Soapbox 2018

Make art. Do more.

Our signature gala, SOAPBOX, annually brings together over 300 of NYC’s most influential artists and activists for a powerful evening of reflection and celebration. Drawing inspiration from our celebrated guests of honor, SOAPBOX is designed to galvanize and energize our many communities. Now in its fifth year, SOAPBOX raises vital funds that make it possible for us to continue supporting artists creating change in their own local communities.

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2018

Dinner from 6:30-8:30PM
Dance Party from 8-10PM

Affirmation Arts

523 W 37th St, New York, NY 10018

Party Tickets begin at $150. Dinner Tickets begin at $400.

Want to join our Benefit Committee? Interested in becoming a sponsor? Have a question? Contact Ayesha Williams at [email protected] or (718) 574-0798

Honoring:

Rinku Sen, Author & Activist

Elia Alba, Multidisciplinary Artist

Tattfoo Tan, The LP Alumni Artist

Honorary Chairs:

Ruth Carter, Pioneering Costume Designer

Merele Williams Adkins, Arts Advocate

Featured Print Edition by:

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

MUSIC BY:

DJ Reborn

Follow the Facebook event page and The LP’s instagram for teasers leading up to the event. We’ll be announcing more special guests and exciting experiences you can expect at the event.

Check out photos from SOAPBOX 2017 here.

Honorees

Rinku Sen is a writer and a political strategist. She is currently Senior Strategist at Race Forward, having formerly served as Executive Director and as Publisher of their award-winning news site Colorlines. She is also a James O. Gibson Innovation Fellow at PolicyLink. Under Sen’s leadership, Race Forward has generated some of the most impactful racial justice successes of recent years, including Drop the I-Word, a campaign for media outlets to stop referring to immigrants as “illegal,” resulting in the Associated Press, USA Today, LA Times, and many more outlets changing their practice. Her books Stir it Up and The Accidental American theorize a model of community organizing that integrates a political analysis of race, gender, class, poverty, sexuality, and other systems. She writes and curates the news at rinkusen.com

Elia Alba was born in Brooklyn, NY. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Hunter College followed by the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 2001. She has exhibited throughout the United States and abroad. Locations include The Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Science Museum, London; ITAU Cultural Institute, Sao Paolo; National Museum of Art, Reina Sofía, Madrid and the 10th Havana Biennial. She is also a recipient of numerous awards and residencies including, Studio Museum in Harlem Artist‐in Residence Program in 1999; New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, Crafts 2002 and Photography 2008; Pollack‐Krasner Foundation Grant, 2002, Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant 2002 and 2008; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Workspace Program, 2009 and LMCC Process Space 2016; and Recess Analog, 2012. Her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio, and Lowe Art Museum to name a few. For the past 5 years, she has been working on a publication / event series titled “The Supper Club”, currently supported by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, The 8th Floor. The project brings together artists, scholars and performers through portraiture, food and dialogue to examine race and culture. A solo show on “The Supper Club” is forthcoming Fall 2017.

Tattfoo Tan’s art practice responds to issues of ecology, climate change and nutrition. His unique art making process consists of learning new forms of knowledge, practicing them, and in turn teaching others. His decade long trilogy of projects: Nature Matching System, Sustainable. Organic. Stewardship. and New Earth had been shown widely and made into replicable manuals to inspire the public to take action. He has been recognized for his effort, service and artistic contributions to the community, and is a proud recipient of proclamation from The City of New York. He was also given the Twenty-Eighth Annual Award for Excellence in Design by Public Design Commission of The City of New York for his design and branding of the Super-Graphic on Bronx River Art Center.

Featured Print Artist

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh is a Black/Iranian visual artist from Oklahoma City, OK. She is a painter whose work ranges from the gallery to the streets, using visual art to tackle issues of violence in public spaces – from gender based street harassment to violence against black people. Her street art series, Stop Telling Women to Smile, can be found on walls across the globe, addressing gender based street harassment through portraiture and storytelling. Tatyana has been profiled by the New York Times, NPR, MSNBC, the New Yorker, and listed as one of Brooklyn’s most influential people by Brooklyn Magazine. She is 2015 Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient. She has lectured at the Brooklyn Museum, New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center, several universities including Stanford, Brown, USC, and Pratt Institute. Tatyana’s work has been featured on tv networks BET and Oxygen, Spike Lee’s feature film Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, and the Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It, for which she is also the show’s Art Consultant.

Artistic Experiences Featuring Create Change Alumni

Tattfoo Tan (SOAPBOX 2018 Honoree), 2010 Artist-in-Residence

Tattfoo developed NMS (Nature Matching System) as a reminder to consume your daily recommended doses of color. The shades of color displayed at farmers’ markets are more than skin deep, reflecting the inner potential of every fruit and vegetable, which get their color from phytonutrient compounds that play key roles in health and reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. Sadly, marketers of junk food apply the same technique used by nature to pollinate seed to their nutrition-deprived product. The colors on the placemat in this SOAPBOX 2018 installation are all actual food colors, taken from photographs of various fruits and vegetables.

