Come learn about the Community Heroes toolkit! This new and free resource helps artists, groups and public spaces to organize a local public art project in their community.
Presenters: Jasmin Chang Zac Martin
Location: Online
If you are an artist who cares about your neighborhood; a person or group dedicated to local stories and history; a public space that wants to build community…then the Community Heroes toolkit is for you! This new and free resource helps you to organize a public art project in your community. It is an opportunity to work with your neighbors to recognize and celebrate incredible people who have strengthened and supported your community. Come learn about it from the project co-founders and writers of the toolkit!
This Community Heroes project began as a collaboration in Fort Greene, Brooklyn in 2016. Since then, it has become an annual neighborhood staple in Fort Greene Park and Commodore Barry Park. The project has also been done in Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, Red Hook and University Heights in the Bronx.
In response to many others asking to bring Community Heroes to their neighborhoods, we created a free project toolkit, so more people can create this project themselves!
The toolkit includes:
Jasmin Chang is a Taiwanese-American artist and organizer who grew up in California and has called New York City home since 2011. Her practice explores photography, storytelling and art-making as portals to connect people. She spearheaded Photoville’s education and community initiatives for its first ten years. She is a member of Friends of Commodore Barry Park and the Fort Greene Park Conservancy.
Activist, youth and community organizer, Zac Martin’s focus is working with, learning from, and advocating for Black and brown youth, public housing residents and the homeless in his community. Zac is also the pastor of justice and mercy at Recovery House of Worship in Downtown Brooklyn.
Community Heroes is a community organizing and public art project celebrating everyday heroes in New York City, neighborhood by neighborhood. Local community groups and local artists work together through community meetings, a nomination process, and storytelling sessions to produce a public art exhibition.
Founded in 2011 in Brooklyn, NY, Photoville was built on the principles of addressing cultural equity and inclusion, which we are always striving for, by ensuring that the artists we exhibit are diverse in gender, class, and race.
In pursuit of its mission, Photoville produces an annual, city-wide open air photography festival in New York City, a wide range of free educational community initiatives, and a nationwide program of public art exhibitions.
By activating public spaces, amplifying visual storytellers, and creating unique and highly innovative exhibition and programming environments, we join the cause of nurturing a new lens of representation.
Through creative partnerships with festivals, city agencies, and other nonprofit organizations, Photoville offers visual storytellers, educators, and students financial support, mentorship, and promotional & production resources, on a range of exhibition opportunities.
For more information about Photoville visit, www.photoville.com
Trellis is a community development non-profit that helps neighborhoods address injustice together — creating and managing for collective impact, and building collaboration around common vision, shared resources, and purposeful action.