Consider Culture: A Conversation with Enrique Small, President of the Panamanian Parade
by Attia Taylor
Meet Enrique Small—a Panamanian-born Brooklyn resident who has dedicated his life to capturing the spirit, culture, and essence of Panamanian heritage. A cornerstone of Brooklyn's cultural landscape, the Panamanian Parade brings together over 30,000 people each year. It's the largest celebration of Panamanian culture, tradition, and independence outside of the Republic of Panama.
Brooklyn Panamanian Parade. Photo courtesy Enrique Small, President of the Panamanian Parade & BAC Cultural Heritage Advisory Group (CHAG) Member.
2025 Creative Aging: SU-CASA Teaching Artist & Panelist Applications Now Open!
Deadline: Sunday, December 15, 2024 at 11:59pm EST
SU-CASA is a community arts engagement program that places Teaching Artists (TAs) in participating Older Adult Centers (OACs) across Brooklyn. The program provides payment to artists for the creation and delivery of arts-based activities that positively impact the well-being of older adults.
TAs receive payment of $6,000, an additional administrative stipend of $2,000 for materials and supplies, and access to Materials for the Arts. Applicants must be sensitive to the needs of older adults and demonstrate residency in Brooklyn. TAs will be hired as BAC employees and must be eligible to work in the United States.
Become a panelist! BAC uses a panel selection process to review SU-CASA TA applications. Since we place artists working in a variety of disciplines in OACs all over the borough, we need panelists from all Brooklyn communities. Panelists receive an honorarium of $250.
"Colors of Life" residency at Riseboro Hope Gardens Multi Services OAC led by Adela Navarro, 2024 SU-CASA Teaching Artist.
The SU-CASA program is funded by the New York City Council and is a collaboration among the New York City Council, the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), the Department for the Aging (DFTA) and four of the City's local arts councils – Bronx Council on the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Staten Island Arts.
BAC Grantee & Partner Events
taxilandia: book your ride!
Modesto “Flako” Jiminez is the Artistic Director of ¡Oye Group!, a BAC Grantee.
The Taxilandia ride is taking bookings right now! Taxilandia is a taxi ride that is a multi-city, hyperlocal journey through gentrification - a decolonial franchise. Directed by Modesto “Flako” Jiminez, Taxilandia NYC allows you to experience Bushwick in a way that allows you to integrate yourself with the neighborhood. Flako shows riders the true history of Bushwick and the impact of gentrification on the place he grow up in. This is not a tour, but rather an experience that allows you to dance with the complexities with an ever changing neighborhood.
The Neurodivergent New Play Series: altitude
The Neurodivergent New Play Series is a 2024 BAC Grantee.
November 17 | 2pm
A.R.T New York South Oxford Space - 138 South Oxford Street Brooklyn, New York, 11217
The Neurodivergent New Play Series closes out 2024 on November 17th with a reading of "altitude" - a stoner comedy written by Daniel Prillaman and directed by Annika Beth. Presented the 3rd Sunday of each month at 2pm, the Neurodivergent New Play Series is dedicated to promoting the work of rising neurodivergent writers who identify as having autism, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, Tourette syndrome, etc.
Avani Patel: Migration of Nature Through Community
November 19
140 58th St, Studio 3J, Brooklyn, NY 11220
Avani Patel is a 2024 BAC Teaching Artist
Brooklyn is a multiethnic neighborhood, and appreciating other cultures makes it come alive. The voices are diverse because they each have a unique sense of community and identity. Even after 21 years, Brooklyn has continued to intrigue and inspire me. It expresses its own uniqueness while also supporting a thriving and dynamic artist community. I've struggled to live here, but the elements of this magnificent area have combined to give me visions of optimism in my artistic profession, catching my drive to continue working and providing me with a strong feeling of self-identity. I'd want to invite local schools to visit my studio and engage through a natural creation art project for public area using my artwork.
