 The LP is an arts organization that advances artists and neighbors as change agents in their own communities. We do this through our create change artists and residents and fellowship programs as well as creative community building initiatives. Everything we do is meant to make art, build community and create change. And today we'll be together for about half an hour sharing about our new space with an additional 10 minutes afterward for any questions you might have. So we invite you to put questions into the chat throughout the throughout our time together and we'll pick a few at the end to answer as a group. And we also wanted to say if you come up with any questions or thoughts to share after today, there's a form where you can submit those questions on our website on that laundromatproject.org slash bedstie page. You can also email us at any time at info at laundromatproject.org. And just a couple of housekeeping things. If you would like to select closed captions today, you can do that at the bottom of your Zoom screen. And this meeting is also being recorded. So if you prefer not to be recorded, you can turn your camera off. The recording will just be shared publicly afterwards for people who weren't able to join us live for the open house but who want to engage with this info and learn more. All right. So today you're going to be hearing from a number of LP staff members including our executive director, Kemi Alasimi, deputy director, Ayesha Williams, our community engagement manager, Ciavel Shiko Tenkal, our programs fellow Erika Rawls, artist engagement manager, Lady Sasha Jones, our development manager, Amelia Broad. And you'll also be hearing from our architect, Nandini Bagchi. Very exciting. We're pleased to have Nandini with us. And before we get started, I just wanted to share a land acknowledgement and an excerpt of our intention and accountability statement, which you can also read in full on our website. But just to say, LP staff are scattered across the east coast and actually the country and the world right now, but our new space is in what's now called Bed-Stuy Brooklyn. And we wanted to acknowledge some history around that. So on the screen right now is our same image of our home and it's got our land acknowledgement on it, which I'm just going to read now. As we join the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Central Brooklyn, the Laundromat Project respectfully acknowledges that we are on the occupied and unceded lands of the Canarsie, who are part of the Munsee Lenape. We recognize them as the original stewards of this land and pay respects to their elders, past, present, and future. We acknowledge the long-time gentrification and displacement happening within Bed-Stuy and persistent injustices that Bed-Stuy faces around police accountability, food and health access, and education inequities, to name a few. The LP has adopted a critical stance of deep listening to better build trust and feedback loops within our communities, prioritizing impact over intent. We understand that our vision is stronger and our destination is closer when we move with community front and center. And you'll be hearing more about our community engagement efforts today. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Kemi Alasimi, our Executive Director. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you so much for that grounding and introduction, Emma. And I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone else on the team, as well as those of you who've so kindly joined us on this Monday afternoon. Thanks so much. It really is an incredible day for us. It's an emotional day for me to be here with you today, celebrating our 15 years and our first long-term home that brings together all of our dreams of anchoring, both our programs and our administrative operations in a single location. And allows us to grow our roots even deeper in a community that we have been a part of in at least a small way for all 15 years that we have been an organization. And while we have worked with artists and neighbors and communities of color all across this beautiful city of ours, most intimately in Harlem, in the South Bronx and also in Bed-Stuy, we made the decision as part of a street visioning process that ended a couple of years ago that we really wanted to anchor in one location. We'll continue to work citywide, particularly with artists all across the city, so that won't shift. But being able to be embedded and part of a neighborhood felt important. And we were able to get in this process, even in having an office in Harlem and having a space in the South Bronx and went through a really intentional process of selecting a neighborhood that would give us a critical mass, both of our Create Change artists, our flagship program, as well as all of these incredible neighbors that we've been working with in various ways over the last 15 years. And that process, which took over a year of listening and talking and thinking and analyzing and following heart and head led us to Bed-Stuy. So after this incredible year of reflecting and learning and listening and reconnecting, we identified a beautiful new home. It's a two-story street facing storefront at 1476 Fulton and something we discovered in our listening process. Thank you, Ola, for your Facebook post a couple of months ago. A few months ago is that this stretch of Fulton Street is also known as Harriet Tubman Avenue. That is the co-name. So it just felt like an especially wonderful homecoming to be on this Freedom Trail. I literally spent this weekend in Dorchester, Maryland, on the former home and grounds that Harriet Tubman walked on. So being able to be part of her legacy and her