UPCOMING EVENTS

The Borough Based Liberation Project (BBLP) co-hosted by Chinatown Art Brigade & the W.O.W. Project

*space provided by Immigrant Social Services’ Storefront for Ideas

The Borough Based Liberation Project is a series of neighborhood cultural events and interventions to collectively vision abolition, climate justice, migrant justice, and housing futures in New York City. For the month of September, our project will activate this storefront to serve as a centralized hub for our organizing. As our communities converge, learn, and share together, we will co-create an intersectional space that connects our local and global struggles to build solidarity and power. The project’s “Abolitionist Futures” theme will spotlight local resistance and link struggles for liberation from NYC to Palestine to indigenous territories in Abya Yala through art workshops, exhibitions, teach-ins, gatherings, performances, and celebrations.

MORE ABOUT OUR PROJECT, PROGRAMMING AND EXHIBITIONS

Chinatown has always been a site of resilience and resistance. For the past several years, there has been a growing grassroots abolitionist movement against the city’s Borough-Based Jails plan set to expand NYC’s carceral facilities with four new jails at the cost of $15 billion. Adjacent to this building is the site of the new Chinatown jail, set to become the tallest jail in the world.  When we fight for Chinatown, we must know and celebrate the generations of dissenters and stewards that came before us. We seek to share stories from some of these movements and to imagine and grow structures of accountability and community justice within our intersecting struggles.

We hope this project will provide our communities with a nexus to oppose the political and economic forces that threaten to displace us from our homes, even as funding for cages, policing, deportation, resource extraction, and war increases rampantly. We hope to encourage community members to join abolitionist struggles that oppose increased policing, new and old jails, prisons, and detention centers, prevent extraction in indigenous territories, and support Palestinian liberation.

This month-long series is facilitated by the Borough Based Liberation Project, Chinatown Art Brigade, the W.O.W. Project, Black Indigenous Liberation Movement, and Dandelions NYC in collaboration with Lavender Phoenix, Asians 4 Palestine, Protect Sunset Park, LEGAIA, Cal Hsiao, Tif Ng, Sonia Tsang, Chris Deng, Tania Mattos, Sunnie Liu, Malaika Temba, Louise Yeung, Daphne Lundi, Megan Hattie Stahl, Black and Pink, Ashiñwaka Sapara Women’s Association (Ecuador), MIX NYC, Recess and many others. Space generously provided by Immigrant Social Services’ Storefront for Ideas.

Background

The Borough-based Liberation Project (BBLP) is a riff off of the Borough Based Jail Community Construction Office which is the “community engagement” office for the new Chinatown jailscraper located at 110 Walker Street. Our BBLP will be activated at 127 Walker Street. Our project will be located around the corner from the new jail site in which there is growing grassroots community resistance and opposition to, and in fact the back wall of the space shares a wall with the new jail.

We have an ARTIST OPEN CALL for an Abolitionist Future! Please submit your work - Deadline is 9/17/24

Please follow us on Instagram for updates!

@chinatownartbrigade

@wowprojectnyc

Borough-Based Jails Program - Community Construction Liaison Office - 110 Walker Street

The Borough Based Liberation Project

PROGRAMMING // IN PROGRESS - PLEASE CHECK BACK FOR LINKS TO RSVP & LATEST UPDATES

Open Hours (aside from our events): Tues - Sun 12-5pm

• Fri, 9/6, 6-9pm - Borough Based Liberation Project Public Launch Opening

• Sat 9/7 6-9pm - Prisoners’ Resistance: A Community Reading of Tip of the Spear

• Sun 9/8 2-4pm - Abolition Tea Time

• Wed 9/11 7-9pm - From Close Rikers Now to Queens Cop City: Resisting the Borough-Based Jail Plan Teach-in

• Sat 9/14 4-6pm - "Chinatown is a Site of Resistance” Abolition Photo Exhibition Teach-in

• Sat 9/14 6-7:30pm - “Collage with our Archives” Workshop

• Sun 9/15 12-2pm -Share Your Chinatown Placekeeping Story (Audio Gathering) Workshop

• Sun 9/15 12-5pm - Letters for Liberation w/ Black and Pink

• Mon 9/16 6-9pm - Abolitionist Building: we already have what we need

• Tues, 9/17 3-8pm - Art Build for Climate Strike

• Tues, 9/17 3-8pm Art Build for Youth | Climate Strike

• Wed 9/18 6:30-8pm - Panel: "Envisioning Abolition Futures through Arts, Cultural Organizing, Media"

