 So again, my name is Petrushka Basin-Larsen. I'm the program director at the LaunchVec Project, and I am joined here today by Yvette Ramirez, and I'm the friggin' Mrs. Tia here at the LaunchVec Project. I'm Allison Kibbe, and I was a fellow in 2014. This is just the past cycle. Great. So the agenda for today's info session is we're going to actually go over this PowerPoint, which is on your screen. And it's basically all the information that can be found on our website in the guidelines page or in the guidelines PDF. But sometimes it's helpful if someone's saying it. And then we're going to watch a quick video from one of last year's residents. I'm going to actually have a quick Q&A with Allison, just based on about her experience last year as a fellow. And then we will open the floor for questions from you guys. So if you have any questions, feel free to type them in the Questions dialog box as we're going through. And then at the end of those other parts that I mentioned that we'll address in the info session, we'll actually review all the questions and answer them in the order that they were received. So welcome. This info session is really an opportunity for us to share information about our fellowship and our residency programs under the Create Change Umbrella. So the Lounge Rout Project is an arts organization that brings programming to Lounge Rout Spaces and other everyday spaces. We do this by amplifying the creativity that already exists within communities, to build community networks, solve problems, and enhance our sense of ownership in the places we work and grow. The Create Change program was developed to give artists resources to be catalysts for connection and change in their own neighborhoods around whatever topics they felt were important and relevant to their neighbors and themselves. It initially started off as a residency program. And I will talk, obviously, more about what this program is. And it soon evolved to include a fellowship program, which basically provided resources or provides resources to artists of all disciplines, backgrounds, every capacity, all backgrounds, to have a space to gain more information and tools on how to work in community-based settings using art as a platform, no matter where you are working. And so it currently includes the residency, the fellowship, and then our commissions program. And the commissions program is not something that we're going to talk about today, because it's actually only available to alumni of our fellowship program. So that's one benefit of participating in the fellowship program. But I will briefly say that the commissions program offers a couple of fellows who are selected through a selection process the same amount of funding that we provide our residents and the freedom to do a project in a public setting. It doesn't actually have to be a laundry bag. It can be any setting. So yeah, we can spend time learning about last year's commissions projects on our website. But it is an opportunity for us as an organization to invest in our artists in the same way that they have invested in us through participating in the fellowship. But we will start with our residency program. So some benefits are that you receive $5,000 honorarium that's generally dispersed on a monthly basis, as $1,000 over the course of the program, and then a $1,500 production budget to produce your project. This production budget is on a reimbursable basis. So you will generally receive your first disbursement of money and then maybe you start making purchases for your project and then you submit your receipts and then we reimburs you. And that cycle continues through the life of the program. The other another benefit is the opportunity to develop or incubate a community-based project that engages others in the development of the project. So if you've had an idea for a while and maybe you haven't had it necessarily, you didn't have it in mind for a laundromat-based setting, but it could be adapted to a laundromat setting, then this would be a really great opportunity for you. The program isn't just for artists that have an existing project. It can be a new idea, definitely. But in the selection process, the panel will look at the applicant's ability to fulfill all of the details of the proposal. And so they will obviously also look at the history of the artists working in similar community-based settings and in engaged capacities. But it's a great opportunity to start a project. Actually, there are a number of projects that were seeded through the residency program and that have gone on to have many wonderful lives globally and also in a national context. So it's a great opportunity for that. Let me click, okay. So it's another benefit of participating in the residency is the opportunity to have access to an incredible range of information that's designed to deepen and expand one social-engaged creative practice. So residents are not required to participate in all the workshops that we organize for fellows, but they are encouraged and they are welcome to. In the past, residents have attended all of the workshops and in other cases, they've attended some of the workshops that feel like are most relevant to sort of what they need to hone as an artist. So, and we'll talk about the menu of workshops that we offer when we get to the fellowship portion of this presentation. Also, a benefit of being a resident and a fellow and just generally an artist working with the LP is that we take pride in connecting folks to an access, I mean, sorry, to a rich network of local and national peers, activists, arts professionals, curators, funders and change agents. And of course, this includes all alumni from the Create Change program. One feature where this is kind of activated is through, we have a listserv that's exclusively available to artists that have participated in the Create Change program where we share a lot of information. And I was just on a call earlier today with an artist who is actually an educator with us, but who gets the same information because