history and have the LP be part of that on Harriet Tubman Way slash Fulton Avenue just feels especially beautiful and poignant. So thank we look forward to welcoming you to this space. We could not be more honored and thrilled to be able to be part of the Bedside community, the central Brooklyn community and continue to serve them as well as our larger New York City community and beyond. So with that, thank you for joining us this afternoon. And I will turn over to our Deputy Director, Asia Williams, who will give you a little bit more information about this space. And thank you, Kemi, for sharing a bit about our process in Path 2, 1476 Fulton. And while, unfortunately, we can't walk each of you through physically in the space at the moment, we wanted to give you a little bit of a sneak peek of what you'll actually be seeing when we are able to welcome you and open our doors. So what you see here is not only a picture of George Settles, our board chair standing in front of the storefront with our Black Lives Matter Black Life Eternal statement that is emblazoned on the storefront windows. You also see the layout of the first four of our storefront, a creative community hub. And as Kemi mentioned, the space itself is two levels. The top level will actually house our reception area, artist storage space, programming and community gathering space, as well as a work area and a modest backyard, where we can gather and entertain and share in community with one another. In addition, there is a ground floor space, which will be used as flex area and flex space. And I should mention that the first floor of the storefront is ADA accessible. And yes, lots of opportunities to gather with community, to welcome community. Many things are mobile and accessible and able to bring out into the street and engage with community directly in front of the storefront, and to pass our buys, which we love to do at LP. And I will also share with you a bit of the space. And again here is Kemi, at least me our executive director standing inside of the storefront with her hard hat on. And so you can kind of get a general sense of the interior of the space, as well as some animations of the space being fully activated. And what we hope will be lively gatherings once we do open. And as Emma mentioned, at the top of the call, we actually were able to obtain Nandini Banshee, sorry Nandini, as our architect for the build out of the space. And Nandini has so generously joined us on this call. And I'm actually going to turn it to Nandini just to share a little bit about thoughts and inspirations in designing the space for us together. Thank you Aisha. I'm really excited to be a part of this project. I'm someone who is always advocated for such spaces. I've written about them so this is in a way a real opportunity I had to work with the LP people. Starting in the beginning of this year, we had one meeting in person and then everything else has been worked out and designed on zoom and it has been challenging but a really exciting process because people had set up their own boards as to what they wanted to see. People had very clear ideas of ways in which they would envision the space being used. And so we work towards this really sort of warm space that is somewhat designed but also a lot is left open-ended to see how the LP will insert itself and how it will evolve over the years. So the idea of flexibility which these moving animated drawings show is very much a part of the design of this project. Thank you. Thank you so much. And it's been such a treat and an honor to be working with you on this project. And so that's some quick overviews of the space itself. I hope you are as excited as we are to gather, make, build with the community and create change in our new home. And now I'm going to turn it over to Siebel Shingal Pinkal who is our community engagement manager here at the LP and she'll share a bit more about the community engagement efforts as we call Betsy our home. Hi everyone. I'm super thrilled and thank you Nandini for jumping on this call. I get really nostalgic just looking at the blueprints. I really miss being a community with folks and workshopping and having programming but I'm really excited. I see some, a lot of people on this call that we've spoken to in the past and yeah we're super excited although you know we have a new storefront space. LP's presence in Betsy and Central Brooklyn is not new. LP was actually founded in Betsy 15 years ago by Risa Wilson and so throughout these past 15 years we've been building community and building relationships with folks on the ground both through artists, neighbors, family and just LP friends. Throughout this time we've had 16 residency projects, more than five field day annual festivals and more than 30 plus community partners. Being all community gardens, other cultural orgs, small businesses, other storefronts and what we're seeing on the slide are people hugging in front of an art installation for our past field day and people making art in front of Marmee Laundromat. And this kind of sums up our relationship with Betsy. We've had many projects within the space and we're super thrilled to be reconnecting and rekindling all of those past relationships and friendships that we've had on the ground. And so I'm also going to turn it over to our community engagement fellow, Erica Rawls, who will be speaking a little bit more about what we've been doing on the ground as of last year. Thank you, CFO. So on this slide, there's an illustration of a stoop with folks gathering and hanging out and a list of organizations that we've spoken to so far during our listening tour. It's organized by the hyper local city wide and country wide, and