Kyoung eun Kang: Care Package VII
Kyoung eun Kang is a 2024 BAC Grantee
November 22 | 7:30pm
Center for Performance Research - 361 Manhattan Avenue Brooklyn, NY, 11211
“Care Package VII” is a new iteration of the continuously evolving performance series “Care Package,” which has been developing over the last 15 years. Together, the audience and the artist will explore a care package from her mother in South Korea. Through poetry, sound, movement, and participation, this performance invites the audience into the uniquely intimate relationship that has evolved between the artist and her mother over their period of long separation. As the piece unfolds, we'll unpack the notions of home, care, time, and distance.
Vong Pak: Dance In The Three Generations of Korean Immigrants
Vong Pak is a 2024 BAC Grantee.
November 23 | 2pm
Brooklyn Heights Library - Multipurpose Room 286 Cadman Plaza West Brooklyn, NY 11201
Experience the captivating rhythms and graceful movements of "Dance In The Three Generations of Korean Immigrants," a traditional Korean dance brought to life by a talented Korean-American, Master Dooyi Yoonsook Park’s family. Immerse yourself in the vibrant tapestry of their cultural heritage as they showcase generations of tradition and innovation. This enchanting performance reveals the evolution and adaptation of Korean dance within each generation of immigrants. Witness the seamless fusion of ancient traditions with contemporary influences, as the family breathes new life into their cherished art form. Join us for an unforgettable journey that celebrates the resilience and creativity of the Korean diaspora as they continue to preserve and develop their rich cultural legacy in their new homes. Free admission.
Lena Bloch & Feathery quartet: A World Without Fear
Lena Bloch is a 2024 BAC Grantee.
December 11 | 8pm
168 7th Street Brooklyn, NY, 11215
The suite of original compositions, linked together by the theme of longing for peace for humanity, for living on this planet without fear of the Other, of aggression, of war, of loss of the loved ones. A "war" not only as a conventional war with weapons - but also as a state of war within us, state of fear which feeds prejudice, suspicion and hostility. Feathery Quartet is bringing together Eastern and Western impressions and cultural influences in this world, creating poems in sound where East and West embrace. Dan Morgenstern: “Most impressive quartet – or rather, four equals perfectly attuned to each other. “Collective” is the key word here, for this is truly musical togetherness, creating a sound all its own”. Downbeat Magazine describes it: “Rippling energy and sublimely weightless interplay".
Events, Workshops, & Professional Development
Brooklyn Pop
Open Now | Wednesdays-Sundays, 12-6pm
Industry City, 220 36th St, Building 2
Brooklyn Pop, created, written & directed by Mr. Kaves, explores Brooklyn’s profound influence on popular culture. Housed in an 11,000 square foot space, visitors will journey through a narrative that is at once a play, a movie & an art installation, with every element meticulously crafted to immerse the audience in the spirit of Brooklyn. Through powerful storytelling & innovative visual displays, participants explore the borough’s role as a cultural epicenter that has shaped music, art, film & beyond.
Hivewild: with your sweet fragrance: the wall
Photograph: Kent Meister.
November 13 & 14 | 7pm
Carroll Hall, 2 Vandervoort Place, Brooklyn, NY 11237
with your sweet fragrance is a new live work that examines the forces of climate inequity: deforestation, habitat destruction, and rising sea levels. The project will utilize elements of dance, photography, film projection, set design, and sound design to create a full-length dance theater work. The goal of with your sweet fragrance is to facilitate a visceral and tender experience that leads to a deeper awareness of humanity’s role within the climate crisis and activation towards both individual and collective climate reparations.
Nailing the Application: A Guide to Artist Open Calls (Part 1: The Narrative)
November 14 | 12pm | Virtual
This is Part 1 of a 2-part series from NYFA and Northern Virginia Local Arts Alliance (NVLAA), featuring the perspective of arts decision-makers who run residencies, jury exhibitions, and review project proposals. Part 1 will focus on the narrative, or written components, of the application.