• Thurs 9/19 12-2pm - Indigenous & Youth Coordination | Pact of the Future

• Thurs 9/18 3-8pm - Art Build for Climate Strike

• Fri 9/20 7-9pm - Opposing Carceral Design Panel

• Sat. 9/21 2:45-4:30pm - Children of Gaza: a Family Workshop by Asians 4 Palestine (ages 12+)

• Sun 9/22 12-2pm - Trees of Our Homes Workshop (for children ages 6-10)

• Mon 9/23 6-9pm - Opening Night Celebration | Climate Week Kick-off

• Thurs 9/26 3:30 - 6:30pm - Recorrido por Nuestro Territorio | Route for Our Territory

• Fri 9/27 12:30-2pm - Stop Financing the Climate Crisis | Voices from the Global South

• Fri 9/27 5-6:30pm - Territories at Risk

• Fri 9/27 7-9pm - Bilingual Chinese Roundtable on Abolition, Organizing, and Borough-Based Liberation | 双语中文圆桌会议

• Sat 9/28 10-4pm - Bridging Indigenous & Queer Justice Practices Teach-in

• Sat 9/28 5-8pm: BBLP Closing event

EXHIBITIONS, ART AND EPHEMERA

Art, photography, ephemera and socially engaged art presented by CAB, the W.O.W. Project, Cal Hsiao, Tif Ng, Sonia Tsang, Chris Deng, Asians 4 Palestine, Sunnie Liu, Malaika Temba, Louise Yeung, Daphne Lundi, Dandelions / BILM / Ashiñwaka / Legaia / Fridays for Future NYC, selected artists from our Abolition Art Open Call, and others.

GROUND LEVEL

Selections from Chinatown Art Brigade’s Archives

These works represents a small selection from their eight year history. The exhibition includes archival material, photographs, videos, placekeeping maps, large scale projections, as well as banners, posters and other direct action ephemera. One of the main features of the exhibition is their mapping and multimedia installation that centers the stories of people most directly impacted by displacement, with the long ­term goal of protecting and preserving our beloved neighborhood. The project features short videos and testimonials from tenants, residents and housing activists telling their own stories. Interactive media platforms like Augmented Reality (AR), QR codes, and mapping are used to present these stories to help viewers unpack the lived experience of evictions and gentrification.

The selection highlights their abolition organizing against the jailscraper bring built in Chinatown that is being touted as the “tallest jail in the world”. We hope this exhibition will not only inspire people to take creative action, but also help unleash our collective radical imagination to fight for a degentrified, liberated and abolitionist future.

Selections from the W.O.W. Project

The W.O.W. Project’s display includes a selection of artwork, banners, signs and other ephemera that were activated during their “Springs from Below: People’s Abolition Parade” march through the streets of Chinatown in June 2024.Also on view is an abolition reading nook. Visitors are invited to interact with the display of books and resources.

"Chinatown is a Site of Resistance” photo exhibition curated by Cal Hsiao, Tif Ng, Sonia Tsang, Chris Deng

As the city continues construction of the world’s tallest jail in Chinatown, the neighborhood has organized protests, rallies, and even lawsuits to stop or delay the jail's progress. Community photographers have documented these actions and meticulously chronicle the site of their changing neighborhood. Through photographs and ephemera, Chinatown is a Site of Resistance showcases how a community documents itself and its own history of resistance in the face of the carceral state. The artists in this exhibit provoke questions around resistance, provide context of the space, and envision an abolitionist future. Chinatown does not want a megajail to be built in the neighborhood, that much is clear. However there are a multitude of opinions on what comes next. Participants are invited to consider: What might an abolitionist future look like in Chinatown?"

Works from Asians 4 Palestine

Featuring photos, video, ephemera and zines from the last 10 months of protest against the genocide in Gaza and in solidarity with the Free Palestine movement.

