February Marks The Return Of Black ArtStory Month; Here’s Your Schedule

Next Monday marks the start of February (can you believe it? It still feels like the new year just begun!) and with it, here in Fort Greene-Clinton Hill, the start of Black ArtStory Month!

This fourth annual art-history-social justice event is organized every year by local merchants group Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership (MARP) with the support of dozens of local businesses and 50 artists who work for months to create a month-long celebration of both African-American history and neighborhood history — through a series of FREE performances, talks, film screenings, window murals, and public art experiences.

This year’s event is titled “SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED.”

“Black ArtStory Month is our premier Arts & Culture program on Myrtle Avenue,” said MARP Executive Director Meredith Phillips Almeida. “Every year we are excited to create opportunities for local artists, celebrate our community’s rich African-American history, and invite new audiences to Myrtle Avenue.  We hope that our work this month can elevate current conversations about racial and social justice, and show the power of art, and collective action in its many forms.”

Art curator Daonne Huff returns again this year, as well, bringing her eye for talent and context along with a continuity that can’t be rivaled.

Explaining this year’s title — “SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED” — she states that “the kind of change that is needed today can’t be done alone, can’t be done as an individual. It requires planning, building and a collection of hearts, minds and bodies.

“We must build an Assembly. There’s much work to be done to create the kind of change so very needed within the current political and social climate—a climate of injustice, displacement and brutality that we as a people, as a society, as a country, as a species are undergoing,” she said. “Black Artstory Month 2016/SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED is just one small act to contribute to the roar. Black Lives Matter. And Black Artists Matter…Immensely.”

February is chock full of events to check out. Highlighted events will take place every Friday from 7-9pm, although the public art is, of course, available round-the-clock throughout February along Myrtle Avenue between Flatbush and Classon Avenues, and at BLDG 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Here’s your schedule:

ART: INSIDE/OUTSIDE (Self-guided Artwalk)
Date: All Day/ Every Day Feb 1-29
From hair braiding to Black Lives Matter to President Obama on Horseback to cleaning greens—we seek to assemble, we seek to gather, we seek to build ourselves and our communities within private quarters and public squares. 15 artists have activated interior and exterior spaces along Myrtle Avenue between Flatbush Avenue Extension & Classon Avenue with 14 window murals and art installations. An additional exhibit is located at BLDG92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

BLACK ARTSTORY MONTH KICKOFF: MEET ME AT THE GYM
Date: Friday, Feb 5, 7-9pm
Ingersoll Community Center, 177 Myrtle Ave
*Space is limited/ RSVP Required
A Night of Performance, Engagement & Art featuring gospel group Manifest, Sophia Dawson and her Roller Skating Crew, Victorious Dance Company, live painting by Ashton Agbomenou, artmaking workshops with SONYA (South of the Navy Yard Artists) and more. Taking inspiration from the community gatherings of organizers during the Civil Rights Movement and experimental art Happenings, the night is equal parts artistic expression and community building. All-ages welcome!
RSVP: http://blackartstorykickoff.eventbrite.com

Conversation: Art as Protest, Protest as Art
Date: Friday, Feb 12, 7-9pm
Leisure Life, 559 Myrtle Avenue between Emerson & Classon
*Space is limited/ RSVP Required
Moderated by Erica Cardwell with Panelists Jamal T. Lewis (cultural worker and emerging multidisciplinary performance artist), Janisha R. Gabriel (Speak My Name Project, board member of The BLK Projek, and the Technology & Design organizer for the #BlackLivesMatter), and Isissa Komada-John (Exhibitions Manager at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture). This panel will discuss the collective power of radical artistic communities. Artists will share their “entry points” and define “radical” as black practitioners and art makers.
RSVP: http://blackartstorytalk.eventbrite.com

FILM: re-work/re-frame
Date: Friday, Feb 19, 7-9pm
Pratt Institute’s Film/Video Center, 550 Myrtle Avenue
*Space is limited/ RSVP Required
Featuring films by Yisa Fermin, Lindsay Catherine Harris & Esteban del Valle
A Night of Short Films & Documentaries spotlighting voices unheard or unseen. A night to re-view and re-frame perceptions and interpretations of the lived experiences of people of color.
RSVP: http://blackartstoryfilm.eventbrite.com

PERFORMANCE: The Glass Eye Featuring Hot Hands & members of Victorious Dance Company
Date: Friday, Feb 26, 7-9pm
BLDG 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, 63 Flushing Ave at Carlton Avenue
The placement of a camera on a body of authority as a deterrent of violence to another has created new forms of perception and symbolism concerning race relations and the growing paranoia for “the other” from both citizens and those sworn to protect them. The Glass Eye is a multi-disciplinary performance piece for voice, music, dance and film concerning the disembodiment of the black body through police violence; and the subsequent protests in reaction to these incidents—witnessed through the camera eye.
RSVP: http://blackartstoryperformance.eventbrite.com