obviously we cross posts from there and just like you all as an organization are really committed to artists and providing not just opportunities or making available not just opportunities that you all are offering as an organization, but opportunities both locally, nationally and even internationally. So, it's just to say that by participating in this program or really any LP program, this is just another benefit. Formation of a strong and long lasting peer network where one can share their creative vision strategies for change and ideas. Naturally, you know, in any program where you're spending a lot of time with people, this happens, but what I have loved sort of witnessing over the years is how artists who've participated in different years of let's say this particular program have become part of one network and have used each other as resources for brainstorming and for collaboration. So, that is just another benefit. And of course, as an alumni, you're eligible to receive grants from the LP for future community-based projects. One thing that we hope to launch in the near future is a micro funding opportunity for artists that are both working with us in an educator capacity and also through our residency fellowship and commission program. So again, that's something that would just be exclusive to LP artists. And then preference for ongoing professional opportunities such as speaking engagements and press coverage and commission. So often we get emails from people across the country to come and present about the organization and about the experiences that our artists have had or that constituents that are living in our neighborhoods have had. And so we will call on artists that have done really amazing work with us to speak on our behalf and share their experiences, share the projects that they've done. And that happens throughout the year not just specifically throughout the creative change program. So who should apply to the residency? Artists that are not just interested in art for art's sake, but those who intend for their creative practice to bring about social justice, cultural equity, cooperation or cultural preservation. So just, I think this is like one of the most important things. Obviously, socially engaged art and social practice are really hot, but in terms that can be very meaningless. And this is basically what we mean by those terms. This is not a program that is for artists that are just kind of thinking about how their ideas are relevant to other people that they live around through acts of generosity. It's really about social justice, cultural equity, cooperation and cultural preservation. Other, or rather something else to consider when applying to this program to figure out if you're an ideal candidate is are you already creating positive local impact with a demonstrated socially engaged artistic practice? So I kind of, I will unpack this a little bit because I will say that in the past, all artists have not had like a large portfolio of doing socially engaged artistic practice, but their politics as a person, as an artist were in that direction. And sometimes working with us might have been their first opportunity to really explore what their practice looks like in this realm. So I encourage you to not feel intimidated by the application process if you feel like you don't have 10 projects under your belt. Let's see. So ideal candidates should also want to develop their individual creative practices by incorporating tools of social engagement in it. Want to build a community amongst artists working to create impact within their creative practice. Believe that listening first and doing second is the best strategy for developing community-based art projects. This is another one that I feel like deserves some careful thought and attention, often with just talking about community-engaged work and social-engaged work and yeah, like people kind of enter that space with their ideas as the guide and really it's not about your ideas. It's about your creative capacity to amplify existing ideas within the space that you're working in. And so in order to do that, you have to listen first and then kind of figure things out after that. So if you are in agreement and apply to this program. So then also you should live in Bed-Stuy Harlem or Hunts Point slash Longwood, which are neighborhoods that are very close together in the South Bronx. If you're thinking about this program, if you live outside of those neighborhoods, then this is probably not the best program for you because as an organization, those are our geographic focuses. So consider our fellowship program perhaps. So these are just some images from past projects. Historically, this program actually used to be available to artists in a city-wide capacity and in 2013, we shifted to focus just on the three, four-ish neighborhoods that I just mentioned. A lot of the projects, obviously they all happen in laundromats, but they don't just have to happen in laundromats. And I think outside of our commissions program, I have yet to see any residency projects that have included venues that are in addition to the laundromat. Actually, I've stopped on this image, which is a flyer from a project that happened a couple of years ago. And the artist, Shani Peters, organized a microfilm festival in her, or in a Harlem laundromat, not far from our office. And she, the culmination of this project was the screening of the five top videos, or film or video works, rather, that laundromat patrons voted on throughout the course of the residency. And they were screened at the Schomburg during this red carpet finale screening where everybody was a star. And so this is maybe, this is an example of another venue being included within the project, but generally speaking, artists have not simultaneously engaged laundromats and other venues. But I'm saying this, I'm bringing this up because it is definitely something that can be done. I think you should feel empowered to do. So to participate in the residency program, artists should identify as a