A new home for interdisciplinary work on the Lower East Side
True collaboration is democratic, provocative, and innovative. This belief is at the heart of a new partnership between The Clemente, a Lower East Side Latinx cultural staple for three decades, and Incite, which is dedicated to inspiring action through knowledge and dialogue.
Over the next year, we will leverage the unique strengths of a community-based cultural center and an academic institution to create path-breaking approaches to knowledge production. Through this partnership, Incite will hold studio space within The Clemente. The collaboration will take an interdisciplinary approach that includes joint events, commissioned works, and collaborative research projects that facilitate collaboration between the two institutions and beyond.
“By putting arts and creative practices on the same footing as academic work, we can inspire new ways of understanding,” said Libertad Guerra, Executive Director of The Clemente. “This is an exciting way to imagine together and surface ideas that couldn’t arise in one site alone. Having the support of an academic partner and a connection to an enhanced network of thinkers and creators is deeply meaningful to our work and our continued growth.”
By facilitating inventive forms of collaboration between artists, activists, students, researchers, and others from within and outside our communities, we will support new understandings and practices that advance public action around pressing concerns.
The Clemente x Incite is designed to push against boundaries that isolate and exclude people from each other and from knowledge production.
“This not only deepens our relationship to the wider New York community, but most importantly complements and contributes to the growth of a city institution that’s an essential and growing site of activism and creative output,” said Michael Falco, Incite Executive Director. “Academic institutions need to invest and support expertise in all of the places it resides—it’s the only way to address and begin to solve the intractable problems of our age.”
Bones Jones getting the new space ready.
Jones’ work photographed for Logic(s) magazine.
Logic(s) magazine Designer in Residence Bones Jones will be Incite’s inaugural artist in residence at The Clemente and will cultivate a space that unites Incite and The Clemente. Jones, through his brand House ° Bones, strives to provide a platform and spaces where everyone can find connection and their unique expression.
Through immersive experiences and creative expressions in his work at Logic(s), Bones has pushed readers to think deeply about the implications of our technological dependence.
“I would say I dreamt, but in reality was awake many nights staring into the eyes of my first studio,” Jones said. “This partnership for me is like oil to a fire, and I’m so excited to set a high bar as the first resident, helping build a world between these partners.”
Through this partnership, we will decenter Columbia University’s campus as a primary site of collaboration, public programming, and thought, supporting expertise embedded in communities. Importantly, this collaboration leverages each organization’s strengths, including existing partnerships, funders, and our unique programmatic offerings.
Incite has previously hosted its My Vote Project Community Conversations series at The Clemente, a model for the power of what happens when we conceive, situate, and reimagine academic programs in alternative contexts.
“We believe this is the beginning of an enduring relationship and an exciting model that draws from the arts, education, and activism to develop and sustainably grow new initiatives and transformative ideas,” said Natalia Nakazawa, Studio Program Director at The Clemente.
We’ll keep you updated as this partnership evolves.