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Expanded Practice A Survey of Work by BRIC’s Teaching Artists Small Solos Vandana Jain | Melissa Godoy Nieto May 14 – June 15, 2014

#Insta SelfieParadise

The 26th Annual BRIC Student Art and Media Education Exhibition

Student artist Kassidy Tucker from M

iss Moran’s 3rd G

rade Class at P.S. 119, where

students studied Tibet this year with Teaching Artist Bill Brovold.

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Keats’ famous line, “Truth is beauty, beauty is truth,” should be regarded as an obvious fact, not an enigma. What is enigmatic is that a whole society — and our modern technological one, which we cannot lose if we would, is the first such one in human history — that a whole society can think that it flourishes when, in fact, its mountains of waste matter reveal a paralyzed and psychopathic state, in the sense of having no feeling, no response to the wondrously complex and sensitive perceptions that are the human spirit itself.

– Robert Motherwell, testimony to the Select Subcommittee on Education, Environmental Quality Education Act of 1970

It has been forty years since the painter Motherwell made these remarks be-fore the U. S. Congress. I am thankful that Congress tapped an artist to speak about the environment. What would Motherwell think about 2014 and the state of things? Environment as it relates to art and to education? I am sure he would be pleased that we found courage from his words. As artists and as educators we want our children to perceive beauty. In this way they will devel-op empathy for the world around them. They might even make a conscious decision to not litter or bully or maybe even put down whatever device they’re

holding to have meaningful and undocumented time with friends or family. This year’s student exhibition is a mash-up of BRIC’s school partners all engag-ing in a common dialogue about nature, spirit, and how the use of social media impacts the way we engage with our world. Make no mistake; we had fun mak-ing each and every piece you see in this show and documenting every moment of it. Third graders built a Tibetan temple in their classroom while high school students became master dreamcatcher weavers. We are bringing science, language, and history together with contemporary art, media, and culture, and we invite you all to interact with our work! Write a poem to a pollinator and dream about saving them. But first, take a selfie! There my friends is the grand disconnect we are embracing as we gather round a hashtag and use our smartphones to make meaning, to have fun, and even to learn something! We hope our own hashtag, #InstaSelfieParadise, trends with smiling families sending wishes to butterflies, bats, and bees around the globe. We share our creativity with this social media culture because we embrace the potential of a positive message gone viral!

It is with love and respect that we dedicate this, the 26th Annual BRIC Student Art and Media Education Exhibition, to BRIC’s beloved Board member, Mary Anne Yancey, who passed away in 2013. Board chair from 2002 to 2007, Mary Anne was an enthusiastic supporter of BRIC’s education program, and we think she would have just loved every minute of this exhibition.

Have fun! Take a selfie, post on Facebook, shoot a Vine, upload to Instagram, and make sure to add the #InstaSelfieParadise hashtag to join our online celebration of art, imagination, and consideration for the world around us.

Hawley HusseyDirector of Contemporary Art Education

#Insta SelfieParadiseThe 26th Annual Student Art and Media Education Exhibition Curated by Hawley Hussey

Mr. B (Sound Club guru), M

itchell Enoe, Shanoah Chaneyfield, Ashley Hart,

and Miss H

awley rock the Cam

pos After School Family Engagem

ent.

Art Education Residencies

Bronx Envision Academy, The Bronx, Grade 10Artist Teacher: Ellie BalkClassroom Teacher: Ms. Wilson

“The butterfly effect” stems from the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world might ultimately cause a hurricane in another. Students created a chain of butterflies that has the power to ignite imagination and create positive change.

Juan Morel Campos School, Williamsburg, Grade 12Artist Teacher: Ellie BalkClassroom Teachers: Ms. Sirulnick and Ms. Ritter

Seniors explored ideas of “sociological imagi-nation” by illustrating collaborative stories and using color to express and evoke emotion.

Juan Morel Campos School, Williamsburg, After School Family EngagementArtist Teacher: Laura Pawson Students, faculty, and parents became weavers of dreamcatchers! The circular dreamcatchers reflect the circular mandala nearby in the student exhibition, and both provide an opportunity to interact. Visitors can compose a wish to the pollinators and tie this message to the dreamcatchers with ribbon.