person of color. They should have a demonstrated creative practice and already be making social engaged art. They should have a demonstrated, they should have demonstrated their ability to connect their artistic practice to local community topics by having already completed at least one community-based project. Live in one of the LPs and co-neighborhoods, be at least 21 years of age, and not be currently enrolled in a degree-bearing program. And of course, of course, be able to commit the time and attention to developing and presenting their laundromat-based project by participating in all of the programmatic activities that are outlined in our guidelines PDF on our website. And we, you know, just based on, not just last year, the past couple of years, we've been kind of polling residents to see like how much time they're spending, and it really is in range, but at minimum, you should expect to spend at least 300 hours working on your project over six months. And so the best way to kind of get a sense of what that looks like is to kind of just use your calendar and see what your open dates are and say, okay, I can spend five hours here and kind of divide that amongst the six-month span of the program. Because 300 hours seems like a little, but it kind of is a lot. It might seem like a lot. It might not be as much to other people, but I really encourage you to use your calendar as a tool to figure out what that actually looks like for your life. So strong create change residents have demonstrated a record of artistic excellence in their work samples and resume. So work samples, some of these, sorry, some of these points are gonna be the exact same for the fellow portion of this presentation. So I will kind of zip through them when we get to that part. But one thing I will say is that you should never, ever in any application, this one and others, leave your work samples to the last thing. Spend time picking out work samples that are going to tell your story, who you are as an artist, and are going to present your work in the best light. You know, spending time to have your work documented as your work is happening, not like in preparation for this deadline because there's really not that much time left in the application timeline, but really be thoughtful about the work that you are, rather the samples that you're submitting to represent your work because that is what the panel is using to understand who you are as an artist. And this program is open to not just visual artists. So just make sure that your work is documented very well, because often as a panelist, people will go to the work samples first and then read the answers. And so it's just really important and I just can't stress that enough. So spend time, don't make it a last thought. And I'm probably preaching to the choir, but I know it would be remiss not saying it. Familiarity or interest in local issues impacting their neighborhoods. And I should say, let me contextualize issues. We really don't come to this work from an issue or a lack mentality. So issues could be, it really should be topics. What's happening in your neighborhood? What are the things that you wanna explore? What are the things that are relevant to you and your neighbors? And it should, applicants that are interested in this opportunity should have familiarity with what is happening in their neighborhood. And have a willingness to take risks and step out of comfort zone. Okay, laundromats as a site for our presentation and exploration and facilitation is, you know, it doesn't happen every day. So obviously there are a lot of risks that you take with just putting yourself out in this kind of space that is not already interpreted for art sort of presentation. But you should really feel open and energized by that sort of uncharted territory and be comfortable to be flexible around what might shift as a result of being there. Interest and ability to actively engage non-artists in all aspects of your creative practice. So that's actually like an image on the right of Suran Song who was a resident with us several years ago. And she has a yoga practice and also a printmaking practice. And she part of her project started in one way. And then when it wasn't going in the direction that she had anticipated, she started offering yoga classes at her laundromat. And so this was actually like a really amazing service and aspect of her project that people got really excited about. And it welcomed so many other residents to the space of a laundromat. And she has now continued these classes in her apartment in New York. And it's completely, I think it was a very transformational experience for her as an artist and as a neighbor. Anyway, but yes, this is maybe one example of engaging non-artists. And really non-artists, it really could be just neighbors because we actually believe everybody has creative abilities and artists kind of privileges a certain kind of training that I'm not so interested in because everybody does not have access to that level of training which doesn't make them any less than artists. Anyway, the applicant should have problem-solving skills and be resourceful and be flexible. I really can't stress that enough. You sometimes just things happen and you have to be able to kind of bounce back from anything that is presented to you in a laundromat space. Obviously the capacity for critical analysis of your work, of the themes that the work includes the work is addressing and ability to provide that sort of analysis to peers in the program. Obviously a deep respect for your neighbors and the ability to collaborate with a broad public and of course the ability to carry out a project of the skill that you've proposed in the application. If your proposal is saying that you want to go to the moon and you have never demonstrated the ability to travel to the moon then that would be an example of not demonstrating the ability to carry out a project of the skill. If you're saying like I want to organize, I want to close down 40 streets and create this neighborhood festival