These are some of the many people who are helping to make Bushwick Open Studios 2011 happen. Arts In Bushwick is an all-volunteer, non-hierarchical organization – we have a completely open structure, where anyone in the community who is willing to volunteer their time is welcome to join with us and take on a leadership role. If you are interested in getting involved, contact us at volunteer@artsinbushwick.org.
Bushwick Open Studios 2011 Organizers
Chloë Bass is the founder and lead organizer of SITE Fest, co-lead organizer of Bushwick Open Studios 2011, and co-lead of Arts in Bushwick’s community projects team. Chloë is a performance artist and curator who has shown work in and out of North Brooklyn, most recently at The Bushwick Starr, SCOPE Art Show, 3rd Ward, and in various urban public spaces. In other moments, she serves as the director of SUPERFRONT Detroit and the Communications & Outreach Coordinator for Boswyck Farms. She occasionally checks in at Brooklyn College, where she’s completing her MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts. Email Chloë
Laura Braslow is a co-founder of Arts In Bushwick, co-lead organizer of Bushwick Open Studios 2011, and co-lead of Arts In Bushwick’s community projects team. She is a member of Brooklyn Community Board 4, and a board member of Grow Brooklyn, Inc. and the Bushwick Starr Theater. In real life, she is a public policy research consultant and a PhD student in Sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Having been involved with Arts In Bushwick for over five years, she is clearly insane. Email Laura
A lifelong New Yorker, raised in Bushwick, Richie Alicea makes up half of AIB’s amazing press team. He studied political science and sociology at Queens College and went on to earn his MA in Elections & Campaign Management at Fordham University. Throughout that time, he worked for both for the state legislature and several political campaigns, and is now a research fellow at a non-profit that promotes environmentally sound and equitable transportation policy. With his background, he comes to AIB to combine two of his greatest passions – the arts and community involvement. When he’s not working to become a better photographer, Richie is usually at a Mets game, reading tech blogs or engaged in some sort of political or sociological debate over a drink. Email Richie
Trish Fye is BOS 2011 Volunteer coordinator. A Bedford Stuyvesant /Bushwick native, with a deep-seated love for the neighborhood, Trish feels it is her duty to support it in any way she can. Trish is an artist, artists’ representative and an executive assistant. As an artist she expresses herself through water-color, charcoal, acrylic and mixed media. She is currently trying to invent the perfect organizational system and spends her free time collecting Barbie dolls, caring for her pets like children and searching for the perfect meal. Email Trish
Sarah Lowndes, the other half of our press team, is a web enthusiast, avid sci-fi reader and lover of all things cute and odd. After graduating from UW in Seattle, Sarah, inspired by Jay-Z’s notorious “Empire State of Mind,” moved to Bushwick and has fallen in love with the spirit of the neighborhood. She can be found working at a branding agency by day and walking her dog in Maria Hernandez Park by night. Email Sarah
A short, factual, first-person bio for Dan Phiffer, who made the WordPress plugin that handles BOS registration: I build websites for a living, but also make (mostly digital) art. I work at MoMA’s digital media department where I help build and maintain MoMA.org. I also teach at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and CCNY’s Electronic Design & Multimedia department. A while back I co-founded an open source project called ShiftSpace, which you should totally try out. I have a cat named Beefra! I like hot sauce! Email Dan
After growing up in Boston, Lucia Rollow moved to Concord, NH for high school and spent the last two years there working almost exclusively on independent photography projects and for the John Kerry for President campaign. This has pretty much been the model for the rest of her life. She came to New York in 2005 to study photography and almost forgot about how important community involvement was until just before graduating with a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and discovering the Working Families Party. She worked there until it got too cold to work outside at night and spent the next year focusing on photography. At the end of 2010 she discovered she could actually merge her love of art and community organizing by working with Arts in Bushwick and set off to plan the launch party for SITE Fest. It was a great success and now Lucia is focusing on running the Bushwick Community Darkroom and doing Community Organizing for AIB.
Julia Sinelnikova is a multimedia artist, born in Jerusalem, Israel and raised by Russian immigrants in Texas. Her primary focus is in painting, collage, and non-traditional sculpture, as well as on collaboration in the arts. She has worked with a variety of galleries and arts organizations, such as the Contemporary Art Museum of Houston, and White Box Gallery and Fuse Gallery in New York City. Passionate about bringing communities together around creative events, she is an avid organizer for Arts in Bushwick, with which she has helped organize several open studios events and curated exhibitions. Her work has been exhibited at a number of galleries, including the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, as well as Dumbo Art Center and M55 Gallery in New York City. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Email Julia
Olivia Swisher grew up in Germany, moved to Bushwick from Athens, Georgia in January, and has joined Arts In Bushwick as an Assistant Lead Organizer for Bushwick Open Studios 2011. Olivia is an intern in the education departments at MoMA and the Guggenheim, where she works with adults and specifically adults with disabilities. She is passionate about using the arts as a means of bringing people and the community together. She loves art history, 1970s American Film, black and white photography, espresso, and (a new-found love) New York Bagels! She hates hot sauce. Email Olivia