Nailing the Application: A Guide to Artist Open Calls (Part 2: Work Samples)
November 14 | 12pm | Virtual
This is Part 2 of a 2-part series from NYFA and Northern Virginia Local Arts Alliance (NVLAA), featuring the perspective of arts decision-makers who run residencies, jury exhibitions, and review project proposals. Part 2: Work Samples will focus on the work sample, or portfolio, components.
Materials for the arts: Fall 2024 P-Credit (+30) / CTLE / A+ Courses
Project-based Learning Course begins November 16
Register today for MFTA's professional development courses and apply P-Credits towards increases for your salary! Led by MFTA Master Teaching Artist Joy Suarez, these classes support educators across subject areas to create interactive and engaging projects for students. Reward yourself with a week in the studio and learn the tools to bring art, reuse, and hands-on projects into your lesson plans.
Smack mellon Exhibition: Miatta Kawinzi, Numma Yah
Miatta Kawinzi, Numma Yah (installation view), 2024. Courtesy of Smack Mellon. Photo by Etienne Frossard.
Now - November 17, 2024
Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth St, Gallery One, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Numma Yah brings together immersive sculptural installation, soundscape, and moving image projection to reflect on root systems materially and conceptually. Informed by Kawinzi’s Liberian cultural heritage, the work meditates on ideas around protection, inter-connectivity, embodied memory, and the lessons learned from plant life. The title is a Kolokwa (Liberian English) phrase used to offer words of comfort, uplifting the necessity of creating spaces of soothing in the face of disconnection, marking Kawinzi’s intention in the work to trace lines of physical and psychic diasporic reconnection.
Smack mellon Exhibition: Madjeen Isaac, Come as You Are, This Is Our Battle Too
Madjeen Isaac, Come as You Are, This Is Our Battle Too (installation view), 2024. Courtesy of Smack Mellon. Photo by Etienne Frossard
Now - November 17, 2024
Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth St, Gallery Two, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Come as You Are, This Is Our Battle Too is an exhibition of recent works that centers healing and transformation. Following a battle with an unexpected health diagnosis starting in fall 2023, the artist embarked on an inward journey exploring the depths of her own spirit, reflecting on the guidance, prayers, and support of her community. Isaac’s reimagined landscapes represent places that the artist has occupied emotionally and mentally while grappling with grief, anger, and sadness, and seeking hope, love, and grace. Illuminated by various sources of light and celestial beings, her paintings allude to her ancestors, who are constantly present. The exhibition serves as an invitation for viewers to come to the work with their own battles.
Grant Writing for Artists of Color and Native Artists Panel
November 20 | 6-8pm | Virtual
Join Springboard for the Arts for a virtual panel that will take a look at the grant writing process and discuss how artists who are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and Native can successfully navigate the application process. The panel will be moderated by hc lou and include Ifrah Mansour, Sun Yung Shin, and Moira “Miri” Villiard.
How to run your creative business like a machine
November 21 | 1pm | Virtual
Usually, most of us go into business to solve a problem or fill a need. We never anticipated we’d also have to be our own accountant, bookkeeper, human resources, insurance specialist, and personal assistant too! This workshop will help you set up your business to run like a machine. We’ll go deep on topics around taxes, business structure, bank accounts, etc. You know, the fun stuff!
CULTURAL ORGANIZING FOR COMMUNITY CHANGE
December 15 | 10am - 6pm
Mercury Store, 131 8th Street, Brooklyn
Arts & Democracy and Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts NY (NOCD-NY) invite you to Cultural Organizing for Community Change. Join fellow organizers, artists, media makers, and policy makers to learn effective ways to deepen your work and engage your creativity in organizing for community change. Convening in Gowanus, the day will include a cultural organizing framework; hands on skill building workshops including dance, singing, theater, and popular education; case studies from across NYC and beyond; and networking and resources.