but you have not articulated in any part of the application or provided any work samples or provided any letters of recommendation or anything to say that you can actually do that then again that would be an example of not having demonstrated the ability to carry out a project of the skill that is proposed in the application. So, let's go, uh-oh, there we go. So benefits of the fellowship, a lot of the same things that we already talked about for the residency, let me just bring them all down. I think maybe the only difference is and what I've already said is access to the commission's program funding. That is not available to create change residents, it's only available to alumni. So these are just some images from past workshops that we've offered. So this is, I'll use this opportunity to just share what the workshops will be and again the dates for these workshops are in the guidelines PDF which is on our website which I will show everybody how to get to if you haven't already accessed them. We open with an orientation. This year it will be a day long orientation as opposed to a two day long which it has been in the past. We will have a cultural organizing all day workshop. We will have another workshop that focuses on community partnerships and engaging the public policy sector and then we will have another day long workshop that addresses funding for your projects, you know, work life balance, kind of how do you sustain your practice from all these different sort of lenses and then also a design workshop. So primarily we focus on like graphic design because we understand that all the artists that are in the program don't come from a graphic design background or not all visual artists but it's important to have collateral to promote your projects that is aesthetically strong and speaks to the constituents that you are looking to have come to the programs that you are organizing. So we have a workshop that focuses on that. We also as a part of the program have what we call doctor's hours. So this is where I think we had this image. This was actually at LMCC I think last year but we invite people that are on our arts and community council or other arts professionals and activists and educators that we think would offer a good feedback to the current cohort. We invite them for an evening where Create Change Residents are able to sign up from basically 15 minute feedback sessions about anything that they want to present and like doctor's hours kind of signifies like here's a project that I'm working on I'm kind of working through these ideas and I'd love to get your feedback. So as a doctor providing that. I would like to follow us too. Yes, sorry, this is for everybody. Sorry, this is for all Create Change artists. Thank you Yvette. And so, and it's offered on a Wednesday evening from seven to nine I believe or six, 30 to nine. Please use the guidelines PDF to guide all of your date and time. You know, all of the dates and times that we've listened do not listen to me when I say seven to nine. Six, 30 to nine I believe. At any event, so this is just another sort of part of participating in the Create Change program. We have these potluck dinners that are an opportunity for artists to get to know each other. Just a more familiar sort of unstructured setting and just kind of get to know folks as people and not like in the workshop. You know, we are kind of walking through an agenda. This year we will organize a couple of sort of structured activities within this setting but it still will be very light and fun and still give folks an opportunity to get to know each other and share more about their artistic practice with their peers. So these are some images from Allison's field day project that she did in collaboration with four other Create Change fellows and neighbors in Hunts Point slash London. And these are some images from the Harlem groups field day project. So basically you should apply to this program if you are already creating positive local impact with your artistic practice or you're interested in doing so. If you wanna develop your individual artistic practices by incorporating tools for social engagement. If you can commit that time and attention to participating in the program's workshop, project planning meetings, potluck dinners and field day. This area cannot stress this enough and Allison can share more about it when we go to her sort of conversation about her experience. But the fellowship is a time commitment. Like one artist said from last year that you should consider this just a part, this should be like your studio practice for the time that you were enrolled in the program. If you are in any other program, this is not the time for you to apply to this program. If you are in any sort of, you're taking a class that is taking up a lot of your time. If you have just a lot of projects, this is not the time to apply to this program. This program takes up a lot of time. And we really say at least 200 hours but I'm sure that Allison could attest that it's probably a lot more than 200 hours. This is really like the base. It's an amazingly, I think fruitful experience for folks that have participated in the program but it also comes with the cost of time which is time well spent but it is time that needs to be invested. And so again, please refer to the guidelines that are on our website to get a sense of at least the LP time that we're asking from you but then also understanding that you will have to meet with community partners to build out your projects that will take place on field day. And I'm gonna let Allison kind of talk about field day within her when she's answering the questions that I have for her. So also I feel candidates should be open to building knowledge about the LP's anchor neighborhood. So your project will happen in Bed-Stuy Harlem or Hunts Point. If you're interested in this program and accepted to it and so you should be open to that. Like if you're like, I just spent time thinking about Queens, I don't wanna learn about anything else but then