Casal, and Clemente Soto Vélez has shaped today’s thriving Latino Poetic tradition and our understanding of what it means to be American. These revolutionary voices represent a range of Latin American geographies and aesthetics, including themes of migration, anti-imperialism, latinidad, language and exile. Join us as we explore the lasting impact of their voices in a multi-dimensional program offered in celebration of the publication of the landmark anthology Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology.
The event will feature a panel moderated by Latino Poetry contributor Edwin Torres with two scholars of Latino poetry in New York—Laura Lomas (Rutgers University-Newark) and Urayoán Noel (New York University). Torres will then lead an eight-person Poets Choir through an experimental performance of poems from the anthology in English and Spanish by all five of these poetic ancestors.
Participants:
Laura Lomas teaches comparative American studies, Latina/o/x literature and culture, ethnic and immigrant literature of the United States and the Americas, women's writing, nineteenth century studies, and feminist and decolonial theory in the English Department and the Graduate Program in American Studies at Rutgers University, Newark. Lomas is author of Translating Empire: José Martí, Migrant Latino Subjects and American Modernities which received the Modern Language Association's Prize for best book in Chicana and Chicano and Latina and Latino Studies. She co-edited The Cambridge History of Latina/o American Literature. She has served as Director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program, co-founded the Latina/o Studies Working Group, co-founded the Immigrant rights Collective, and was Founding Faculty Director of a graduate level Cuba study abroad program at Rutgers University-Newark. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, and on the Editorial Boards of Pasados, Hostos Review, and of Periférica: Journal of Social, Cultural and Literary History.
Urayoán Noel is a 2022 Letras Boricuas fellow and the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Transversal, a New York Public Library Book of the Year. Other work includes the LASA award-winning study In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam, the durational performance Wokitokiteki, and, as translator, adjacent islands by Nicole Cecilia Delgado. Noel lives in the Bronx and teaches at NYU.
Edwin Torres is a NYC native and editor of The Body In Language: An Anthology. Poetry collections include; Quanundrum: i will be your many angled thing (American Book Award winner), Xoeteox: the infinite word object, and Ameriscopia. Multi-disciplinary collaborations with a wide range of cultural nomads have contributed to the development of his bodylingo poetics. He has performed worldwide and received fellowships from NYSCA, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Arts Mid-Hudson, and The DIA Foundation among others. Anthologies include; Latino Poetry, New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archives, In The 21st Century: Poetics of Social Engagement, and Aloud: Voices from The Nuyorican Poets Cafe. He is currently an adjunct poetry professor at Columbia University.
Poets Choir:
Luciann Berrios aka 2 feathers, is a six-time published poet with works in the US Library of Congress, women empowerment advocate, Reiki Master, internationally certified meditation guide and sound practitioner. She facilitates sound meditations for both group and private sessions as well as for a community grief support group in Queensbridge, NY. She is registered and accredited by Meditation Alliance International.
Sheila Maldonado is the author of the poetry collections that's what you get and one-bedroom solo. She is a CantoMundo fellow and a Creative Capital awardee as part of desveladas, a visual writing collective. She teaches English for the City University of New York.
E.J. McAdams is a poet, artist, and collaborator exploring language and mark-making in the urban environment using procedures and improvisation with found and natural materials. He has published five chapbooks and curated the Social-Environmental-Aesthetics reading at EXIT ART. His first full-length collection is LAST.
Yesenia Montilla is an Afro-Latina poet & a daughter of immigrants. Her work has been published in Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast and in Best of American Poetry. Her first collection is The Pink Box. Her second collection Muse Found in a Colonized Body, was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award.
Urayoán Noel is a 2022 Letras Boricuas fellow and the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Transversal, a New York Public Library Book of the Year. Other work includes the LASA award-winning study In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam, the durational performance Wokitokiteki, and, as translator, adjacent islands by Nicole Cecilia Delgado.
K(Kristin) Prevallet is a poet, scholar, somatic practitioner, and performer. She is the author of six books including Everywhere Here and in Brooklyn, I, Afterlife: Essay in Mourning Time. She teaches for Bard College's Prison Initiative and is a poet in residence for The Poetry Clinic (trancepoetics.com).
