NYMetro

A CALL TO ARTISTS AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY

PhotobucketIf you are an artist and have work or would like to create work that speaks out against police brutality, October 22 Coalition-New York has a number of propositions for you. The October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation has been mobilizing every year since 1996 for a National Day of Protest on October 22, bringing together those under the gun and those not under the gun as a powerful voice to expose the epidemic of police brutality. The Coalition also works on the Stolen Lives Project, which documents cases of killings by law enforcement nationwide. On behalf of October 22 Coalition-NY, I would like to invite you to four upcoming events and projects.The first is the 15th Annual Day of Remembrance for Nicholas Heyward, Jr., which is taking place on Saturday, August 22nd at 1pm at Nicholas Naquan Heyward, Jr. Park, located on Wyckoff Street, between Hoyt and Bond Streets in Brooklyn. Some of you may already be familiar with this community event that Nicholas Heyward, Sr. organizes every year around the birthday of his son who was thirteen when he was killed by a housing cop back in 1994. Nicholas requests your presence at this gathering for the youth of the Gowanus projects, and hopes that you would also share your talent with them.Secondly, the local plans this year for the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation is to have a cultural event be the main part of the protest on October 22nd. We plan to hold a brief rally at Union Square, which would follow with a march to the event (which we’re hoping could take place at the LGBT Community Center at 13th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues), but the major activity of the day would be art, music, poetry, and other artistic expressions of protest, though families of Stolen Lives and a small handful of allies would speak throughout. We hope that visual artists can set up installations/exhibits, filmmakers can provide choice clips from their work, musicians and poets can fill the auditorium with melodic and/or lyrical protest. The proposal so far is to begin at about 6:00pm or 6:30pm, so hopefully this will mean more people than usual can attend a weekday NDP.The last two are connected to NDP in that we hope to launch them on October 22nd. The proposal is to have both a mixtape CD and a chapbook as manifestations of protest against police brutality, available for national distribution on the National Day of Protest this year. For both projects, we still need to iron out the details, and we have not yet determined who, if anyone, would have any editorial role. We hope that you would consider donating works for the CD and/or chapbook, which would be used for outreach and as ongoing fundraisers, with all sale proceeds going directly to October 22nd Coalition and the Stolen Lives Project. However, the artists involved in the project are welcome to sell their own copies, keep the proceeds, and just forward whatever percentage they wish to October 22nd Coalition. For the chapbook, electronic versions of works (poetry, short fiction, photographs, drawings, collage, etc.) would be needed, and for the CD, only pre-recorded tracks of songs, poems, spoken word, etc. (we do not have a recording studio!).We’re very excited about these plans, and hope that you share in this excitement. Police brutality is as intense as ever throughout the nation, and resistance is even more important now when too many have bought into the illusions of a “post-racial society.” We hope that the contribution of your work, your art, would be a way to add to the strength of this resistance. Please contact me if you have any questions and/or interest in any of the above. If you would like to discuss any of this person, please contact me to set up a one-on-one meeting or join us at our next mobilization meeting on August 28th at 6:30pm at the Center for Constitutional Rights (666 Broadway, between Bond Street and Great Jones Street). Thank you, and I look forward to hearing from you.In struggle,Kathie Cheng, October 22 Coalition-NYmediocremustard@optonline.net917-414-4612
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