Author: anjalisdeshmukh

On July 19, 2017, the City of New York released CreateNYC, New York City’s first-ever cultural plan. To shape the plan design, the city worked with dozens of local organizations, which helped gather feedback from nearly 200,000 residents. Among those many partners was the Asian American Arts Alliance (A4), which was committed to ensuring that the voices of NYC artists & residents in the AAPI community were included in the planning process.

In February 2017, I worked with the amazing Andrea Louie, Anjali Goyal, and Ariel Estrada of A4 to create an interactive workshop and online survey infused with a social practice artist’s spirit, to delve into what A4’s community believed was and wasn’t working when it came to arts and culture in New York City. About 50 people attended the workshop at Elmhurst Library in Queens, and 70 additional people participated in the online survey.

Over and over again, we heard that city’s arts & culture needs, challenges, and plans must be intrinsically connected to the other critical challenges facing the city, including affordable housing, arts education, and fostering a more compassionate and equitable culture. As sharers moved fluidly between social issues, economic issues, and recommendations specific to makers and arts & culture institutions, they emphasized that mindset shifts were needed, not just completing a set of tactics.

“Help us control the out-of-control rents in New York City,” shared one survey respondent. “It is choking everyone on all levels. The biggest expense for artists, especially performing artists, is space. When artists cannot afford space, no art will be created. For communities, the struggle to afford rent has a hugely negative impact on our quality of life, our ability to progress in our career endeavors, and how we spend our time and money… The arts are leaving New York City because it is simply impossible to survive here.”

If we want to protect the future vibrancy of the city, then we must see the arts as integral to health and development, supporting STEAM from the beginning of education; if we want arts and culture planning and funding to be equitable and inclusive, then city employees must first deeply understand and acknowledge the manifestations of bias before they can build processes that will be successful.

Many participants in the workshop expressed appreciation for the opportunity to voice their concerns and contribute their creativity. What we recognized in planning for feedback, however, was that there are no common definitions or understanding of what ‘arts’ and ‘culture’ are– let alone what they should be. To understand what’s missing and needed requires ongoing engagement, listening, and time.

A4 ultimately encouraged the Department of Cultural Affairs to integrate ongoing engagement and feedback loops into the ten-year plan itself, particularly if DCA is committed to equity and seeks to build relationships with communities that are currently not included in dialogue.

Click here for the full report I wrote and designed, including background materials for facilitators and participants.

Circlefor: Anjali Deshmukh; Purvi Shah.
Ready to Heal / Ready to Grieve.
Installation. 2021. In Queens Theatre.
https://circlefor.com/heal-grieve
With support from Ernest Verrett and Troy Woodley.
Photo by Cindy Trinh.

Ready to Heal / Ready to Grieve was an interactive installation, by me and Purvi Shah at Queens Theatre, on October 17, 23, & 24, 2021. Throughout the day, participants collectively mapped and memorialized on the installation how they encounter and have encountered healing and grief, alongside their stories of future healing. In the space, participants could connect with themselves and with one another, after a year of isolations changed the shapes of grief and healing in all our lives.

Pink reflected healing; silver reflected grief. Semi-circles reflected “I”; crescents reflected “we.” The paths of healing and grief were many; one person’s path to healing was another person’s path to grief; family was a source of both healing and grief in one person’s heart. Climate change and cheating lay heavy on many souls.

Purvi and I were among 3,000 New York City-based artists to receive a grant through the City Artist Corps Grants program, presented and launched by The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), with support from the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) and Queens Theatre. Thank you to Dominic, Jay, Gabriel, and Norma of Queens Theatre for arranging multiple days of events in just a few short months! Thank you to Cindy Trinh for taking most of these photos!

Over three award cycles, artists received $5,000 grants to engage New Yorkers in Summer and Fall 2021. The program was funded by the $25 million New York City Artist Corps recovery initiative announced by Mayor de Blasio and DCLA in early 2021. Grants supported NYC artists who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. 