Spring Creek Community School, East New York, Grade 6Artist Teacher: Anne PolashenskiClassroom Teachers: Ms. Khan and Mr. Ward

Students learned about tribal face tattoos from several cultures in Brazil, Burma, and New Zealand, exploring the symbolism and meaning behind the tradition. Inspiration for the students’ face tattoos came from the Maori people of New Zealand. Bold strokes, strong angles, and gentle curves were used to create designs that carefully followed the contour of each student’s face, allowing them to reflect on their identity and individuality.

P.S. 8, Brooklyn Heights, Pre-KindergartenArtist Teacher: Lizzy LeBlancClassroom Teachers: Ms. Claus and Ms. Levkulic

Pre-Kindergarten students played with mixed-media art materials and explored the magic of transparent materials that resemble glass. In this site-specific installation, the viewer is invited to walk through the translucent works of art, transforming how the veil of color and mark-making shifts their perspective.

P.S. 48, Mapleton School, Bensonhurst, Kindergarten – Grade 2Artist Teacher: Celia CaroClassroom Teachers: Ms. DeVincenzi, Ms. Siravo, Ms. Lampon & Ms. Trapani, Ms. Rizzi-Chrisafulli, Ms. Balestieri, and Ms. Cardenas

Students were introduced to the kinetic sculp-ture of Alexander Calder and Wrenford Thaffe, and from that inspiration created mixed-media mobiles featuring birds and stars.

P.S. 119, The Magnet School for Global and Ethical Studies, Flatbush, Grade 3Artist Teacher: Bill BrovoldClassroom Teacher: Ms. Moran

The prayer wheel is a device to send good thoughts out into the universe. The beautiful designs on the outside are for all to see and mes-sages are written on the inside. The sound that comes from spinning these wheels helps deliver these good messages across the globe.

P.S. 119, The Magnet School for Global and Ethical Studies, Flatbush, Grade 3Artist Teacher: Bill BrovoldClassroom Teacher: Ms. Moran

The mandala is a central figure in Tibetan imag-ery. It is created by collaboration and the result is impermanence. Often made of sand and taking monks many weeks, they are then immediately destroyed upon completion. Students studied Tibet and then collaborated to produce a work of art that takes the viewer inside the world of a mandala.

I.S. 136, Sunset Park, Grade 8 Artist Teacher: Alice Mizrachi Classroom Teacher: Mr. Aguilar

Community is the immediate world in which we live. Within a community we can consciously transform our neighborhoods into hubs that are mindful of the environment, improve our quality of life, and look towards the future in solving some of the concerns of today. Students will showcase a site-specific collaborative installation imagining their future community, using recycled materials and incorporating the five senses.

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P.S. 198, Flatbush, Grade 5Artist Teachers: Ceila Caro and Vickie Tanner Classroom Teachers: Ms. Murphy, Ms. WattCASA program funded by NYC Councilmember Jumaane Williams

Recognizing art’s intrinsic ability to nurture Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) the EQ (Emotional Intelligence) Project is an interdisciplinary arts program that seeks to develop and deepen children’s SEL through workshops in the visual and dramatic arts. Students explored their EQ by creating portraits of their alter egos in a wide variety of mediums including drawing, collage, puppetry, and painting.

P.S. 310, Fort Hamilton Parkway, Grades 2-4 Artist Teacher: Dana PerrottiClassroom Teacher: Ms. Fang

Students made masks inspired by traditional ceremonial masks from around the world. They considered material, technique, performance, and representation in creating their masks. A recurring theme in this Residency was pattern in design. Students demonstrated a firm grasp of this concept through their individual use of repeating lines, shapes, and colors. Just as indi-vidual elements build upon one another to form a dynamic pattern, when displayed together, the masks unite to tell a colorful, intricate story.

P.S. 310, Fort Hamilton Parkway, Grades 2-4Artist Teacher: Dana PerrottiClassroom Teacher: Ms. Fang

In this culminating project entitled “Big Patterns,” students were introduced to the technique of metal tooling. Over the course of the Residency,

students explored geometric design, experi-mented with patterns, and learned how to work collaboratively to create art. Each student chose a geometric shape to symbolize himself/herself, and designed a pattern that integrated their symbol. Students worked laboriously to tool their brass sheet on both sides to achieve deep surface dimension, then considering how their individual pieces of art would come together, to form a larger, more complex picture, both visually and symbolically.

