%2023_32_42.png)
PROJECTS
Over the course of each cohort’s journey through the STUDY.PLAY.ACT program, our peers generate interventions to transform New York City’s working class neighborhoods and communities of color.
As we are currently progressing through the program, our peers are in the process of imagining new possibilities and drawing connections across the existing interconnected movements across our city.
Ragpicker's Court
Canal Street Research Association
Both social sculpture and public monument, Ragpicker’s Court is a decomposing ode to ragpickers, gleaners, and unofficial street vendors–past and present. Ragpicker’s Court will seek to unravel the myths that perpetuate prejudice against those who work with discarded and surplus materials, while weaving new structures and strategies through collective repurposing. This inquiry will start by surfacing underrecognized histories of reuse and then look to learn from contemporary ecological engineers such as canners, and those working with discarded textile. The research will culminate with a public intervention at the former site of Ragpicker’s Court, an area of lower Manhattan where ragpickers previously lived and worked, and the current site of a massive jail that is currently underway. Through public program and monument, Ragpicker’s Court seeks to put a society of waste and iniquity on trial.
Whose City?
Rodrigo Brandao
“Whose NYC?” is a series of short documentary pieces questioning the idea of public spaces in New York City, with a special focus on how communities, activists, and urban planners are fighting against gentrification forces and the indiscriminate use of public spaces by private developers.
One episode of the series explores Red Hook and Sunset Park, areas considered the largest remaining sites for development in New York City. It highlights activists like Carolina Salguero, founder of PortSide NewYork, who opposes luxury condo projects in favor of preserving the waterfront for public transportation and maritime education. Another episode focuses on Jackson Heights, Queens, where community members, including former attorney Nuala O’Doherty, have transformed local spaces into immigration support centers, turning an “immigration crisis” into an opportunity for mutual aid and neighborhood growth.
.png)
Plaza
Cheryl Rivera
"Plaza" is an audio story and guerrilla art series about how Brooklynites struggle to recapture public space. City plazas have long been spaces for people watching, communing, music, and independent vendors. But late stage capitalism has turned the plaza into a space of big box commerce, accompanied by heavy policing and hostile architecture to discourage gathering outside of proscribed hours and uses. "Plaza" will combine on-the-street audio interviews, interviews with organizers from community groups like Plaza Proletaria and others, audio from guerilla art actions (produced by me and my closest comrades), and narrative history of two Plazas that have served as sites of political struggle recently: the Barclays Center and Plaza Tonatiuh in Sunset Park. This project will produce a 3-4 episode audio series, an archive of interview with political organizers, and a series of guerilla art installations at Barclays.
Mapping for Environmental Justice
Arpan Somani
Mapping for Environmental Justice directly addresses inequitable data representation by training participants in GIS to map environmental justice concerns. By developing critical skills to analyze and present spatial data, youth advocates, organizers, and journalists learn to identify and challenge biases, combining quantitative and qualitative insights to build powerful narratives. Through partnerships with libraries, community organizations, and journalism networks, the program creates an interactive, hands-on environment for developing advocacy tools. It ensures that participants are equipped to visualize and communicate local issues, becoming advocates and changemakers for environmental justice within their communities. And it creates a space for civic exchange between these three groups who represent different perspectives within local communities.
.png)
Sunset Park Peers Project: Towards a Sunset Park Community Land Trust
Rodrigo Camarena, Antoinette Martinez, Genesis Aquino
Sunset Park is a prime target for the real estate industry which has sought to upzone our industrial waterfront and, over the years, contributed to the rapid displacement of long-time residents through speculation. The Sunset Park community continues to face threats from both private and public actors intent on launching large-scale development project with little to no community input or mechanism for community ownership. The project aims to engage Sunset Park tenant organizers, activists, and community leaders in a deliberative and democratic community visioning process that will result in the creation of a Sunset Park Community Land Trust. Our project aims to build off of existing research and momentum from current and new community stakeholders to together envision what a model for community land ownership and stewardship could look like in South Brooklyn.
Climate Week 2024
Dandelions
In September 2024, Dandelions, BILM, Legaia and many others came together in a autonomous abolitionist space in Chinatown to learn from indigenous and queer leaders who have been practicing justice in community to strengthen autonomous practices and build together towards a collective future. Across 14 events, dozens of networks and organizers gathered to create art that represented shared struggles, looking inward at the contradictions within ourselves, mediating conflict and sharing ceremonies. These events included an Art Build for a student Climate Strike and direct actions at BlackRock, a conflict reflection session for members of rural land projects, an intergenerational reflection session for MIX NYC's queer community. These various struggles came together in a collective reflection on indigenous & queer justice practices, which was eventually turned outwards in a Teach-In.
New York 2044
New York 2044 is a speculative social sculpture in the form of an online and print newspaper conceived by the artist, writer, and organizer Noah Fischer. Commissioned by More Art, Fischer’s research-based artwork takes the form of a newspaper that proposes the city we want to inhabit in 2044, and how to get there.
SCCI co-founders, Miguel Robles Duran, Samuel Stein and Monxo Lopez contributed to Issue 1.