Feminist Prop-making Workshop

Feminist Prop-making Workshop 

Thursday, March 7, 2019
4 to 8pm

[Image Description: Two people paint the words “MOSCOW = ANTIFASCIST CITY” in white on the top half of a navy blue protest banner while two people paint Russian words in pink on the bottom half.]

In preparation for the International Women's Day Rally on March 8th, Nikolay Oleynikov, artist and member of Chto Delat, along with local artists, activists, and organizers from Workers Art Coalition, Tradeswomen’s group, Tools and Tiaras Inc., The NYC Light Brigade, International Women’s Strike - Campus Coordinating Committee, The Loisaida Center, and others came together to create props to bring to the street. Participants were encouraged to bring their own materials. 

Bios

International Women’s Strike NYC (IWS-NYC) emerged through organizing for a coordinated day of action on March 8, 2017, which feminists around the world called for following the steps of Argentina and Poland, where massive Women Strikes had erupted the previous year against femicide and abortion bans. As a collective composed of members from a wide array of community based, feminist, workers’ and socialist organizations, we are convinced that for an alternative to elite feminism to flourish, we have to nurse it together from the bottom up. With this aim, we have been reclaiming the anti-capitalist roots of March 8th --International Working Women’s Day-- on the streets for the last three years, as well as fostering a multiplicity of coalitional endeavors.

Founded in 1978, by local artists, activists, and community leaders, Loisaida Inc. continues its mission to address the serious economic and social disenfranchisement of Latinx and poor, working class residents, while offering multi-generational programming that appeals to their social and cultural sensibilities in the Lower East Side (LES). At our recently renovated 10,000 sqft facility in the heart of the East Village, our programming builds a connection among community, learners, artists, and scholars through original productions and exhibits, idea activation, space for creative cross-training, community collaboration, artistic residency programs, and its iconic Loisaida Festival. Our approach celebrates the urban surroundings, grassroots invention and im/migrant spirit of the Loisaida neighborhood in its dedication to celebrating Puerto Rican and Latin American cultural significance and vitality while highlighting their contributions to NYC and beyond.

Nikolay Oleynikov artist; punk; antifascist; member of Chto Delat; harmonica\percussion\voice of Arkady Kots band; mentor at Chto Delat School of Engaged Art; present at Rosa’s House of Culture; co-pilot at Free Home University; contributor and editor for arteseverywhere.ca; and author of the Sex of the Oppressed (FreeMarxistPress/PS-Guelph). Solo and collective exhibitions worldwide.

Athena Soules co-founded the NYC Light Brigade in 2013 and uses large visual messaging made of light and fabric to clearly convey basic goals of grassroots social movements that focus on issues of economic, racial, gender and climate justice. Images of her work at actions are often chosen to depict breaking news stories in a range of media outlets including the front page of The Washington Post and The NY Times and on The Rachel Maddow Show and MSNBC News, thus helping to visually define our intense moment in history.

Tools & Tiaras Inc is committed to advancing the interest of young girls and women who want to pursue non-traditional careers. T&T motivate young girls and women who dream of having a career in the male-dominated construction industry, encouraging young girls and women already in the field to expand their horizon and set them on a path to the peak of their careers. We will make available a community network to help these young princesses connect with professionals, mentors, and leaders in the industry thus providing the support needed at all stages of their journey. We hope to build a lasting passion and curiosity within the present generations of girls and women that will make them consider a career as an electrician, carpenter, plumber or even an auto mechanic. Making intentional changes to the way we view and portray what constitutes "women work" will help foster the change that society needed desperately since yesterday. Tools & Tiaras wants and will be part of this movement of change. 

The Workers Art Coalition (WAC) is a collective of union construction workers who, along with allied artists, explore ways to increase blue collar presence and cultural expression in the public sphere as well as ways art might have a greater role in the labor movement. WAC projects have worked to expand labor’s role in combating climate change, classism, racism, and sexism through public art, artisanship and protest. WAC’s work has been commissioned for the People’s Climate March, the Fight for 15, the Precarious Workers Pageant in Venice, the International Federation of Global Workers Education Summit in Peru, and a workers oral history project for the Library of Congress.