P.S. 371K, Sunset Park, Grades 9-12Artist Teacher: Pamella AllenClassroom Teacher: Ms. Stankiewicz

Using expanded visual resources, cues and modeling, ELL and District 75 Citywide Program students explored geometry, color theory, and collaboration through the creation of a colorful collaged mandala. By making illustrations using tessellation and repeat pattern designs on cut and folded paper as well as primary and second-ary colors, the subjects of math and art were integrated.

P.S. 503, The School of Discovery, Sunset Park, Grades K-2Artist Teachers: Ceila Caro and Vickie TannerClassroom Teachers: Ms. D’Alessandro, Ms. Winson, Ms. Seidenberg, Ms. Abrahams & Ms. Robbins, Ms. Paradise, Ms. Kwok, Ms. Erickson, Ms. Sabala, and Ms. Cordes

This Emotional Intelligence (EQ) interdisciplinary program seeks to develop and deepen children’s SEL through workshops in the visual and dra-matic arts. Students explored their Emotional Intelligence (EQ as opposed to IQ) by creat-ing portraits of themselves, their classmates, and their alter egos in a variety of media and emotions. They worked in drawing, painting, and collage, and examined both historical and contemporary portraiture. Their culminating work is an interactive installation assembled by their families and teachers that invites viewers to discover and investigate their own feelings.

Media Education Residencies

Brooklyn Community High School of Commu-nication, Arts and Media; Bedford-Stuyvesant; Grades 9-12Artist Teacher: Julian Klepper Classroom Teacher: Mr. Mendola

Students in this filmmaking seminar explored one topic through both documentary and narrative filmmaking. The result was a documentary and a mockumentary about hip-hop culture and today’s youth. “The Ballad of Jay Kurtis (Never Let Talent Stop You)” is a comedy that tells the story of a young, aspiring hip-hop artist from Brooklyn. (10 min)

Brooklyn International High School, Brooklyn Heights, Grades 9-11Artist Teacher: Lindsay Catherine Harris Artist Teaching Assistant: Miranda Bushey

Students from Bangladesh to Guyana explored “Notions of Home” through video and animation in a 12-session selective. These stop-motion ani-mations are part of a larger exploration of digital storytelling. (2 min)

Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology, Bushwick, Grades 9 & 10Artist Teacher: Liam Billingham School Principal: Michael Prayor

Over the course of 10 sessions, students collab-orated to create a public service announcement about the importance of breakfast. Students honed their skills in storytelling, storyboarding, cinematography, and editing to produce this PSA. (2 min)

Secondary School for Journalism, Park Slope, Grades 9 & 10Artist Teachers: Shaun Seneviratne and Greg Anderson Elysee Classroom Teachers: Mr. Andrews and Mr. Slabodsky

Students in the school’s Digital Journalism class produced segments for a BRIC and Secondary School for Journalism television show. The focus was on research, interviewing, and producing “op-docs.” This project, titled “Overcome,” asks the question, “What motivates our teachers to come to school every morning?” (5 min)

Urban Assembly for Music and Art (UAMA), Brooklyn Heights, Grades 9-12Artist Teacher: Lindsay Catherine Harris Artist Teaching Assistant: Greg Anderson-Elysee

In an after-school program, students learned to produce short video segments for their own online channel, “X-Channel.” The two videos in this exhibition were produced while on a field trip to BRIC, where students had the chance to interview Brooklyn Independent Media Producers and other passers-by. (2 min)

John Jay Educational Campus, Park Slope, Grades 9-12Artist Teacher: Shaun SeneviratneArtist Teaching Assistant: Yvonne ShirleyClassroom Teachers: Mr. Andrews (Secondary School for Journalism) and Ms. Davidson (Millennium Brooklyn) CASA Program Funded by NYC Councilmember Brad Lander

During this 16-session after-school video residency, students from four different schools collabo-rated and explored narrative filmmaking, from script-writing to post-production. For their final projects, they selected a genre and a quote from a grab bag of choices, and created short videos around these prompts. (5 min)

John Jay Educational Campus, Park Slope, Grades 9-12Artist Teacher: Tim FielderArtist Teaching Assistant: Sha-nee WilliamsClassroom Teachers: Mr. Andrews (Secondary School for Journalism) and Ms. Davidson (Millennium Brooklyn) CASA Program Funded by NYC Councilmember Brad Lander