Emanuel Xavier is author of several poetry books including Selected Poems of Emanuel Xavier and Love(ly) Child. His books have been finalists for International Latino Book Awards and Lambda Literary Awards and his work has appeared in Poetry, A Gathering of the Tribes, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere.
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When: November 2024 - March 2025 (two six-hour hour in-person sessions followed by four mentoring sessions with instructors)
Where: at The Clemente
Who: Teenagers (14-18 years old) interested in a career in TV/ film/ or digital media, experimenting with visual storytelling and documentary
Participants will learn the foundations of (mobile) filmmaking, including scriptwriting, lighting, videography, audio, and editing, to produce a 3-5 minute documentary film screened for the public at The Clemente in May 2025. Students will form teams of 3-4 to collaborate and produce the films. Students can then use the final works to build their artistic portfolios.
For questions, please contact instructor Justin Denis at adioramapicture@gmail.com
SIGN UP HERE!
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Opening Reception: Thursday, November 14 @ 6:00 - 9:00 PM
When: November 14, 2024 – January 15, 2025Where: The Tamayo Gallery in Teatro LATEA @ The Clemente
107 Suffolk Street, NYCCurators: Mercedes Trelles and Miguel Trelles
Artist: Máximo Rafael Colón
Press: Máximo Rafael Colón photographs of Puerto Rican culture on view in NYC, published on ‘See Great Art’
Join us for the XIXth Edition of BORIMIX: Nuyorican Splendor, celebrating the agency and the trailblazing trajectory of Puerto Ricans in New York.
The BORIMIX Visual Arts Exhibition, Storied Lens, is co-curated by Mercedes Trelles and Miguel Trelles, and will be devoted, for the first time ever, to the work of one artist, Máximo Rafael Colón. Support for the exhibition provided by LXNY/Historias.
"People are constantly going on about the flag. And that’s a starting point, a way of being proud. But I wish they would identify with the history."
- Máximo Rafael Colón
This selection of photographs from photographer Máximo Rafael Colón’s vast oeuvre demonstrates Colón’s commitment to politics, portraiture, and the “cultural provocateurs”: the people who ignited and kept the flame of Puerto Rican culture in New York through institutions like Taller Boricua, the Nuyorian Poet’s Café and New York’s rich music and festival scene. The selection, from Máximo’s personal archive, also constitutes a love letter to analogue photography and the information rich, uncropped print that relies on the precise moment.
Harking from " la Villa del Capitán Correa", Arecibo/Puerto Rico, Máximo Rafael Colón moved to New York at a young age. He started his formal training in the "darkroom arts" at the School of Visual Arts and from the get go a unique trajectory started: Colón's profound concern with social justice has been portrayed by documentary photographs of sit-ins, the emergence of the Young Lords and the clamor of Latinos demanding equal rights. His images capture a period of upheaval and political ferment reflecting an unwavering commitment to Puerto Rican Nationalism and the struggle for the liberation of imprisoned Nationalists such as Carlos Feliciano, Andrés Figueroa Cordero, Lolita Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda and Irvin Flores Rodríguez.
Colón's work was featured in the landmark photographic exhibition, Dos Mundos (1973) organized by the Institute of Contemporary Hispanic Art. He has participated in various prestigious exhibitions, among them, !Presente! The Young Lords (2015) at the Bronx Museum, the Museo del Barrio and the Loisaida Art Center, as well as Ida y Vuelta (2017) organized by the Museo de Antropología, Historia y Arte UPR, CitiCien, 100 artistas 100 años del Jones Act (2018) at the Clemente Soto Vélez, Casa Ruth and Taller Boricua, and El sujeto develado (2019) at the Museo de Arte Dr. Pío López Martínez.
Look for updates regarding LATEA’s program of art talks by emerging photographers handpicked by Máximo Rafael Colón including Destiny Mata, Amy Ponce, Mario Rubén Carrión, Maylyn "Zero" Iglesias, and Jon Ferrer.
