New York, NY, August 1, 2024—Korea Art Forum (KAF) is extremely pleased to announce our partnership with this year’s Summer Streets organized by the NYC Department of Transportation. We will be on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard at 125th Street three consecutive Saturdays: August 3rd, 10th and 17th, from 7 AM to 3 PM, presenting the participatory works of Akiko Ichikawa, Sari Nordman, and Thomas Gallagher through our citywide flagship program Shared Dialogue, Shared Space (SDSS). 

 

SDSS commissions artists selected from KAF’s open calls to create and present new participatory work in public settings. This initiative integrates art into people’s daily activities in public and semi-private spaces, exploring and crystallizing the impact and conditions of creative moments in everyday experiences. 

 

First launched in 2020, SDSS has not only survived the challenges of the pandemic but has thrived, demonstrating art’s transformative ability to integrate and enrich daily life. SDSS underscores the essential role of art in human existence. When the world is in crisis, art activates to intervene. In this context, “art” refers to the ability to invent solutions to given critical problems, and SDSS promotes this human capacity for resilience and creativity. In this year’s Summer Streets, SDSS will platform three art stations to welcome New York’s citizens to participate in the artists’ activities. 

 

Akiko Ichikawa has translated sayings found on t-shirts worn by pedestrians in the community into Japanese. She will guide participants into stenciling these Japanese translations onto secondhand t-shirts she has brought to the events. The artist’s activity may also include a skillshare session on producing one’s own stencils for fabric. Limited, Limited Edition (Harlem) is a way of engaging passersby and others, Ichikawa creating singular cross-cultural experiences and an imaginative space transcending consumerism or any one-dimensional take on Japanese culture. 

 

Sari Nordman will create Anxiety, a public and social engagement project involving knotting workshops to create tapestries using recycled plastic films and traditional Finnish rya rug weaving methods. The workshops will culminate in an environmentally-themed fiber art installation, addressing the problems of single-use plastics and their negative impact on nature and people, particularly in underserved communities. During the collaborative process of making plastic tapestries, participants will exchange their perceptions and reflections on recycling, single-use plastics, and solutions to plastic waste problems. This will raise their awareness of environmental issues and root causes.

 

Thomas Gallagher will create an opportunity for neighbors from the community to bridge language and cultural barriers: to speak, hear, and understand the “voice of the other” through a game he calls Lingo Bingo. His project draws on the vernacular visual language and play mechanics of the game Bingo, replacing the numbers with words and phrases in multiple languages to create a low-risk, playful setting for participants of diverse cultural backgrounds to discover shared values. 

 

The artists anticipate their participatory art activities promoting community building among people of diverse backgrounds, fostering respect for immigrants from a variety of cultures, and giving space to values that span cultures such as climate and racial justice, and equality. Participants can take home objects, such as a t-shirt they helped create, to remember and reflect on their projects’ experiences.

 

SDSS in Harlem offers artist-run workshops, performances, and participatory activities free of charge with live interpretation services in English, Chinese, Korean, Wolof, French, and Spanish at open-air community hubs. ASL services are also available with two weeks’ advance notice.

 

SDSS connects the NYC public to art and culture, focusing on immigrant communities, people with disabilities, and those experiencing economic hardship. The initiative fosters dialogue between artists and the public, covering a wide range of subject matter and the multidimensional impact of art on cultural production and social change. It particularly seeks to combat rising anti-Asian sentiments and racial divides entrenched in all sectors of American life while breaking the public’s apathy toward art. 

 

For the past four years, SDSS has broadened communication channels between the contemporary art world and local communities in New York City, advancing the artists’ creative endeavors to engage the public while enhancing residents’ quality of life in target communities. This year, again, SDSS promises to be an immersive and captivating experience showcasing the artists and the communities’ diverse talent and perspectives. All are welcome to attend, and admission is always free to SDSS events. 

 

For more information, please send an email to info@kafny.org 

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