During this 16-session after-school animation residency, students from four different schools strengthened illustration skills, learned 2D anima-tion techniques, and developed short narratives. Students gained 21st-century digital skills while having fun and telling original stories. (3 min)

Millennium Brooklyn High School, Park Slope, Grade 10Artist Teacher: Tim FielderClassroom Teacher: Ms. Davidson Over the course of 10 sessions, Artist Teacher Tim Fielder integrated digital animation into Caryn Davidson’s studio art classroom. Students developed characters, wrote short narratives, produced storyboards, and created digital animations. (3 min)

BRIC House Parties, Digital Remix Activity, All ages Artist Teacher: Amanda Long

Every second Saturday of the month, BRIC throws a House Party filled with art, media, dance, and music. Artist Amanda Long works with BRIC staff to create interactive media arts activities, where visitors of all ages engage with stop-motion anima-tion and green screen technology (and puppetry, mask-making, instrument making, dancing, and lots of fun). (5 min)

I.S. 136, Sunset Park, Grade 7Artist Teacher: Helen ParkClassroom Teacher: Ms. ConteOver the course of 10 sessions, students learned digital photography and Adobe Photoshop by exploring self-portraiture. Through examining the work of portrait artists, from Rembrandt to Chuck Close, the students were asked to consider the difference between a self-portrait and a “selfie.” After producing a photo shoot, each student created their first project in Photoshop — combin-ing image and text to communicate who they are as individuals.

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In a moment when manifestos are written in 140 characters or less, and images from across the world can generate thousands of “likes” in mere minutes, artists Melissa Godoy Nieto and Vandana Jain, featured alongside BRIC’s annual student exhibition, spark a meaningful conversation about the ways that art can communicate. At once rev-erent and visionary, they source from deep-rooted cultural traditions of the past and engage with the ever-evolving idea of visual language. At the same time, both of these artists foreground marginalized voices within contemporary discourse.

Melissa Godoy Nieto, a multidisciplinary artist and designer from Tijuana, Mexico, creates site-specific installations with paint, yarn, and other materials. Taking inspiration from mythology, textiles, and pre-Hispanic culture, she produces works that reference “the vibrant palette, dynamic and hand-crafted aesthetic of Mexican culture,” as she states. The presence of Godoy Nieto’s boldly colored figures extends into the gallery through the artist’s signature use of yarn. With beams of fabric, she connects the bottom of each panel to small concrete discs installed at varying distances on the gallery floor. With these means, Godoy Nieto pays homage to the graphic, interlocking lines of hand-woven textiles while also creating a meditation on contemporary identity. She also suggests a continual process of deconstructing and reconstructing images rooted in ancient histories – and made newly relevant by a reinterpretation of their symbolic and emotive force.

For this exhibition Godoy Nieto also composed a series of paintings of abstract busts in bright and metallic colors. Somewhere between portraiture and sartorial sketches, each painting depicts a faceless black figure from the waist up, donning outfits that range from a sharp gray suit to a bodice of gold and turquoise plumes. Corresponding with the graphic patterns of their attire, the black heads contain constellations of repeated shapes and vivid washes of color in place of recognizable facial features. Though her materials of choice and handmade application hark back to craft traditions, the overall impression of her eye-popping wall paintings is unmistakably contemporary — these stylish characters recall fashion photography, design sketches, and “look books.”

In a practice that spans painting, prints, and mixed-media installations, artist Vandana Jain manipulates the seemingly pervasive language of logos and corporate branding to examine the influence of consumer culture on modern life. Her series Alphabet, is comprised of twenty-six hand-embroidered panels, each depicting a corporate logo that corresponds with a letter in the English alphabet. Inspired by Jain’s profession as a textile designer and our ubiquitous daily exposure to corporate iconography, she initiated Alphabet with the orange curvilinear AT&T sign. The logo, whose negative space separates into multiple compartments, reminded her of the array of intersecting stitches in 18th- and 19th-century American embroidery samplers. In addition to aesthetic similarities, the painstaking process of constructing Alphabet echoes the function of such samplers as “résumés” for young women hoping to marry. Samplers served as a means to both familiarize one’s self with the written word and to display an industrious work ethic to potential marital partners. Using Alphabet to comment on globalized, corporate culture, Jain notes that today, most mass-market textile handiwork is produced by young women in developing nations. Through this lens, international brand expansion constitutes “today’s linguistic primer.”