Chloe Bass, 2014 Artist-in-Residence

For SOAPBOX 2018, Chloë Bass presents Maintenance: a set of disposable tableware from chapter six of her project The Book of Everyday Instruction, an eight chapter study of pairings. Chapter Six, titled What is shared, what is offered, focuses on how we share love between individuals and institutions. The Maintenance set features text written by Bass in the context of her relationship to the United States government after the 2016 presidential election.

Lizania Cruz, 2017 & 2018 Artist-in-Residence

We the News is a participatory project that documents, publishes, and distributes the stories of Black immigrants through zines and products in a public newsstand. Inspired by Stuart Hall’s notion of identity grounded in the “re-telling” of our past and experiences, participants are invited to “re-tell” their histories in story circles that explore themes of race, cultural rituals, and personal experiences. Each story circle is closed with a collective affirmation to create solidarity and empathy among the diaspora community. For SOAPBOX 2018, all participants are invited to share solidarity through an on-site installation by completing an affirmation during the dance party.

Sal Munoz 2018 Artist-in-Residence, 2016 Fellow

Sal’s SOAPBOX 2018 installation will feature the following works:

Dulces Milagros, 2017 (Laser-cut Acrylic & Glitter). This installation is modeled after milagros–votive offerings to saints prominent in Mexican/Xicanx culture. Traditional milagros are made from metal and depict saints, body parts, or religious iconography, and individual blessings would correspond with the metal object. In place of traditional milagros shapes, those currently installed resemble familiar Mexican sweets or desserts. If traditional milagros invoke blessings, these invoke sweetness.
Tonantzin Novena, 2017 (Open Edition Artist Multiple). The novenas on display combine Indigenous and Catholic imagery and rituals, exploring the role of colonization in the proliferation of the Virgin of Guadalupe (and Tonantzin, to an extent) throughout Mexican & Xicanx culture.

Special Performance by DJ Reborn in Collaboration with Bayete Ross Smith

What is a song that inspires you to do more for your community?

On the occasion of SOAPBOX 2018, 2010 Create Change Artist-in-Residence Bayeté Ross Smith is creating a crowdsourced community mixtape for his “Got the Power” series, which will be mixed live at our SOAPBOX Dance Party. Click here for more information and to submit a song that inspires you!

DJ Reborn is a trailblazing, international DJ, sound collage artist, hip hop theater musical director and arts educator. She has spent the last two decades utilizing her passion for music and her skills as a DJ within these worlds to make an impact. Reborn has a myriad of impressive accomplishments including her time as a DJ/creative writing mentor for teen girls at Urban Word NYC, DJ instructor and curriculum designer for Dubspot and currently as a mentor at The Lower Eastside Girl’s Club In the music world, she has opened shows for The Roots, John Legend, Bilal and Erykah Badu. In the art world she has spun for celebrated artists Kara Walker, Wangheci Mutu, Carrie Mae Weems, and Sanford Biggers. DJ Reborn recently conceived, created and performed a theater piece about and featuring all women DJs. Her ability to rock sets for diverse crowds and events ranging from clubs to galas to weddings allows her to continue to build a unique and dynamic resume that sets her apart from many in her field.

Special Edition Print by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

The Laundromat Project is thrilled to present a special edition print by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh. Each print is signed and numbered by the artist.

Silk Screen on BFK Rives Paper

25 1/2 x 19 1/2

Edition of 25

$750

Reserve your print now:

Benefit Committee

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Benefit Chairs

Marcus Ellington

Naomi Beckwith

Beverly Byrd

Benefit Commitee

Gonzalo Casals

CBS

Katie Dixon

O-T Fagbenle

Richard Flood

Janlori Goldman & Katherine Franke

Agnes Gund

Catherine Gund

Rena & Scott Hoffman (in honor of Elia Alba)

Joan Mitchell Foundation

Colleen Keegan

Steve Kest

Noel Kirnon

Glenn Ligon

Maureen Mahon & Brian Tate

Open Society Foundations

Race Forward (in honor of Rinku Sen)

Jeffrey A. Rosen (in honor of Elia Alba)

Show Strategy, Inc.

Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation (in honor of Elia Alba)

Workforce Housing Group

Board

Naomi Beckwith

Tresell Davis

Stephanie Dinkins, Co-Chair

Marcus Ellington

Erika Faust

Ali Goldstein-Norup, Secretary

Rasu Jilani

Dexter Wimberly

Curtis Young, Co-Chair

Founder

Risë Wilson

Benefit Committee Levels

The Laundromat Project cordially invites you to join us at one of the following benefit committee levels:

$10,000 Investor

($6,440 is tax-deductible) 8 dinner tickets with Premium seating and 16 dance party tickets; SOAPBOX limited edition print by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh; full-page color ad in program book; acknowledgment in event program and invitation.

$5,000 Stakeholder

($2,080 is tax-deductible) 6 dinner and 12 dance party tickets; SOAPBOX limited edition print by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh; half-page color ad in program book; acknowledgment in event program and invitation.