COVER IMAGE and PHOTOS BELOW thanks to the magnificent Leandro Viana--
A feijoada to coincide with Open Engagement, the international conference on art and social practice being held at the Queens Museum in May, 2014. The Sunview Luncheonette and Lanchonete.org will co-host a feijoada (a traditional Brazilian Saturday meal) at The Sunview Luncheonette on the evening of May 17th. The event will echo the two groups' respective reimagining of places of popular consumption (e.g. the lunch counter – a type of restaurant that is present in many cultures around the world) – as the basis for communal bonding, sharing, class transcendence, and mutual aid. Hosted by Dylan Gauthier (Sunview) and Todd Lester (Lanchonete.org), with guest chef Thiago Carrapatoso (artist, activist, and organizer of BaixoCentro in São Paulo).
With:
Thiago Carrapatoso & Gregory Earls / Food
Brian Fernandes-Halloran / Sculpture
Talita Zaragoza / Pudim and Slides
Greg Mihalko / Poster
Music:
Chad Laird (Jantar) & DJ Henry Cole
About:
Talita Zaragoza
For a very long time, nature has been the wellspring of my inspiration. Not only organic patterns and shapes, but whole values: memories and emotional depth that are carried along. Nature is not only a place where I seek inspiration and do my photographic work but also a place where I realign my thoughts, as the natural world is also a place for strong contemplation. In all my work, the time spent and the dedication to one single piece is indispensable. I see it as a sort of ceremony. Not in a religious way though not far from it in its symbolism, like a gesture of respect and adoration. As an act of dedication that is in many ways quite pleasurable. It is possible to observe some kind of aesthetic repetition in all my photographs, where the graphism and patterns are often reassured and emphasized. It is all part of the same research. This is possible because ultimately I see my photographic act as drawing. I see the frame as a canvas where I’m actually drawing with natural found lines and shapes. Sometimes I do act upon these natural formations in order to better shape them within my vision, or because I do need to interact with the landscape and contribute with everything I have observed and perceived. I see these interactions as offerings, as part of a ceremony; the time spent as a form of respect.
Gregory Mihalko
Greg is a designer, artist and founder of Partner & Partners, a small design practice in New York, NY working with a variety of clients in art, architecture and activism. He is also a co-organizer of The Interference Archive and the Sunview Luncheonette and has a persistent focus on community and social-practice projects.
Chad Laird (Jantar)
Chad Laird performs music with the experimental easy listening music ensemble Jantar and the acid rock outfit Prince Rupert’s Drops. He teaches in the History of Art department at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the New York School of Interior Design, and is a co-founder of the Sunview Luncheonette. For Feijoada, Jantar will perform a new piece, “The Prosaica Suite,” in which a series of misapprehensions and false evocations of Brazil are culled from various easy listening albums and deformed and disfigured into an aural carpet for improvisation and eating.
Brian Fernandes-Halloran
I am following a natural tendency to make life and loved ones from what was lost and forgotten.
Gregory Earls
I Cook. I Love. I plant seeds of change in the food movement.
Henry Cole
Henry Cole is a drummer known for playing in some of the world’s most acclaimed jazz groups, including the Grammy-nominated Miguel Zenón Quartet (Awake, Esta Plena, Alma Adentro]), Grammy winner David Sánchez (Cultural Survival), the Alfredo Rodriguez Trio, and the all-star quartet “90 Miles” featuring Sánchez, Stefon Harris and Nicholas Payton. Henry is also asserting himself as leader of the Afro-Beat Collective, which releases its debut album Roots Before Branches this fall in the United States. His prior DJ experience includes Christmas parties, dish washing sessions, road trips, and time before bed time.
PDF of a poster designed by Greg Mihalko (Partner&Partners) with texts by BaixoCentro, Lanchonete.org, Sunview Luncheonette
Lanchonete.org:
At what speed do tastes evolve?
Na sua opinião, com que rapidez nossos gostos mudam?</p>
Do you live where you used to live?
Você mora onde você costumava morar?
Has your neighborhood been changing?
Você tem percebido mudanças no seu bairro?
Have you been changing?
Você tem mudado?
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The Sunview:
The Sunview Luncheonette is a social center and radical culture space for exploring aesthetics, poetics, affect, community, politics, desire, art and communalism. The Luncheonette operates on a model resistant to traditional forms of commerce, commodification, and gentrification. What is important is presence – being present together – sometimes around food, an artwork, a screening, music, a text, an idea, a drink, a chat, a card game – but never requiring a pretense just to be present together. Located in an unrestored luncheonette, the Sunview previously functioned as a neighborhood hub, hangout spot, and community fixture, disguised as a simple restaurant and run by Dimitria, a.k.a. ‘Bea’ and her husband Lou from 1963 to 2008. We are currently Bea’s guests. In working with and beside our host, our aim is to study and apply a form of intergenerational mutual aid, while positing potential models for keeping longtime residents involved in gentrifying neighborhoods when they might otherwise be forced out. At the center of a rapidly changing neighborhood within a city that seems to prioritize profits above the social good, is it possible to create a space for thinking about the changes taking place through asserting a simple right to be present?
At the heart of the Sunview Luncheonette is a cooperative, member based social club that steers the organism and creates programming and dinners for members two or three evenings a week. The Sunview works to promote the mutual respect of all of its members by providing a safe space for dialogue, collaboration and critique. The luncheonette also supports its own small press, lending library, and print residency which are run out of the back of the space and open to the public via a small window.
The Sunview is currently exploring the potential benefits and/or drawbacks of becoming an officially registered 501(c)7 social club.