“to hold a we”
Now - December 22 | BRIC House Gallery & Project Room
Honoring the many interconnected relationships that facilitate making and being, to hold a we features newly commissioned and recent work by fourteen emerging and early-career disabled artists and collectives from the BRIClab residency program. Across drawing, text, sculpture, video, photography, installation, and performance, the artists continually turn to memory, intimacy, grief, and the archive as both a source of inspiration and a means of connection.
APAP|NYC conference
January 10-14, 2025 | New York Hilton Midtown
APAP|NYC is the world's premier gathering of the performing arts presenting, booking, and touring industry and the annual members conference of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals—including many dance-focused sessions and showcases. Join their community of more than 3,000 professionals for five days of performance showcases, networking, learning, discovery, community building, and the largest EXPO hall in the performing arts.
Funding Opportunities
2025 MIXMASTER Juried Show
Deadline: November 18
MIXMASTER is an annual juried exhibition that seeks to discover and recognize the talents of the Mattatuck Museum’s artist members working in New England and the Tri-State region. All artists who are over the age of 18 and residents of New England, New York, and New Jersey are welcome to apply. Selected works will be featured in a group show at the Mattatuck Museum in January, and the winner of the show will receive $500 plus a solo exhibition in the fall. Please note that membership is required to apply.
NYFA: Queens Arts Fund (QAF)
Deadline: November 19
Queens Arts Fund (QAF) offers project-based grants to Queens-based artists, artist collectives, and small non-profit organizations to support the local production of artwork and cultural programs that highlight, engage, and bolster the diverse communities of the Queens borough.
Smack Mellon 2025-26 Artist Studio Program
Deadline: November 24
The Artist Studio Program was launched in 2000 in response to the crisis of available affordable space for artists living and working in New York City. The Artist Studio Program provides six NYC-based emerging visual artists with a free private studio, access to Smack Mellon’s shared production facilities, coordinated studio visits and open studios, and a fellowship (dependent on funding) for an eleven-month period. The 2025-26 program runs September 5, 2025 through August 5, 2026.
The Bronx Dance Fund
Deadline: November 25
The Bronx Dance Fund seeks to nurture the development of artists and organizations that comprise the field of dance in the Bronx. To achieve this goal, the Bronx Dance Fund will support individual Bronx-based dancers, choreographers, and dance organizations with grants of up to $7,500 for general operating or project-based support, including capacity building, training, professional development, and/or production.
Innovate Grants for Art + Photo
Deadline: December 12
Innovate Grant awards two (2) $1,800 grants each quarter, to one visual artist and one photographer. In addition, 12 honorable mentions (6 in art and 6 in photo), will be featured on their website and join a growing community of vibrant and talented artists. These grants are mighty sparks of financial support that ignite your creative development.
2025 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship
Image: (Detail) Sangram Majumdar (Fellow in Painting ’18), giacometti’s shadow, 2018, oil on canvas
Deadline: December 17
The NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship is an $8,000 unrestricted cash grant available to artists living in New York State and/or one of the Tribal Nations located therein. This grant is awarded in 15 different disciplines over a three-year period (five categories a year) and the application is free to complete. In 2025, the following categories will be reviewed: Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design; Choreography; Music/Sound; Photography; and Playwriting/Screenwriting.
KUNSTRAUM EXHIBITION PROGRAM SPRING 2025
Deadline: December 31
Emerging and mid-career artists are invited to submit their work for consideration in KUNSTRAUM’s group exhibition in the spring, curated by our 2025-2026 Curator-in-Residence. KUNSTRAUM is a community for artists by artists, aiming to redefine the way artists and curators collaborate. Their program seeks to explore the relationships between artists and curators by opening our gallery space to those interested in exploring unconventional, engaging ideas and taking risks.