again, maybe this is not the program for you. And Queens is great and I'm really sad that we're not there, anyway. And so this program is ideal for folks that wanna build community among other artists working to create impact within their creative practice. And you should have a demonstrator to create practice, et cetera. Interested in already making social engage art, live close enough to New York City to attend all required program activities. So we have someone who lived in Pennsylvania and not in Philly, Pennsylvania but like much further Pennsylvania. Allentown, Pennsylvania, thank you. And so she was interested and she was accepted to the program and she came to all of the activities that were scheduled. And she just had to like, she spent a lot of time in New York, I think based on the fact that you got time to meet, right? And she had family in New York so she had somewhere to stay when she needed to be here for multiple days so. Yeah, it's something to consider like accommodations. We don't provide any accommodations, unfortunately for anybody who's interested in participating in this program that lives outside of the five boroughs or outside of the greater New York area. But they're metropolitan area anyway but that's something to consider. You should also be at least 21 years of age and be able again to attend all the program. I think we said that twice because we mean it. So please spend time looking at the PDF on our website to see what our dates are and what is happening in your life to see if this is gonna be a good time for you to apply to this program. So be able to spend at least 50 hours attending fellowship workshops and then spend at least 150 hours to do independent work and working with your group to develop your field day projects. So the selection criteria again, artistic excellence has demonstrated in the work samples, familiarity or interest in local issues impacting their neighborhoods because even though you're not gonna be necessarily spending time thinking about your neighborhoods if you live outside of your three neighborhoods you do wanna understand what your investment and politics are around what's happening in your neighborhood. Your ability to actively engage non-artists and all aspects of your creative practice and capacity for critical thinking and analysis, deep respect, ability to commit to all program activities. So again, a lot of the similar selection criteria for that we have for the residents. This is the timeline. We will have an in-person info session on January 27th at our office building or in our office building rather and applications are due on February 9th at 11.59 p.m. I will show everybody how to get to the PDF and what the application looks like and where the link is if you have not already had a moment to look on our website. And you should please mark March 19th and April 7th depending on what opportunity you're interested in in your calendars. We will be interviewing folks in the afternoon but if for whatever reason something changes you should really just keep this day, lock it out and just have it available so that if your application advances to the shortlisted, excuse me, to the shortlisted part of the process like that you're not like, oh, I didn't know. I made a ticket to go out of town, you know, because if you're going out of town these are both in-person interviews like then we can't interview, we don't do Skype interviews, we do in-person interviews. So please keep these dates in your calendars and final notifications will be sent out on the 16th and then we will then meet for orientation a couple of weeks after May 2nd. So now we will turn it over actually, let's actually turn it over, let's have a Q and A with Allison and then we can quickly watch a residency video just kind of give you a sense of the flavor of one of last year's residents. So Allison, Allison, let's bring up the picture. Hello. Hello, Allison if you could start by telling us here sort of professional background what attracted you to this program. So I am like many people, I know and probably many of you a person with a lot of slashes in my title. I would say a movement-based artist moving into also more of a writing practice and I'm also an arts administrator and a cultural organizer and arts educator. And so what drew me to this was that I was coming really for me the residency, the fellowship, excuse me, was coming at a time where I was decided to commit a lot more time to my creative practice and move from I've been working and a consulting and arts administrative background. So and now I continue to teach dance and I build arts education curriculums and I do some international arts administration programming and I write. Thank you. Can you tell us about your field day project? So and can you also in your own words describe what field day is? Yeah. Great question. So field day is a, I would say, the Laundromat Project's festival to really celebrate all of the work that the Laundromat Project does. And there are so many different branches and I think it's a time to really build connections among those and also in terms of what Patricia was saying about understanding community as places that are first have assets, to me it's a way where you get to really understand so many of the assets that the Laundromat Project as a community has in these particular neighborhoods because kind of felt like people were coming out of a woodwork, like I'm gonna lead this bike and I'm gonna do this and you realize like wow, the Laundromat Project is embedded and contains so many vital people. So that's the high level. What it looks like is neighborhoods filled with events. So as a fellow we were responsible for a portion of the events in Hunts Point for those were connected to the teaching artists were activated teaching workshops, there were walks, community-based partners were coming into the history, walks are about the history, the residents were activated. So it was a time when I think the Laundromat Project was really visible and some of the stuff that's happening