Art, Resistance, and Legacy

Artists, D.S. Kinsel and Shey Rivera, through conversation and work examples, will examine Cultural Space Keeping as an artistic practice and act of resistance. Kinsel and Rivera will explain how creativity, intentionality, and awareness support the idea of creating inclusive whole communities and spaces centered on anti-oppression. They will demonstrate how beliefs, culture, places, traditions, and rituals are utilized as mediums to help make neighbors out of residents, and communities out of neighborhoods.
Free.
D.S. Kinsel is an award winning creative entrepreneur and cultural agitator. He expresses his creativity through the mediums of painting, window display, installation, curating, Action-Painting, Non-Traditional Performance And #HASHTAGS. Kinsel's Work Puts Focus On Themes Of Space Keeping, Urban Tradition, Hip-hop, Informalism And Cultural Re-Appropriation. He is the curator of #ACTIVISTprint, a collaborative public art program of The Andy Warhol Museum and also serves as the Penn Avenue Creative Residency Coordinator at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater.
D.S. is the co-founder of Boom Concepts, A Creative Hub dedicated to the advancement of black and brown artists representing marginalized communities. BOOM Concepts is located in Pittsburgh and is funded by The Heinz Endowments and The Pittsburgh Foundation. BOOM Concepts focuses on youth, Community Artists, neighborhood partners to identify contemporary expressions Of social justice through drama, dance, music, visual art, and technology.
Shey Rivera Rios is the Artistic Director of AS220. Outside of her arts management role, Rivera is a multi-genre artist active in the mediums of performance, installation, digital media, poetry and narrative. Rivera is a performance curator and producer of interventions that activate people creatively. This year, she published a book of poetry titled Los Buitres (The Vultures). Recently she completed a body of work titled FANTASY ISLAND, an immersive multimedia installation and performance reflecting upon the debt crisis in Puerto Rico. Rivera is a strong advocate of artists and creative practice as catalysts for social change. http://sheyrivera.com
AS220 is an artist-run organization that developed, owns, and operates three buildings (a total of 100,000 sq ft) in Downtown Providence. AS220 provides an unjuried and uncensored forum for the arts by facilitating opportunities to live, work, teach, learn, exhibit and/or perform in its facilities. AS220 is credited as a national model for socially responsible urban development, has been recognized for its catalytic role in the revitalization of downtown Providence, and has earned a national reputation synonymous with an egalitarian, accessible approach to creative community. Each year, AS220 serves over 5,000 artists and is destination for upwards of 93,000 people.