How To Build A Fire (November) @ Open Source Gallery
STORYTELLING
Thursday, November 30th, 7-9pm
@ Open Source Gallery
306 17th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215
Theme: Grace
This month, How to Build a Fire will be surrounded by Gwenyth Chao’s, Compos(t)ing Spaces. Chao is interested in biomaterials, in taking what is seen as refuse and remaking it, repurposing it, building from and with it. The exhibition includes a series of body-habitat sculptures and the many bits, pieces, and processes that compose them. Around us, violence and hate are erupting, destroying, dividing … Our theme for November is Grace. Grace: time, space, the ability to make mistakes without punishment. Where do you give it, where do you need it, how do you receive it? How do we remake, repurpose, rebuild in this moment, offering one another and ourselves unconditional compassion?
Storytellers:
Dr. Grisel Y. Acosta
Dr. Grisel Y. Acosta is the author of Things to Pack on the Way to Everywhere (Get Fresh Books, 2021), which was a 2020 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize finalist. She is also editor of the anthology, Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity (Routledge, 2019), and currently the Creative Writing Editor at Chicana/Latina Studies Journal. Select work by Dr. Acosta is in Limp Wrist; Platform Review; Best American Poetry; Acentos Review; Kweli Journal; Gathering of the Tribes Magazine; Speculative Fiction for Dreamers; and The Future of Black. Recent work includes oral history interviews of Latine/x folks from Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, a project that is funded by the Mellon Foundation/Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiative at the City University of New York (CUNY). They are a full professor at the CUNY’s Bronx Community College, a Macondo fellow, a VONA alum, and a Geraldine Dodge Foundation Poet. Her work focuses on her Afro-Latinx and indigenous ancestry, queer identity, mental health, the punk and house music subcultures, her birthplace of Chicago, and the destruction of post-colonial neoliberalism in educational environments.
Gus Constantellis
Gus Constantellis is a Greek-American LGBTQ+ stand up comedian/TV writer who has garnered a large following on social media with his relatable immigrant family content. After going viral impersonating his larger-than-life Greek mother, he has been bringing his vibrant and energetic personality to stages all across the country, headlining 50+ shows in 2022 alone. A born and raised New Yorker, he regularly performs at major clubs such as Caroline’s on Broadway, Stand Up NY, New York Comedy Club, Tiny Cupboard, and BKLYN Comedy Club.
Sheryll Durrant
Sheryll Durrant is an urban farmer, educator, and food justice advocate. She has been the Resident Garden Manager at Kelly Street Garden since 2016 and is the Food and Nutrition Coordinator for New Roots Community Farm, managed by the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Her work has included developing community-based urban agriculture projects, providing expertise and technical assistance for gardens within supportive housing developments, and she currently serves as Board President for Just Food. Sheryll has led workshops and spoken on issues related to urban agriculture for many key organizations and was part of the 2019-2020 HEAL School of Political Leadership. As a former Design Trust fellow for the Farming Concrete project, she is now responsible for communications and outreach for the data collection platform that helps urban farmers and gardeners measure their impact. Previously, Sheryll spent over 20 years in corporate and institutional marketing.
Kelly Street Garden’s focus is to use food as the entry point to healing a community. The garden functions as a vehicle for addressing generational trauma which has caused many health disparities resulting from systemic racism. Through a multi-tiered programming structure, they bring art, nutrition, herbal medicine, and community engagement to the members of their community.
“At Kelly Street Garden, our connection to the land is about reclaiming space, repairing something, building a thread, weaving a fabric, and coming together as a South Bronx community. We seek to bring the bounty of the land to everyone. We seek to find abundance in a place of scarcity because, in fact, there is no scarcity, just greed. And as I think about my relationship to the planet, I am not interested in owning land—I am interested in stewardship and solidarity.”
Reg Thomas
How to Build a Fire is a community storytelling series where a diverse group of individuals share real-life, personal narratives centered around a different theme each last Thursday of the month. At times funny, at times sad, their stories weave together a broad illustration of the human experience. How To Build A Fire will takes place at Open Source Gallery -a welcoming, nurturing, intimate, safe environment- where, monthly, one can see a new exhibition installed by an array of up-and-coming and established visual artists.
How To Build a Fire was founded by Terence Degnan. This year Stacie Evans and Lana Siebel will be co-curating and co-hosting.
Stacie Evans writes in long hand. With a fountain pen. Because she’s that girl: the wannabe homesteading, selectively Luddite girl who is addicted to her phone and regularly overshares online. She met James Baldwin in Paris … which will ever and always be the most glamorous and dramatic thing about her. Her writing has appeared in New South, After Ferguson, Bellingham Review, and The Rumpus.
Lana Siebel performs all over the US, including NYC, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, NJ, and Washington DC. She was selected as a featured comedian at The Connecticut Comedy Festival along with comedians such as Gilbert Gottfried, The Headliner Series in NY, The Punch Line Comedy Club in Philadelphia, as well as the Fairfield Comedy Club in Connecticut. As an actress, Lana is featured in numerous films and off Broadway plays. She studied acting at Lee Strasberg Institute and HB Studios with Austin Pendleton. Lana was also a competitive International Latin style Ballroom dancer ranked internationally and 7th in the US! She immigrated as a refugee from Kharkiv, Ukraine when she was seven years old with her family to Brooklyn, NY where she grew up and now resides.
This program is supported by the Puffin Foundation