all the time was happening. You could connect it, so how was that? Yeah, and you were in the Hunts Point. Yeah, so I was in the Hunts Point Longwood neighborhood and so our field day product, what you're seeing a picture of was in collaboration with the Kelly Street Garden. And so I was on a team with four other artists, Ryo Garido, Shea Anevango, Sasha Fires Burgess and Priscilla Stadler. And we worked with the Kelly Street Garden, which you are seeing that green space back there is their beautiful garden, which is on Kelly Street and with Rosalba Ramirez, who is the garden caretaker and then the residents of that block. And we really got connected with them around June of the year. And when we decided that we thought this would be a fruitful partnership. So really, as a fellow, you're kind of given a charge. You're given some tools, the tools around what culture organizing is and we talk about what does it mean? What does it mean to listen to a community? How do you map a community? How do you bridge your artistic practice into working with the community? And then the charge is really use these and start to understand what's happening in your neighborhood. And so our neighborhood being Hunts Point and Longwood and see how you can use art to amplify what's already happening. So we met the Kelly Street Garden and it was their first year in existence in this iteration. The garden had actually, this community had had a garden in the 80s. And so we started to learn about some of the things. They were interested in the history of this neighborhood and ended up working with them over the summer and kind of the first things we did was they were building tree guards. And so one of our visual artists helped them build sculptures to kind of discourage residents from sitting on them because they were breaking them and also kind of beautified. And the block, so it was working with kids and these were really direct ass from the community. They had a block party and they wanted some arts programming. So our first thing was just to say, okay, what do you need and how could we connect with you? Cause we really were just building a relationship and really excited about the wellness work they were doing around building community around food or really women centered approach to community development on like this kind of micro block level. And so as we did that, we started attending their weekly meetings which would look a lot like what you're seeing would be about five or six people, one of whom being, I'm in the back in the blue shirt and next to me is Ms. Carolyn who's one of the garden committee members. So we started meeting with them every week kind of in the back of our minds. We're like, you know, we have a date that we're going to be putting on an event and we would love to use this at the time to help the garden achieve its goals which were really around kind of publicizing making sure the community knew the resource also celebrating the history of this community because it had had a garden because it had a strong history of organizing. They had really worked for affordable housing in the 1980s. They had built a, this community had come together to build a park. And so it wasn't really though until about August that we started, we at that point had been in that community had been working, they were like, okay, so what do we want to do in September? What makes sense? And we started sitting in the same space and mapping out what eventually really became its own mini festival. And by responding to their needs, we knew we wanted to pull in some outside organizations and we were actually able to, in addition to the budget, the Laundromat project gave us able to get funding from sponsors based on organizations that the community said they wanted to hear from. They wanted people to come who knew about job, play span about energy. So we had those people come and that was outside on the block, which you can't see. And then we had a day of what you're seeing right now as a storytelling circle. And that's how we ended our day. Before that we had cooking classes. We had tours of the garden. We had a sculpture making tree around what do you want to grow? So I should really back up. So our whole theme was what do you want to grow in your neighborhood? And so that's what we decided with the community. And this is our team of art artists along with Ebony Golden, who's the cultural organizing consultant. And so our event was called Grow Love. And this is Tonya Fields teaching a cooking class. And so we really just built an event that celebrated the assets of what this community already had and then talked about the things that they were excited about continuing to grow from actual vegetables to love and peace to more safe places for kids to play in. And for us, it was really an opportunity to project that, to make the whole street and the garden that place for that day. So that moving forward, they continue to have that. So yeah. Yeah. Great. So what was the best part of the fellowship? I think the best part of the fellowship is really the people. The artists who you get to know through the fellowship program and the relationships I built in the community with the Kelley Street Garden. I spent this morning with Rosaba, who's the garden caretaker. We had a writing date so we could get some work done. And really those relationships, I think one of the things to talk about is being able to think critically and a willingness to learn. And I think you're gonna learn so much in the fellowship. You learn a lot from the professional development sessions, but I really learned the most from just being really willing to listen to my peers and to my peer neighbors in the community. And I got to work so closely with people who are so different from me. We would joke that our artist team had like five brains that worked completely differently, but we really worked to build a process where we could capitalize that as an asset. And so those relationships have really continued to carry out and inform my practice and my ability to also