also notes that we've spoken to local artists current and former residents and create change alone as well. So the LP began a citywide listening tour in 2019 that has gotten more and more hyper local over time. We've been thrilled to connect with Betsy residents, local artists, cultural and community institutions, collectives and small businesses, as well as some national community arts organizations that are doing similar work across the country. And the listening tour has been a way for us to be in conversation with folks in Betsy. And really think about how we're being intentional about the ways in which we engage community collaborate with our neighbors and compliment that size ecosystem of arts culture and civic engagement. So during these conversations, we've been asking questions like how can we be good neighbors, what are ongoing local initiatives, issues or challenges, how are people collaborating, how might we be best, how might we best support artists. Where does community and culture show up in the neighborhood. So what we're learning from these ongoing conversations will guide the focus of our future collaborations partnerships and programming. And I will pass it on to Lady Sasha Jones, our artist engagement manager, who will share more about the programming for the space. Thanks so much Erica. Hello everyone. My name is Lady Sasha Jones. And I'm the artist engagement manager here at LP. I'm excited to share with you all some of our dreams and plans for the storefront space. Again, I would like to describe some of the graphics and texts that are featured on this first slide. There's a teal color rectangle that reads new home and top left corner underneath it is the section header new help programming in the same graphic of our storefront that was described earlier is positioned to the right of the side with our logo directly below it. And exploring the future of the LP through this move to that side, we have been considering the opportunities it offers for the growth of our flagship create change residency and fellowship programs alongside our engagement with our artists community. The opportunity to redefine the role of public programming for the org and the opportunity to strengthen our practice as a community based arts organization that deeply values place local histories and people power. In place in this way, enables us to deepen what it means to be hyper local in our approach towards building cooperative partnerships and investing in leadership development through art and culture with artists and community members alike. As a staff we have been discussing for some time now. Anchoring our fellowship program within our new spatial context alongside developing a new residency for local artists to create community programming and our activations from the storefront itself. We're also evaluating the role of cultural programming for the org and when we are able to gather again in space. We are considering programmatic formats that are at the intersection of our civic engagement, and that can add to the already rich cultural landscape of the name put. Next slide, Asia. So now this slide features the section header our dreams for the space and there's a series of four quote blocks positioned across the page that I will read momentarily and filling the bottom of the slide is the graphic of our storefront space and LP logos positioned in the top right corner. So as we continue to plan for activating our storefront. We have been inviting our close community members to join with us and to share their own reflections for the future of the LP in bedside and more specifically how our space can be a resource for artists and local community members. So the first quote I'll read is from one of our alum, Shawnee Peters, who imagines our storefront as a space to gather a space to create in a space to hill and recharge input. Our board chair George settles rights. I hope the LP and coming home is able to become an integral part of the already vibrant diverse community. The LP has resources and a desire to be of service to its neighbors, and I know we will come to our new home with that mindset and quote. Russell Jelani offers as a bedside resident LP member and create change residency alum I can't wait to see the LP set down roots in bedside. I think deepening pre existing relationships here and having a space for community to gather will be really meaningful to both the org and the neighborhood and quote. And finally, alum Natasha in Nevada digs shared the following declaration. Let it be a space to create have serious discussions tell jokes and have fun. Let it be a space that can balance the heavy with the light and quote I really love that one. These are just a handful of all the dreams and imaginings we are holding for this moment to smooth. We invite you all to contribute to our vision mapping for this space as well. Next, you will hear from our development manager merely abroad on how you can stay involved. Thank you. Thanks, Lady Sasha. Hi everybody. I will I'm going to be talking a little bit about how you can stay involved. And I will describe this slide very quickly. So on the right we have the same graphic of our new storefront space that was described at the beginning. And then I will walk you through the text that's currently on the slide. So today is a very exciting day for the LP, both because we're talking to you about our new home but also because it's the first day of our 10 day people power challenge, which is, I'm going to drop the link to it into the chat. It is a 10 day challenge to raise 40k to support our new home. So I invite you to both donate or sign up to be people movers or to amplify the campaign. And Aisha has