NYSCA: fy25 Capital Projects Fund
Deadline: January 14, 2025
Small and Midsized Capital Improvement Grants for Arts and Culture: Funds projects initiated by nonprofit arts and culture organizations of any size that prioritize accessibility, artistry, cultural development, sustainability, health and safety, and structural and historical improvements.
Large Capital Improvement Grants for Arts and Culture: Supports arts and cultural nonprofits across the state that are undertaking impactful, large-scale capital improvements.
Capital Design Grants for Arts and Culture: Supports the development of mid-stage and advanced design documents for arts and culture nonprofits with operating budgets of $10 million or less across the state that are planning eligible capital improvements and are currently in the early stages of design.
Museum of the Moving Image: 2025 Marvels of Media Festival open call
Deadline: January 15
Open now through January 15, Marvels of Media Festival welcomes submissions of film, animation, video art, virtual reality, episodic series, and video games created by autistic media-makers. A selection of media-makers will be celebrated through an exhibition, film screenings, and in-depth panel discussions. Emerging autistic media-makers of all ages will have a chance to learn from industry experts and independent filmmakers on the spectrum with media workshops.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read
Deadline (Intent to Apply): January 23, 2025
Deadline (Application): January 30, 2025
The National Endowment for the Arts Big Read is a program that awards grants ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 to organizations. These grants support community reading programs designed around a single NEA Big Read book. The NEA Big Read broadens our understanding of ourselves and our neighbors through the power of a shared reading experience. The goal of this program is to inspire meaningful conversations, celebrate local creativity, elevate a wide variety of voices and perspectives, and build stronger connections in each community.
2025 Open Streets partners
Deadline: January 31, 2025
Applications are now open for 2025 Open Streets partners. Community-based organizations, schools, businesses, and other partners are invited to join New York City’s program to reimagine the use of streets as public spaces. These transformations allow for a range of activities that promote economic development, support schools, facilitate pedestrian and bike mobility, and provide new ways for New Yorkers to enjoy cultural programming and build community.
The Creative Center: Hospital Artist-in-Residence Program
Hospital Artist-In-Residence Carmen Rios at BronxCare Health System, Family Medicine, and her art cart.
Deadline: Rolling
The Creative Center's Hospital Artist-In-Residence (AIR) Program serves patients, families, caregivers, and healthcare staff in the New York City Area and beyond. The 10 current Hospital AIRs serve over 3,000 patients each year at multiple hospital sites and develop supportive relationships with countless staff and caregivers. AIRs are professional artists trained by The Creative Center to work in a multitude of healthcare settings.
Resources
Dance/NYC: How to Get Involved in Arts Advocacy
Dance/NYC has created curated resource lists to point you in the right direction and empower your journey towards building #OurNYCDance. Check out these resources on getting involved in arts advocacy. This compilation provides some entry points into ongoing efforts to shape public policies that affect arts workers. Resources include:
What We're Reading
“Brooklyn celebrates hip-hop heritage with unveiling of towering ‘Rappin’ Max Robot’ statue”
by Jada Camille | Brooklyn Paper
“The Women Giving Harlem’s National Black Theatre a Monumental New Home”
by Marley Marius | Vogue
“National Endowment for the Arts awards $12m in new grants to more than 100 US arts organisations”
by Benjamin Sutton | The Art Newspaper
“Inside the Record Collections of 10 Prolific Brooklyn Crate Diggers”
by Jessica Lipsky | BK Mag
“Legacies: new exhibition aims to expand ideas of Asian American art”
by Veronica Esposito | The Guardian
Cover Image: Still from “Radishes” by The Radishes, 2024 BAC Grantee. Director of Photography/Photo: Emma Penrose, 2023.
Empowering Artists. Empowering Communities.
The arts are a lifeline to sustain wonder, inspiration, healing, and a sense of community in our lives. Please join Brooklyn Arts Council in our mission to empower Brooklyn artists and arts organizations that bring life and joy into our home borough.