name my gifts. What can I bring into a team? And also when do I turn to my team member and say, you know what, this isn't where I need to step up. It's where you need to step up or can you? And how can something be bigger than what I would have ever thought of or been able to make on my own? What was the most challenging part of the fellowship? Probably related to that, learning how to work with people who are different, both being artists and your kind of peer artists. And then also working community is one of the most fulfilling things and it's challenging. You're not working on your timeline. You're not working on, you don't get to just say you have an idea and make it happen. You have to sit back and listen a lot. And like I said, we started working with The Garden in June and we didn't really sit down and schedule what field day would look like, which was in September until August. And so we really had to just sit, you have to sit with a lot of unknowns and be patient about it and know that if we're authentically building relationships, then the art is gonna come into play. What needs to happen is gonna happen. So I think just learning to be patient in that process. And so, I mean, I think you've touched on this already but any other things that you learned as a result of the process? Yeah, I think I gained, in terms of the actual professional development sessions, I did gain, I think a lot of more, I'd say hard skills around how I can approach this work from everything from funding to how do you build policy relationships. And I think also for me, it was a chance to, I feel like I can articulate, as I say this very inarticulately, articulate what I do more and I have more examples of what that kind of work looks like. So. And what continues to serve you? Again, I think you've addressed this in a lot of answers but is there anything else that you feel should be said on what continues to serve you as a result of being a part of the program? Yeah, I think it's, you know, so first and foremost, the relationships and I just wanna echo what Patricia was saying of the LP really being committed to supporting the artists who are part of this community, artists in general, but I really feel like that just because my official fellowship is over I'm still very much a part of the LP community. So, and that those connections do definitely continue to serve me and inspire me and help me shape what next steps I wanna take in my own career. And I think that then again, those kind of hard skills of being able to think through a project from start to finish. And I think if you just think about hard skills like applying for grants for this kind of work having done it and having walked through each step you, like Patricia was saying being able to carry a project to scale. I think that that have. My name is Dennis Redmond-Darking. I live in the South Bronx Hunts Point area Longwood section of the Bronx. My creative change project is called Good Trade and what it is is changing and exchanging and also questioning the idea of what is valued in my community. So what I'm asking people to do is find something valuable that they fill within themselves or on themselves and trade with items that I can make. My project extends with creating avenues for people to look at their community as far as healthy living, healthy thinking and incorporating ways to meet the needs of this community that the laundry man is in and starting with just health wise. So I started with the idea of juicing. Yeah, I actually live two blocks from here. I've grown up in this area. So I'm pretty much aware of the things that are going on, the needs that are happening things that are upcoming. So I kind of feel like my heart can take an avenue within these changes that are happening within my community. I grew up kind of a hate and love with the laundry man. My mom would send me everything. Sorry. Okay, so I'm gonna, you can hear more about Dennis's experiences if you go to the Vimeo page. I think you can get to it actually from our website but you can also just go to Vimeo. And I want to open the floor for questions if you have any questions, please use your question dialogue box to share them. And while you are thinking of your questions, if you have any, I'm gonna also walk us through how to get to the application on our website. The easiest way to do it is this is our homepage. You just click this first slide, it's one of seven. And it will take you to all of the information that you will need to figure out which application or which program is best suited for you. So again, we will have another info session in person next week at 6.30, you can RSVP for it here. This is the information about the fellowship. You should all click this button which takes you to the guidelines and FAQ. This is a PDF, you can download it, read it, spend time with it, use your calendar to prepare like what's happening in your life over the next six months between May and October. These are all of the activity dates and times. And again, we have not scheduled any time between August 18th and September 19th, but it's actually a really crucial time for all team members to be available to continue field day planning. As you heard Allison say, like a lot of ideas were crystallized and were put into motion in August and so because field days in September. Something also to note is that these dates we might, depending on who's in which group these dates, these dates will be the same but in terms of which neighborhoods are featured on which dates these might change. But yes, these are just the dates that we are asking you to be present but you should also be prepared to be present to go to meetings with possible partners and for those that conferred partners that you will be working with towards your field day project. This is a lovely quote but, and it just again reiterates the time commitment. And so they are also, the FAQ is also in this document. Let's go back. The application is here. We click here and here it is. It's a purple application. We color coded them