Each panel in Alphabet took approximately forty hours to compose, and over the course of nine years, Jain gradually grew the series from AT&T to Zildjian, a company that sells high-quality cymbals. The logos in between range from Hallmark’s resplendent crown and McDonald’s iconic “Golden Arches” to more obscure symbols of such smaller businesses as Victor, a pest control company. The effect is a colorful and lively collection of symbols that are at once contemporary in their graphic sensibility and reminiscent of longstanding fiber art traditions. For Jain, the act of transforming these glossy commercial logos with thread and needle subverts their potency and regains agency over the barrage of advertisements, brands, and corporate images that populate her life. The tactile nature of embroidery, coupled with its craft associations and history in domestic, often female, local economies, soften the logos and attempt to humanize the organizations that they represent. House of Brands focuses Jain’s logo research on

the domestic space; this large wall image acts as a meditation on the kinds of products that have influence in the home. Jain repeated recogniz-able logos to create unique patterns, essentially wallpapering the rooms of a cutaway dollhouse by theme. The living room is dominated by enter-tainment logos, such as the trademarks for video games, cable networks, and a Steinway piano, while the bathroom is filled with those related to beauty and health. Whereas Alphabet infused logos with the mark of the artist’s hands, House of Brands stands as an eerie harbinger to a world where logos run rampant and even the home is devoid of the human touch.

Godoy Nieto’s work takes an inward look into her own cultural influences, raising questions about how to preserve and interpret historic cultural im-ages in the present day, while Jain’s manipulation of corporate logos calls upon the viewer to think critically about the global symbols of communi-cation and the ways we consume visual culture at large. Between the two exhibitions, the 26th Annual BRIC Student Art and Media Education Exhibition continues these conversations and stands as a stunning testament to the power of self-fashioning in an increasingly media-saturated society. Entitled #InstaSelfieParadise, the exhibi-tion navigates the terrain of social media platforms and makes direct reference to the prevalence (and power) of self-taken photographs posted on Twitter and Instagram. The young artists in this exhibition grew up in the era of smartphones and intimately understand the instant feedback networks of the Internet. They accept the current technological landscape and pose new questions about how artists can embrace the devices of the moment to create populist art and to organize around social justice issues. There is nothing wistful in how they treat technology. Instead their visions of utopia, their #paradise, lies in their occupation of these sites—both physical and virtu-al—and the opportunities to promote their faces, ideas, and values within them.

Margo Cohen Ristorucci

Vandana Jain and Melissa Godoy Nieto

Vandana Jain, Alphabet (detail), 2003-2011

All works acrylic paint and mixed media on wood 80 x 36 in. Looking Under Water, 2014Rusting in Continuous Waves, 2014Persistent Dance, 2014Companion, 2014Huipil, 2014Lunar, 2014

All works acrylic paint on canvas 24 x 18 in.

Portrait in Deep Sea, 2014(Portrait) Spring, 2014(Portrait) Dancing in Metal Fatigue, 2014 (image this page, right)(Portrait) Neos Aurum, 2014 (image this page, left)Portrait in Sand, 2014Portrait in Parallel Waves, 2014

SMALL SOLO:

Melissa Godoy Nieto Curated by Elizabeth Ferrer

Melissa Godoy Nieto is a multidisciplinary artist and designer who was born in Tijuana, Mexico, and lives and works in Brooklyn. Her mixed-media paintings draw inspiration from pre-Columbian history and art, textiles, and hieroglyphics, while also exploring the conundrum of individual identity in the contemporary era. For this exhibition, she produced six new paintings depicting deity-like figures, represented in bright hues. They are painted on eight-foot-high wood panels, with strands of yarn radiating out from the pan-els’ lower edge. With imagery and color palette, the artist references Mexico’s rich native history, including its textile traditions and the value placed on the handmade. The artist also intends these works to reference emotional iden-tity and fragility. Godoy Nieto’s works meld the ancient with contemporary, mirroring her own sense of hybridity from living in two cultures.