Historias: October Events
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When: October 10, 2024 @ 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Where: BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance
2474 Westchester Avenue The Bronx, NY 10461
Artist Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful invites a group of remarkable Bronxites to co-develop actions embedded in the day-to-day of our beloved borough. The gestures that emerge are presented in private spaces, as well as in the Bronx's public realm, focusing on the roots that weave these visionaries with specific communities and neighborhoods.
Performing the Bronx is also representative of Nicolás’s interest in honoring, recovering and reclaiming herstories/histories/theirstories of the area’s inhabitants that run the risk of being effaced by time, lost in the midst of neighborhoods in flux, or dismissed by dominant discourses that often position themselves at the center of the conversation.
Featuring Bronx artists:
Arthur Avilés
Bill Aguado
Benny Bonilla
Mili Bonilla
Caridad De La Luz ‘La Bruja’
Dr. Drum
Ana ‘ROKAFELLA’ García
Reverend Danilo Lachapel
Wanda Salamán
Rhina Valentin
withNicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel
Film was conceived and directed by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful with video filming and editing by Geoffrey Jones.
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When: October 19, 2024 @ 7:00 PM dance lessons / 8:00 PM concert
Where: Flushing Town Hall
137-35 Northern Boulevard, Queens, NY, 11354
In-Person Tickets: $25 General Admission / $20 Seniors and Students w/ID
The Global Mashup: “Historias” will bring together two New York-based Latinx bands from different genres and cultural backgrounds to explore the roots of their music and the New York influences that shape their work. The event features individual performances from each band, followed by a collaborative jam session, offering a rich musical exchange. In addition to the concert, there will be dance lessons and a moderated discussion led by poet and DJ Eliel Lucero in both Spanish and English. Audience members will also participate by sharing their own “Historias” on how Latinx music has shaped their lives in New York.
This mashup celebrates the diversity within Latinx communities while highlighting the shared experiences of being Latinx in New York. By blending various musical traditions and personal stories, the event aims to reflect on how distinct cultures come together to form new and unique expressions in the city’s dynamic cultural landscape. The event will be live-streamed, and a short film will be produced to capture the performances and audience discussions. Drinks and food will be available for purchase, and don't forget your dancing shoes!
Historias! Global Mashup: Afro Dominicano (Afro-Caribbean Soul) Meets Maraca Bruja (Colombian Gaita) is presented with support from Historias, a multi-year programmatic initiative led by The Clemente in partnership with LxNY and supported by the Rauschenberg Foundation. Historias celebrates the transformative impact of Latinx communities in NYC through research, artistic interpretations, and public engagement.
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When: Saturday October 26 @ 2:45 - 4:00 PM
Where: The New School, Starr Foundation Hall 63 Fifth Avenue, Lower Level, NYC
Artists: Sofía Gallisá Muriente and Natalia Lassalle Morillo
As part of the Vera List Center Forum 2024: Correct History* The Clemente is thrilled to be co-presenting the performance Tactics of Transmission, on October 26! Over three days, the VLC Forum 2024 explores the ways in which history and historiography invariably function as acts of correction and revision while examining some of the ideological mechanisms that drive them. Discursive strands come together to consider how historical narratives and ideological formations are created, edited, altered, and contested, including historical revisionism, whitewashing, and rehabilitation by state and other hegemonic political actors.
Since 2022, artists Sofía Gallisá Muriente and Natalia Lassalle-Morillo have researched Puerto Rican collections and holdings at the Smithsonian Institution, examining their histories of accession, how they live in off-site storage, and the possibilities for mediating their return to the people and places they belong to. On the occasion of the VLC Forum 2024: Correct History*, the artists’ performance lecture Tactics of Transmission reflects on their experiences as unruly colonial subjects navigating the imperial archive, as well as on the historical gossip, findings, and revelations from their research process. A series of films emerging from this project are exhibited in Cooper Hewitt’s Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial, on view November 2, 2024, through summer 2025.