this year. We ask for a video statement and this hopefully will give applicants another way of answering questions. We also ask for those answers to those questions below but everybody has different comfort levels sharing information about themselves and their work so we hope that this feature will open up the ways that you're able to share information about you if you don't feel like you can best articulate your process in the form of writing. That's not to say that you should spend less attention on providing concise and clear responses to the questions that we ask but it hopefully again offers sort of another way of answering the questions that we ask. So these are all the questions and we ask for references in your resume. Let's see, in your work samples section you will have these four options. It's pretty straightforward, still images. You put the caption in which all of those sort of convention naming conventions for these files is provided here. Please take a moment to review that so that your file is not like titled xyzjk.jpeg and then we download it, we don't know who's it is. Just like help us help you to keep all of your assets of your application together by naming them in the way that we ask. This is a sort of survey about your professional skills as they're related to our program, statistical information which is completely optional to complete. Let's go back. So then here's the residency, similar format. Your guidelines are here. It also has sort of the dates. The dates will be a little different for the residents because they're not required to participate in the workshops they are available. We have them here, actually we're gonna update this. They're not required. I mean, again, I think you get the most out of the experience if you do attend but you don't have to. Oh wait, no, just joking. In the past we have made it not required but this year we are making it required. Sorry, to make sure that we have, to make sure that there's cohesion between the fellows of the residents and you don't meet the residents on one day and then ever see them again until they're fielded. So, sorry, sorry. Again, use this PDF to listen to this. In any event, the FAQ section is here and then the application is also here. So it's orange. So in case you get confused like residency is orange, fellowship is purple because they look very similar. Again, so you'll click these buttons. This is also the fellowship application but we wanna know that you actually read the PDF because it has a lot of information that's gonna be important to your participation in the program. You understand all the program activities that you need to attend and then the questions are all here and then we ask also for the same things by own reference and work samples. The professional skills survey and optional statistical information. So, yeah. Sorry, this is jumping back but I just wanted to say because this is sort of about dates but something I should have said besides, learn and be open which are important is just what it might look like meeting with your team and creating this project is that, so this is just for people in the fellowship. Sorry to backtrack a little bit but I think it's important is that for our team we actually all lived in five, four different boroughs in Pennsylvania. So we met weekly and ideally that was in person. Usually we would meet in conjunction with our residents, sorry, with our workshop and then we would meet in Skype and so we would meet weekly and then we would have tasks and we would assign different people to meet with different community partners and then as we were maybe two months out from field day we were meeting weekly as a team and then we were meeting weekly with our community partners and then I would say probably a month out we were doing all of that in addition to making runs to get supplies and materials for the arts and building work on our own and bringing it in and so just so you have a sense of like what those 200 hours plus might look like those are the kinds of things that your team will be doing. So you have I think all the dates that you have listed I think Patricia did such a good job doing that but your team will figure out the best method but that's what our team felt like or what we did. So just so you have that sense of like cool you're building a project what does that actually mean? How does a team of five artists do that if we don't live in the same place? I think it's all really super feasible and it's work. Yeah. Okay. So we have some time left and Allison will have to leave in a few minutes. So if you have any specific questions for her feel free to type them. I'm kind of assuming that nobody has any questions because there aren't any new things. There is actually no, there is one question that I can answer. But again if you have them now is the time if you have any additional questions do you have time to share that? Well, will you receive an email with the slides from this webinar? That was the question. So we will post this webinar on our website after next week's in-person session. If you have any questions for us in regard, you know after we end this webinar in regards to anything that we talked about or any sort of program details you should feel free to choose an email at info at launchmentproject.org or give us a call, the number that's on the screen. But again, this webinar will be available. We will post it through Vimeo but it will also be on our website after next week's in-person discussion. We encourage you to come and meet us in person if you would like. It will be the same information we will have actually a couple of other fellows who will be present to share their experiences. So I think that they might be similar and you know obviously there will just be different perspectives. So that might be valuable to you if you're looking to get other insight into the fellowship program. Okay. Okay. I think that's it. So thank you so much for coming or logging on and we look forward to receiving your application. Bye. Bye. Good luck. Good luck.