just switched to the graphic for the people power challenge, which is a brightly colored graphic that has an image of a group of our alums looking very happy and smiling in the right hand corner. And it says be part of the LP's future raising 40k as a community from October 1 to 14. It's also very currently a very busy time at the LP because we also have our open call for our create change program. So I'm dropping the link to that also into the chat. Please help spread the word and send to any artists who are interested in working with community who you might know. And then finally, I'm also going to drop the contact information for C of L our community engagement manager if you'd like to be part of the listening tour, and also a general email if you have any general questions. Thank you and I believe I'm passing it back to Kimmy. Yes, thank you so much as you can see everyone it takes a village teamwork makes the dream work and I'm really blessed to have such an incredible team of humans to work with as the LP staff. And of course we have, as you might imagine, really generous supportive and visionary board that has allowed us also to get to this incredible moment 15 years into our history. So before saying a final thank you and inviting questions and answers. I'd like to actually ask George our board chair to say just a few words. He has been an incredible partner and working in line with other board chairs that have helped get us to this moment. So George. Thanks, can me. Yeah, I don't want to take up too much time. First and foremost, I'm just, I come into this virtual space, just filled with with gratitude and excitement. You know, us coming back home to bedside Brooklyn is something that's been in the works for, you know, for a couple of years now. And when it's safe for all of us to gather again. We were just anticipating the opportunity to be in physical and actual community with all of you. So I just want to say thanks all of you for taking the effort for taking the time to be with us today for our virtual open house. I'm incredibly grateful to the staff, my fellow board members, and just everyone who has been involved in this homecoming process. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And we look forward to continuing to be in community with all of you. So thanks, can me for giving me this opportunity to say thanks. Thank you, George. I really could not have done it without you and each of our current board members who are incredible as well as the many board members who have been part of this journey for 15 years and just to reiterate that of course Risa Wilson. The project was her dream starting in the late 90s that was incorporated in 2005 and that's what leads us to this very moment and incredible former staff members, some of whom are on this call I saw Kiva. For instance, is on this call started a week after I did. So it's it really, really, really is community work, just to get to this moment and could not be more grateful for every single one of you on this. This zoom, each and every one of you has played a part, including today being here to celebrate with us and to lean into joy in a particularly challenging time for humanity. Being able to be this green shoot of hope and generation and joy and building something in this moment just feels like a privilege and a joy. So really want to say a deep, deep thank you to each and every one of you and all the multiple roles that you've played many of you have played multiple roles as supporters and and create change artists and donors and volunteers and amplifiers and just LP fam, LP fam, all of you. So thank you so much for all the congratulations. Like I see you and so many folks. It really has been a journey we are starting the construction process I'm so happy and Dino is able to share some of that with you live. And when it is safe to do so, we can't wait to have you in the space with us in physical form. In the meantime, we are on Instagram, our website is active, we're on Facebook and Twitter. And we are remaining in community and we have reached out to many of you to talk and to hear what you dream for us and continue to invite you to keep sharing that with us. We see this very much as a polyphonic dream, many, many different voices, not just our own. So we really, really invite you to keep in conversation with us. And right now invite you to share any questions you might have. So this is the end of the formal parts I know it's Monday afternoon and lunchtime so if you need to dip out, totally understand and thank you for joining us and if you have questions we invite you to hang out with us for a few minutes and ask them. Myself, board members, staff members, etc are here and ready to jump in with any questions you might have. And I think we actually have a question from Ryan. Hi Ryan. The question is, Ryan loves to hear a little bit more about the kinds of gatherings we imagine in the space when we are able to complete prep and also wants to know how many people we can host in the space when gathering is possible. So it's perfectly handy on this call to share a bit more about that. And maybe we can throw it to someone from programs to share a little bit more about gatherings in the space. We also have our director programs at the same time in the call with us as well or in the zoom room with us as well. So throw it out there for anyone programs are coming to share more about gathering and then also capacity for hosting. Atui, do you want to take that? Sure. And I think well and then then you can know more about the other things. So thanks for joining us today. I'm very excited to be here and see so many familiar faces and new faces too. So great to connect again. I'm