The program is co-presented with the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center as part of Historias, a multi-year initiative exploring Latinx New York’s transformative impact on the city. Launching in fall 2024, Historias is a partnership with the Latinx Arts Consortium of New York, with lead support from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
The Vera List Center Forum 2024 is presented as part of the center’s 2022–2024 Focus Theme Correction*. It is curated by Eriola Pira with Carin Kuoni, with research support by Ariana Kallinga and is convened with the support of Tabor Banquer, Re’al Christian, and Adrienne Umeh.description
Past Programs:
Historias Launch Block Party + The Clemente Open Studios
We were thrilled to launch our groundbreaking initiative Historias with a vibrant block party on September 28, 2024! This coincided with the 2024 edition of The Clemente Open Studios, featuring street performances, artist commissions, music, and public activations in partnership with Street Lab.
Event Highlights:
Featured Performers and Commissions
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In PRACTICE, Afro-Diasporic cultural idioms are interwoven through dance, sound, speech acts and design to incite the critical through-lines of creolized expressive arts formed within the greater geographic contexts of the "New World". This redux iterates on the larger evening-length work - that premiered at The Clemente in 2022—as it aims to guide viewers through a performative practice, celebrate the gift of gathering, and hold space to consider the emancipatory uses of culture for radical place-making and visioning collective liberation through creative practice.
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A dynamic performance led by artist and poet Edwin Torres where a choir of seven poets; Lydia Cortés, Sheila Maldonado, E.J. McAdams, Yesenia Montilla, Urayoán Noel, Kristin Prevallet, and Emanuel Xavier, will be conducted to bring to life five historical poems by foundational Latino poets. This bilingual performance, in both Spanish and English, oscillates between solo and collective voices, creating an organic and responsive experience. Through instant vocal arrangements, rhythm, and song, Torres guides the poets in generating spontaneous new poems while reinvigorating the original works. The performance honors the contributions of José Martí, Salomón de la Selva, Julia de Burgos, Lourdes Casal, and Clemente Soto Vélez—voices that span diverse Latin American geographies and aesthetics, deeply connected to migrant and diasporic histories, and integral to the rich Latino poetic tradition in and beyond New York.
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No one wants to be an artist, but everyone wants to be paid for his work. - Franz Kafka
Cuarto Oscuro is a live streamed four part performance taking place in September, 2024 at the Tenement Museum and ID Studio in NYC. Inspired by Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel Amerika / The Missing Person,in which he proposes a theater that hires anyone who applies, the project will employ a cast of new immigrants, hired directly from NYC's migrant shelters. Cuarto Oscuro will stage tableaux based on a pictorial script assembled from photographs of immigrant life on the LES. The artists will then re-shoot these tableaux using a multi camera flash system in an homage to the techniques of Jacob Riis, whose photographs changed the fabric of the Lower East Side. The new image flow will be interwoven with bilingual texts generated from the work process and from ongoing interviews with the cast. Three of these sessions will be live streamed, and an edit of the entire output will be projected on the Suffolk Street facade of the Clemente Center on September 28, as part of the Historias festival.
Cuarto Oscuro is created by Lucia della Paolera and Seth Tillett, with Adrien de Mones, Nicole Fernandez, Michael Guidetti, Justine Lugli, and Sandie Luna, featuring Jhonny Alberto Sinisterra Ruiz, Ingrid Garza, Johana Maldonado, Adrián Pérez, David Rosales, and Shirley Carabali Piedrahita. The project is realized with the generous support of the Clemente Center, Tenement Museum, International Center of Photography, Joel Fitzpatrick Studio, and Bronx-based LxNY partner and co-producer ID Studio Theater.
Live streams:
9/20/24: 2-6 PM
9/22/24: 2-6 PM
9/23/24: 4-8 PM
Cuarto Oscuro is part of a large theater work called FOUNDER, scheduled for full performance in the fall of 2025.
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“In its totality, the chorus is uncontainable, and potentially infinite, like a body of water, or a diaspora.” —Elisa Peebles on Circulo de Voces
Círculo de Voces is a public performance piece and series of talleres reimagining the choir as a public service, like a library or park. We center the voice as a primary tool for connection and collective transcendence. Inspired by the group vocalizations in Cuban Rumba and Puerto Rican Bomba, as well as Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening, Xenia is composing user-friendly pieces centering embodiment, collective improvisation and the use of references to ground the group in structure while deconstructing phrases and empowering singular voices to emerge, creating the sound of a new kind of coro, (choir).
