Closing Party
December 17, 2016, 6pm
Decolonize This Place has been a process of collective unlearning, decolonizing and building that is just beginning.
Artists Space
Decolonize This Place: Closing Party
For our final action at 55 Walker Street, we invite you to join us in celebrating our struggles, and the movements they honor, with a closing party that will feature performances, food, drink and dancing. Documentation of events and actions produced through the project will be on display, and many of our collaborators will share words. Posters and t-shirts will be on sale, with proceeds benefitting the creation of a new art center in Ramallah, Palestine.
Since September 17th, MTL+ has been in residence at Artists Space, converting Artists Space Books & Talks into a shared movement space oriented toward art, research and action. The project has focused on five strands of political work—Indigenous Struggle, Black Liberation, Free Palestine, De-Gentrification and Global Wage Workers—and has facilitated organizers and artists from around the city participating in discussions, direct actions, meetings, concerts, performances, screenings, production parties and potlucks.
Dar Mamoun: Ramallah Center for Art, Life & Land will build from the legacy of Decolonize This Place. Dar Mamoun will be devoted to cultural, social and educational activities formed in collaboration with local communities in the West Bank city of Ramallah and across the otherwise fragmented geography of the Palestinian territories, with a focus on women, low-income people, refugees, and queer youth. It will be an experience-based learning hub for artists, intellectuals and organizers visiting from overseas, and will be housed in a currently unused residential compound owned by MTL.
The number of collaborators constituting Decolonize This Place has grown from an initial core to over fifty groups and organizations, including Mahina Movement, The Bronx Is Not For Sale, Justice for Akai Gurley, El Salón, Students for Justice in Palestine, Chinatown Art Brigade, Insurgent Poets Society, Colloquium for Unpopular Culture, NYC Stands with Standing Rock and Working Artists for the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.), among a list that continues to grow. This final event is a chance to come together in celebration and gratitude for the work we do to support each other, as well as to build new formations for the struggles still to come."
– MTL+
This is the closing program of Decolonize This Place, a three-month project by MTL+ on invitation of Common Practice New York hosted at Artists Space Books & Talks. For the purposes of this project, 55 Walker Street has been converted by MTL+ into a movement space action-oriented around the issues of De-Gentrification, Indigenous Struggle, Black Liberation, Free Palestine and Global Wage Workers. Views and opinions expressed in this project are not necessarily those of Artists Space or members of Common Practice New York
MTL+ is a collective of artists and organizers comprised of Nitasha Dhillon, Amin Husain, Yates McKee, Andrew Ross, Kyle Goen, Amy Weng, Aiko Maya Roudette, Marz Saffore and Samer Abulaela