Godoy Nieto earned her BA in Industrial Design from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. She has completed residencies and workshops at Flux Factory, Queens; Centro de las Artes, San Luis Potosí, Mexico; and The Workshop Estudio, Guadalajara, Mexico. Her work has been exhibited at The Candy Fac-tory, Brooklyn; SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York; Galería Vértigo, Mexico City; and General Public, Berlin. She has performed as part of the Greenpoint Pre-Apocalyptic Theatre Festival and the Northside Festival, both in Brooklyn; among others. Godoy Nieto is a co-founder of The Poetry Club Art Space, Brooklyn, and Head Visual Artist for The Tablets, a music group that will perform at BRIC during the run of the exhibition. melissagodoynieto.com

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION(All works courtesy of the artist.)

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SMALL SOLO: Vandana Jain Curated by Elizabeth Ferrer

Vandana Jain works with such non-conventional mediums as embroidery and wallpaper to examine contemporary and traditional systems of communi-cation. She appropriates and recontextualizes corporate logos to explore the influence of consumer cultures on modern life. Alphabet is a series of 26 hand-embroidered panels depicting a corporate logo for each letter in the English alphabet. With the rise of globalization and Internet culture, the artist suggests how corporate logos have become a pervasive international language, familiar to those in both the First and Third worlds. In House of Brands, well-known logos and trademarks create a colorful and playful doll-house structure and draw attention to the role products and consumption play in the home.

Jain earned a BA in Art and Art History from New York University. She was awarded the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant and has completed residencies at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Program, New York; and the Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens. Her work has been exhibited at the Skylight Gallery, Brooklyn; Station Independent Projects, New York; Spattered Columns Gallery, New York; the Queens Museum; the Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA; and Lakeeren Gallery, Mumbai; among others. Jain has created visual art for special projects such as plays by Nina Morrison at Dixon Place, New York, and the Living as Form archival exhibition presented by Creative Time, New York. She is based in Brooklyn. vandanajain.net

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION(All works courtesy of the artist.)

Alphabet, 2003-2011Wool on linen16 x 16 in. each, 76 x 136 in. overall

House of Brands, 2014Vinyl13 ¾ x 10 ft. (image this page)

Pamella Allen | Ellie Balk | Bill Brovold | Celia Caro | Donna Maria deCreeft |Tim Fielder Lindsay Catherine Harris | Judy Hoffman Amanda Long | Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira Alice Mizrachi | Dana Perrotti | Anne Polashenski | Devin Powers | Emma Tuccillo

The artists in this exhibition have developed this work in tandem with teaching pre-K through 12th grade students in public schools in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, binding these two sides of their practice together in a close relationship. Jux-taposed in the Project Room, Gallery, Swing Space and Box Office of BRIC House, the work on display by BRIC’s Teaching Artists and their students presents a revealing conversation between artists’ personal practices and the curriculums they teach. This exhibition attempts to put on display not just the objects but the dialogue and ideas imparted by these artists.

Ellie Balk facilitates the discovery and interpreta-tion of connections between people and culture through interactive, participatory visual artworks. She creates color systems to organize data into abstracted architectonic public murals, inviting the community to engage with both the space and one another. Like Balk, musician, composer, and visual artist Bill Brovold creates musical instruments that educate. His use of everyday materials and simplified moving parts allows a visual instruction on abstract ideas of rhythm, tone, and beat. In her interactive video installations Amanda Long takes a cue from early animation technology like the Phenakistoscope to illustrate the concepts behind digital technology. This custom software enables her to collaborate with the audience, creating a dynamic, evolving animated mural that blurs the line between artist, performer, and observer.

Tim Fielder’s graphic animations source images from Afrofuturism, pulp, and action films as build-

ing blocks for the construction of new worlds. His work takes on difficult topics in recent history—race, gender inequality, Nazis—and places them in a new historical precedent where a black female aviator saves the world from Nazi henchman. In Turkish Delight, Flim Flams Anne Polashenski takes images of sultans from the Ottoman Empire and strips them of their imperial garb, to then dress them in female clothing—corsets, crinolines, and ballerina costumes. The artist’s use of incongruent costumes and overwhelming decorative motifs further “obliterates” the power these figures once represented. Celia Caro reinterprets art historical precedents by melding alternative art processes as varied as cyanotype, quilting, and illustration to come up with an entirely new take on these traditionally feminine art forms.