Selected Works from Our Artist Open Call for an Abolitionist Future (installed 9/26)

These are selected works from CAB’s Open Call inviting artists to respond to the theme of “Abolitionist Futures” spotlighting local resistance to the Chinatown jail and gentrification, linking struggles for liberation from NYC to Palestine. We asked people to send their images and messages of solidarity, defiance, resilience and resistance. We hope these works and this Borough Based Liberation Project at large inspires you to seize the moment and join the collective fight for an abolitionist future. Featured work by Christina Zhang, Clare Fentress, kayeLBA, NAFISA Ferdous, Maia Villalba, Art Against Displacement, Julie Lee, William Chan, Noah Zhou, Chanika Svetvilas, Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga, Chinatown Photo Album, City of Abolished Prisons, Ash Marinaccio, Angeline Tran, Vivian Vo, An Na Vi, Le Tran, Anh Nguyet Tran, Hoang Tran, Jennifer Fu, River 瑩瑩 Dandelion

MEZZANINE LEVEL

“Amplitude” by Parallax: Malaika Temba and Sunnie Liu

A two-channel video envisions community-driven alternatives to incarceration sites in Harlem and Chinatown. By highlighting anonymous responses from both neighborhoods, the work reaffirms that both our struggles and liberation are intertwined. The installation and participatory social practice define abolition as an ongoing process and constant practice. Through abolitionist reimagining, Amplitude invigorates collective dreaming of what is possible and needed in Black and Asian communities instead of carceral logic and systems.

“Play + Placemaking for Afro-Asian Solidarity” by Daphne Lundi and Louise Yeung

How can we design cities to build solidarity between Black and Asian communities? "Play + Placemaking for Afro-Asian Solidarity" was a workshop led by artists and urban planners Daphne Lundi and Louise Yeung at the Laundromat Project in January 2024. Using found objects, participants reimagined places that have historically been sites of tension between Black and Asian communities in New York City. Tapping into the power of play and worldbuilding, participants created places for healing and reconciliation through transformed communal spaces, cross-diasporic food exchanges, and intergenerational play.  

 Chinatown Art Brigade

ARTIST OPEN CALL for an Abolitionist Future!

Across the world, gentrification, incarceration, state violence, climate change, war and forced migration are global forces that are transforming our ideas about home and homeland. “Abolitionist Futures” will spotlight local resistance to the Chinatown jail and gentrification, linking struggles for liberation from NYC to Palestine.

We know a different world is possible, a world in which all human life is cherished and held sacred, send us your images and messages of solidarity, defiance, resilience and resistance. Help us seize this moment by building an abolitionist future together.

Deadline is September 17, 2024 at 11:59pm

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT WORK

Guidelines:

• Please submit one form per artist/collective (you can submit up to 3 works)

• We are accepting artworks, poster art, photographs, videos, zines and other artistic forms. Poetry, audio and short statements are also encouraged.

• Submissions should be print-ready jpgs or pdfs (300 dpi) for videos upload mp4s and for audio upload mp3s (Please keep your files to under 100 MBs if possible). 

*Please note: This work will not be returned. Please send only digital files that can be reproduced. 

If selected, your artwork will be shared and displayed in a September pop-up exhibition, as part of the Chinatown Art Brigade Borough Based Liberation Project. 

We will keep you posted on exact dates or you can email us at chinatownartbrigade@gmail.com

RESOURCES

The People's Chinatown Zine - by Serena Yang

“The Jail, the Police, and the People’s Chinatown” by Serena Yang explores the connections between the proposed jail in Chinatown, the police and other forms of state control, and people’s struggles for self-determination in Chinatown.

Envisioning Abolition in Our Local Asian American Communities Zine (by Chinatown Art Brigade)

A transcript from Chinatown Art Brigade’s Teach-In: Envisioning Abolition In Our Local Asian-American Communities from June 2021(which was a part of Creative Time’s RED STAGE (by artist Rashid Johnson) We hosted a teach-in and public discussion on organizing and activism for abolition in our local Asian-American communities, and strengthening Black/Asian solidarity. Specifically we put forth an abolitionist framework as a way to challenge and oppose the current calls for more policing to combat Anti-Asian hate and the new jail plan in Chinatown. Featured speakers included CAAAV Organizing Communities, Asian American Feminist Collective, Red Canary Song, and many more.

Video of the Teach-In: Envisioning Abolition In Our Local Asian-American Communities

Anti-Jail Organizing Hub

Have you heard of the Mega-jail in Chinatown? Zine (in English)

Have You Heard of the Mega-jail in Chinatown? Zine (Chinese)

For The Love Of Palestine: Stories Of Women, Imprisonment And Resistance (Published by The Freedom Archives with California Coalition for Women Prisoners, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network)