Circlefor: Anjali Deshmukh; Purvi Shah.
Ready to Heal / Ready to Grieve.
Installation. 2021. In Queens Theatre.
With support from Ernest Verrett and Troy Woodley.
Photos by Anjali Deshmukh.

Weave&Woven was a collaboration with the extraordinary Purvi Shah at NurtureArt in 2017. Over a short, two-week residency, we wanted to find a way to test out new ways of collaborating in space and reflect with others on how we inhabit the sacred, in a time of heightened surveillance and criminalization of immigrants and communities of color. The result was a community-engaged activity in partnership with NurtureArt and Sadhana.

Featuring these amazing artists and thinkers:

• CATHIE WRIGHT-LEWIS: cathiewrightlewis.com
• MONICA JAHAN BOSE: monicajahanbose.com
• CHEYENNE “ANGEL” LEWIS
• PURVI SHAH: purvipoets.net
• MELISSA LIU: https://www.teachingartistproject.org/single-post/2019/05/17/melissa-liu-visual-artist
• LATRICE VERRETT: https://www.discogs.com/artist/81811-Latrice-Verrett
• JAIME-FAYE BEAN: sunnysideshines.com
• JENA PINCOTT: deepthinkdecks.com
• Queens Writers Resist, ft. Pam Reyes and Kay Ottinger

Cathie Wright-Lewis, Novelist & Educator.
Power in the Pen. Workshop. 2019.
In Two Minutes to Midnight, Bliss Plaza, Queens.
With funding from Sunnyside Shines and Queens Council on the Arts w/ public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership w/ City Council.
Photos by Neha Gautam.
cathiewrightlewis.com; https://powerinthepenww.org/

In 2014, Cathie met with Miriam Robertson, curator of The Brownsville Heritage House to propose her dream to begin a community writing workshop for the residents of Brownsville. From that dream, the Power in the Pen Writer’s Workshop has emerged into an inspiring incubator for authors.

Monica Jahan Bose, Artist & Activist.
Two Minutes/Two Degrees.
Mixed Media, Pervasive Installation. 2019.
In Two Minutes to Midnight, Bliss Plaza, Queens.
With funding from Sunnyside Shines and Queens Council on the Arts w/ public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership w/ City Council.
Photos by Neha Gautam.
monicajahanbose.com

Monica created a space of resilience, learning, and healing with handwoven saris from Bangladesh. She create da multilingual collaborative sari with participants’ promises, hopes, and fears about climate change as we work together to cool down our planet and keep the global temperature increase below 2° celsius.

Melissa Liu, Artist.
Reimagining Beyond Nuclear Families.
Mixed Media, Pervasive Installation. 2019.
In Two Minutes to Midnight, Bliss Plaza, Queens.
With funding from Sunnyside Shines and Queens Council on the Arts w/ public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership w/ City Council.
Photos by Neha Gautam.
https://www.3d.anjalideshmukh.com/2-minutes-midnight/

Participants were invited to reconsider the roles and expectations tied to the concept of “family.” Together, in intimate conversation, groups reimagined what a group of people might look like in a post-apocalyptic future where we are collectively facing scarcity and instability due to the destruction of Earth. Pulling from collective wisdom, the dialogue shaped a temporary sculpture that provide imaginations of how might we rebuild human society to be accountable to each other for our own survival.

Visual art by Anjali Deshmukh; facilitation by Ernest Verrett
Card Game. 2019.

What does it mean to forget? What makes the future feel urgent, in need of care? These questions were part of Glass Hours, an installation at Bliss Plaza in Sunnyside, Queens, in 2019, thanks to support from Sunnyside Shines and the Queens Council on the Arts with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. They were also the foundation for a simple card game of memory and color.

When we tried this game at home, memories silent for decades bubbled up. We also remembered details in them that we hadn’t ever noticed. Our recollection of certain colors was more vivid. There are also many things we don’t want to remember. But that didn’t mean we shouldn’t have.

There are 2 groups of cards in a deck, each broken into 2 subgroups. There were 4 variations on the game, and not all games use the whole deck.