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From September–November, The Clemente will present Exorcism = Liberation, a public art project investigating our relationship to land, self-determination, migration, and climate disaster. Through collective citywide experiences in New York City, Chicago, and the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts, the work invites the American public to imagine alternative futures through the lens of Puerto Rican culture and the U.S.’ ongoing colonial history. Exorcism = Liberation utilizes familiar political media campaigns to immerse the public in sonic experiences, distributing stickers, posters, handmade banners, lawn signs, and pins through local community and art organizations.
Exorcism = Liberation is an act of intervention, a rehearsal for collective action during a critical American election. To learn more about the project, partners, and upcoming events, check out exorcism-liberation.net
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2:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Block Party
Live Vinyl Music set by: DJ Tresdos
Street Activations by:
Fabio Puentes: NYC Chilerican Solidarity & ResistanceRevista Balam
Street Lab
Vanessa González: Parada: La Fiesta No Termina Aquí
Yanira Castro: Exorcism = Liberation
Qi Zone Wellness: Beads & Seeds for Social Justice. Providers are: Juan, Walter, Margarita, Carlos
Tai Chi demo by Walter Bosque, ex-Young Lord and Lincoln Detox visionary
Maria Lupianez, Steve Ellis & Melanie Vote, Drawn Together*
House of Bones*
Laura Nova, Wishing Tree*
Natalia de Campos in collaboration with Thiago Szmrecsanyi: Artists Against Apartheid*
Stacy Mehrfar: Photo Walk*
Linda Byrne & guest artist Abby Goodman: The Traveling Suitcase & The Art Cart*
*Denotes The Clemente Open Studios Participants
Community tables from:
Bluestockings Bookstore, Grand St. Settlement, District 1, Mutual Aid NYC, UnLocal, and more!Mutual Aid NYC: In collaboration with mutual aid organizer William Chan and the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Mutual Aid NYC will be collecting donations of urgently needed winter coats to help thousands of newly arrived asylum seekers and immigrants survive this winter. Additional items in need: children’s clothing of all sizes, under garments of all types (must be new), and metrocards. Gently used or new conditions only.
3:30 - 4:00 PM
Opening Remarks
4:00 - 9:00 PM: Special Commissions and Performances
4:00 PM: Bulla en el Barrio, Musical Performance
4:50 PM: Edwin Torres, The Historias Conduction: Ancestors of Latino Poetry
With an eight poet choir: Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Lydia Cortés, Sheila Maldonado, E.J. McAdams, Yesenia Montilla, Urayoán Noel, Kristin Prevallet, and Emanuel Xavier
5:10 PM: Jonathan Gonzalez, PRACTICE
6:00 PM: Intermission with DJ Tresdos
6:40 PM: Xenia Rubinos, Círculo de Voces
7:15 PM: Kiki & the Fellas
8:00 PM: Closing Remarks
8:15 PM: Historias Closing Commission debut
Lucia della Paolera and Seth Tillett: Cuarto Oscuro
9:00 PM: Event ends
Join Us
Be part of this groundbreaking initiative, don’t miss the beat! Register for events, sign up for updates, and follow us on social media. Whether you’re a long-time advocate for cultural preservation or newly interested in Latinx narratives, Historias offers a unique opportunity to connect, learn, and celebrate together.
Confirmed Partners
The Clemente is proud to partner with leading cultural and educational institutions across New York City to bring Historias to life. Our growing list of partners includes:
Brooklyn Public Library, Library of America (LOA), BRIC, Public Art Fund, Tenement Museum, Street Lab, Vera List Center for Art and Politics, Kinfolk Foundation, Incite Institute, Latino Arts and Activisms (LAAS), LAZO Collective, Flushing Town Hall, ID Theater, BAAD!, Teatro LATEA, and People's Theater Project.
Historias is organized by The Clemente’s Curatorial and Programs team: Libertad O. Guerra, Executive Director and Chief Curator; Sofía Reeser del Rio, Associate Director of Programs and Curator; and Sally Szwed, Strategic Growth and Special Projects Director.