Inspiring viewers to take a closer look through her inventive use of materials, Judy Hoffman’s sculptures take the abject debris of everyday life, both organic and industrial, as inspiration for an al-together new and whimsical life form. A craftsman first and foremost, Dana Perrotti inspires material awe through her explorations in the hot and cold working properties of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. She uses traditional metalworking tech-niques such as copper raising, lost wax casting, blacksmithing, and oxyfuel welding to shape her creations scaled to her head and hands. Alice Mizrachi’s murals use urban detritus like subway poster maps and mirrors to reflect the beauty in the grit of the everyday.

Printmaker Donna Maria deCreeft creates installa-tions that cross and re-cross the boundaries of the physical and metaphysical, science and the spiritu-al, to create art that encourages close observation and inherent mystery. Like deCreeft, Devin Powers encourages the enigmatic through his disparate sources of imagery—such as the sacred geometry of Arabic art or Western stained-glass windows—

and uses these influences on a formal level to cre-ate psychedelic, mandala-like drawings. Influenced by Carl Jung’s use of the mandala’s repetitive geometry to access the unconscious, Pamella Allen layers personal photographs and found images in circular patterns to create private symbologies that investigate place, memory, and emotion.

Using photography to explore ideas of place, memory, and history, Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira’s documentary work has taken her to many parts of the globe to photograph indigenous communities in Guatemala, Sweden, Cuba, and Iraq. Photo-graphed in the Amazon in Equador, NantarArutam investigates nature and the metaphysical and the ability of a photograph to capture these experi-ences. Through the exploration of 19th century photographic processes, analog techniques, and other alternative approaches, Emma Tuccillo creates open-ended narratives in which the viewer is encouraged to explore with his or her own personal lens. Her work is often inspired by Home, and the way it affects our memory and sense of imagination. Multimedia artist, writer, and educator Lindsay Catherine Harris creates media projects exploring identity, presence, and history. In Evoking the Mulatto she explores mixed-race identity in the 21st century through personal profiles, experienc-es, and opinions of young (early 20s to early 30s) mixed-race artists and activists to speak directly to the current climate of racial classification and struggles/triumphs of personal identification.

The artwork on display is a testament to the ideas and experiences that BRIC’s Teaching Artists bring to their practice and to their classrooms. It is a visual and auditory exclamation of the inspired making and learning that take place in the class-rooms of our school partners.  Jennifer GerowCuratorial Assistant

Expanded Practice: A Survey of Work by BRIC’s Teaching Artists Curated by Jennifer Gerow

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Pamela Allen Dragon Flys, 2014Mixed media and sand on canvas30 x 30 in.

Hummingbird & Eagle, 2014Mixed media on handmade paper11 ½ x 9 in.

Ellie BalkBuilding Study I, 2014Acrylic on wood24 x 15 in. (image this page, right)

Building Study II, 2014Acrylic on wood15 x 24 in.

Bill BrovoldSound Machine #6, 2014Wood, cable, and mechanics204 X 24 in.

Celia CaroTransmogrification, 2014Cyanotype rug with pillows52 x 82 in.

Donna Maria deCreeftHymenoptera, 2014 Digital print, rice paper, and cotton string9 x 6 in. folded, 9 x 77 in. opened Organisms, 2014Digital prints, rice paper, and cotton  string5 x 8 in. folded, 5 x 77 in. opened

Healing, 2014Digital prints, rice paper, and cotton string6 x 9 in. folded, 6 x 71 in. opened

Winter, 2007Artist book, mixed media 3 x 2 ¹⁄₃ closed, 3 x 16 in. opened

Tim FielderMatty’s Rocket (chapter 1-2), 2013Video and iPad with scroll through imagesHD 1920 x 1080, Quicktime format18:00 min.

Lindsay Catherine HarrisEvoking the Mulatto, 2012-14Video, 6 photographs, vinyl mapVariable dimensions

Judy HoffmanWildtype IX, 2013 Ceramic and oxides8 ¼ x 7 2/3 x 4 ¼ in. (image opposite page, right) Wildtype XXI, 2013Ceramic and oxides14 ¾ x 14 x 7 ½ in.