Atui. I'm the director of programs here at the LP also an alum from our residence back in 2012. So great to continue to be in this journey. So let's see. So right now we're going as you heard, we're going through a listening tour with different stakeholders in the community. So we're assessing right now what are the best ways for us to engage in the space while we're still in this moment. And, and there's a couple of things that we're thinking about from activating public spaces not inside the space per se yet. Of course, from activating public spaces around the community from also activating the window space that we have at the moment storefront with artists commissions. So, and then we're we're also trying to figure out some of the ways that we can partner with other organizations so we're able to be present at their events and things like that. So right now we're still in this, you know, assessing moment but that's some of the quick ideas that we are exploring at the moment. I hope that answers. It's not an answer exactly but you know. So yeah, the main floor is divided into three kinds of spaces. The first is a reception area, which also has is going to have like a place to read and a library and a reception area where it's easy to comfortably have say 10 people just in an informal setting and then the center space is the programming area and that could accommodate about 25 people in a sort of lecture seating we have so everything about this the way it's been designed is very much things move on wheels and they fold away and this chairs that are on the wall you can hang your coats up so there's a lot of details that allow us to sort of change and move the space to make it more or less usable so the middle area could be used for workshops or you know some sort of dance class or yoga and whatever the programming allow you know wants to happen in the center and the last room is really a workroom it's for the LP stuff and this is what they're so excited about being in the same space where the program is ongoing previously they were in their own offices up somewhere and then they had all these other spaces that that that the community was using so it's really to try and bring these two elements together. There's also a lot of built in storage since they have a lot of supplies that they use in their projects with with the community and there's a wide sidewalk so there'll also be some ways in which they're going to occupy that with some of the mobile units that go in and out of this space so it's mainly this floor the lower floor is not wheelchair accessible so it's a flex space and has like other kinds of purposes built into it such as conference room, meeting area, storage etc. I wanted to make sure folks could visually see what Nandini was referencing. So thank you Nandini for that. I'm going to go ahead and pull another question and this is a kind of combo related question but I think I'll answer related. So there's a question about sharing a bit more about what listening tour is and combining that with and that's the question from Rikia and combining that with a question from Delaysia, hi Delaysia, about what community support is the LP look forward to making available as it as to the local best side community as experiences a huge wave of displacement and potential future waves of displacement of long term black residents. So great question and full question so I think as addressing it as much as possible within the timeframe we have here but always a continued conversation ever continuing conversation but I can throw that question to again programs and can be Yeah, I'm happy to jump in and and programs and talk a little bit about the listing tour, but thank you Delaysia that's definitely something that is very deeply on our heart and our minds as as humans and as people of color and many black staff members as well. And it is the heart of why we are listening and why we actually feel it is important to be in bedside and really to be in community with folks right and asking what is needed and I know we've met with you as well as many other folks some of that might be space. Some of that might be connections some of that might be being able to hire and pay people in the community and that's something in so many ways that the LP is really always centered is paying people for their time and their expertise and recognizing them for that. And and also asking what are the other ways that we can show up and how do we some of that might be showing up for everything from petitions to to protest to other ways of being in space and in community with folks and and the central idea for us when thinking about issues of displacement and thinking about issues of gentrification is how to follow the leadership and the concerns of the people who are most affected. How do we in our program and these are questions where we're asking ourselves and continue to put fronts in center is we care about folks of color black folks specifically in a neighborhood such as bedside people on low and modest incomes. So how do we center those folks how do we start conversations that they if these folks are are feeling like they are taken care of and heard how does that inform our work and and what would we need to do differently or continue doing. So for us it's so much about how do we remain accountable and in conversation and it's why we've leaned so heavily into listening which is always in part of our culture but just knowing that returning to bedside in this moment which is very different than the bedside of 2005 and very different from the bedside of 1998 or 1999. How do we show up in a way that feels responsible accountable and caring. So for us is very much about continuing