Wildbook IX, 2001Artist made paper5 x 4 ¾ in. x 1 ½ in.

Amanda LongKissoscope, 2013Video installation (image this page, left) Karen Miranda-RivadeneiraAll archival print on matte paper 12 x 12 in. Tonal, 2013, Ecuador (image opposite page, left)Ombligo, 2013, Ecuador Little Dinosaur, 2013, Ecuador Untitled, 2013, Ecuador

Jenny, 2013, Ecuador All archival print on matte paper6 x 6 ½ in. Song to the Spirits, 2011Video1:38 min

Alice MizrachiTravelled Reflections, 2014Mixed-media installation60 x 26 in. Dana PerrottiImmobile Device, 2011Copper and brass5 ¼ x 4 ¼ x 1 ¾ in.

Captive, 2012Steel, copper, brass, and bronze8 x 4 in.

Anne PolashenskiOsman I With Tree Body Flimflam, 2011Rubber stamp ink images, collage, ink and gouache on paper12 x 8 ½ in.

Turkish Delight: Minyatür Motif Obliteration, 2012C-print and gouache on paper15 x 18 in.

Devin PowersLiminal, 2012Gouache and pigment PVA on mulberry paper25 x 37 in.

Sketchbook, 2012Ink on paper4 x 5 in.

Emma TuccilloAll archival pigment prints5 x 5 in. The Bridge, 2014The Church, 2014The Hudson, 2014The Schoolhouse, 2014The Studio, 2014The Wall, 2014

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION(All works courtesy of the artists.)

ABOUT BRICSince 1979, BRIC has been the driving cultural force behind a number of Brooklyn’s most renowned and beloved arts and media programs. All of BRIC’s programs are an-chored by the organization’s commitment to artistic excellence, programmatic breadth, diverse cultural representation and genuine accessibility.

BRIC presents live music and performing arts, contemporary art, and community media programs. The organization places special emphasis upon providing oppor-tunities and platforms for Brooklyn artists and media makers to create and present new works.

In 2013, BRIC inaugurated a new era of service to the borough when it opens BRIC House, a 40,000 square-foot arts and media facility located in the cultural hub of Downtown Brooklyn. BRIC House includes a flexible state-of-the-art performance space, a major contemporary art gallery, artist workspace, and multiple television and media production studios. Designed by Brooklyn-based architect Thomas Leeser, BRIC House aims to be a true home for art-ists and audiences—a place where emerging and established artists create work that deepens their practice and engage with the diverse communities of Brooklyn. BRIC House opened in October 2013.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSBRIC acknowledges public funds for its arts education programs from the National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; New York State Assembly Members Inez Barron, Joan L. Millman, Felix Ortiz, and Annette Robinson; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York City Council Members Mathieu Eugene, Vincent J. Gentile, Letitia James, Brad Lander, Stephen Levin, Darlene Mealy, Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., Albert Vann, and Jumaane Williams.

Additional support is provided by Astoria Federal Savings, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Barclays/Nets Community Alliance, Bay and Paul Foundations, Bloomingdale’s Fund of the

BRIC647 Fulton Street(at Rockwell Place)Brooklyn, NY 11217718.683.5600BRICartsmedia.org

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IMAGE CREDITS Front Cover: Masks created by P.S. 310 students, inspired by ceremonial masks from around the world. Teaching Artist: Dana Perrotti. Photo: H. Hussey. Back Cover: Vandana Jain House of Brands (detail), 2014

Macy’s Foundation, Con Edison, Laurence W. Levine Foundation, and numerous individual supporters.

Special thanks to generous supporters Howard Brickner & Tracy Makow and Viacom.

STAFFDirector of Contemporary ArtElizabeth Ferrer

Director of EducationJackie Chang

Director of Contemporary Art EducationHawley Hussey

Manager, Youth Media EducationJill Beale

Education Program CoordinatorLinda Mboya Marketing ManagerAbigail Clark

Gallery ManagerEric Araujo

Curatorial AssistantJennifer Gerow

Director of DevelopmentJilian Gersten

Director of MarketingColleen Ross

Graphic DesignerMatthew de Leon

InternsJulia Honore Lee Bierina Nicasio Anilbelis ReyesRafia Sultana Katherine Wilson

President Leslie G. Schultz

Executive Vice PresidentBetsy Smulyan