to ask those questions and then continuing to make our sources which vary again from space to other things available to folks and inviting each of you to help us remain accountable right it is a reciprocal process. And that's why we've reached out to so many folks not just here but in other places to continue it's very much always learning in real time and oftentimes learning in public. Does CFO would you like to join in a little bit and just talk about listening to I know issues of gentrification displacement have been really central to a lot of what people have been raising as a real concern. For sure yeah thank you Kemi. Yeah I mean there's no way for us to enter this neighborhood without acknowledging that as an institution as an entity regardless of beds that are not just being in the city. But we also know that this is not new work. We had a beautiful partnership model at Kelly Street in the South Bronx with a housing advocacy entity for the past five years with the Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association and we really plan to lean into this partnership model and what does exploring what does this look like for bedside specifically tapping in and working in with Brooklyn Movement Center and Brooklyn Impact to really partner with folks that that do this kind of work and what does it mean for us to kind of join forces the same way that we were doing back at Kelly Street and this all goes back to the listening tour right of coming in with an informed sense of what the feel of the neighborhood is specifically speaking with residents both artists and folks that are doing work on the ground. Another model that we tested it at Kelly Street and that we really liked and I think some of the CLC folk are on this call but what does it also mean to create like leadership coalitions of residents and artists that actually live within the neighborhood. What does it mean to hold space for people to to use our space and to to use some of our funds and to use some of our programming to actually direct and lead their own neighborhood initiatives right what is it what is what does it look like for us to provide that kind of space. And so we plan to pull in all of the things that we learned back at Kelly Street and the models and the ways of working with people to really center those experiences first and foremost as we're we're building within the neighborhood and we're getting to know the neighborhood and knowing truly that this is extremely important for us and extremely important in the work that we're trying to do and build with folks. But thank you for highlighting back to Asia. I think that was a really important question for for you to raise to all of us. And I think we are at a little over I have to know a lot of them some questions unless there's any burning pressing questions for us in the immediate time a moment while we have all of you on the call go ahead and wrap everyone up and let them go about their day holding on to the reality that this is a space that will be our home and your home. I will be able to gather and build and connect and learn and grow and all those beautiful generative things. As mentioned just a couple of housekeeping notes are people par challenge campaign starts today raising support for the space itself as well as our trade change open call which ends on October 18 recruiting individuals to come in and take part in our flagship trade change program. So many things that we had going on right now. I think those are the two key things at the moment that I can think of unless anybody else forgot anything please jump in and mention if you want to connect around listening tour and we'll have see a bell drop her email into the chat also please feel free to reach out to see a bell and listening to our team for more information. If you want to share comments hope streams wishes for the LP things that you want to bring to our attention. We have the comment box which is on our LP home bedside web page if I can ask somebody to drop that link into the chat many many different ways to reach us and contact us in this virtual space we are here we want to hear from you we want to learn from you. And so with all those housekeeping notes I'm going to turn to Kemi. Thanks for my yes. So again thank you Aisha. And thank you to the team. Thank you to our board. Thank you to each of you. Once again, Tony Morrison reminds us that if we cannot imagine that we cannot have it and we want to have joy we want to have love we want to have space for imagination and for making art and building community and creating the change that we want the building of the world that we deserve all of us and that's really at the heart love is at the heart of the work that we do at the laundromat project our grounding principle and values that we are propelled by love as a radical act. Bell hooks reminds that is an action it is not just the word. And we stand on the shoulders of so many and so many dreams. And that is what certainly keeps me going and keeps me waking up and fighting for spaces where we can be our whole cells. And we hope that this space that we are building and creating and so many folks involved. Thank you Nandini who I met 15 years ago building an entirely different kind of space or 20 years ago in Minneapolis. And here we are now working together. You know love and connections relationships matter so deeply and I feel like life continues to teach that lesson and I happily receive it. And once LP fam always LP fam and each of you thank you for being part of our family and we cannot wait to welcome you to our new space. So good night or good day enjoy the rest of the afternoon. All the things. Yay. I feel like I'm at Disney World.