$5,000 Grant from Humanities of New York to Support Mixed Status

The Arts Mid-Hudson Folk Arts Program researches and presents the arts and traditions that form our diverse communities’ cultural heritage. Through educational public programs, the Folk Arts Program interprets the traditions of ethnic, occupational, and religious groups in the Mid-Hudson region. The program is open to suggestions about how to assist in celebrating your community’s heritage. The Arts Mid-Hudson Folk Arts Program has received a $5,000 Action Grant from Humanities New York to support programming for Mixed Status, a 3-month multi-media multi-site series of exhibitions and programs facilitating exploration of the social spaces of marginalized status in American culture.

They will explore marginalized statuses with undocumented persons, the LGTBQ community, and the immigrant community as well as statuses related to race, gender, and sexual identity. Through the mediums of music, art, poetry, food, storytelling, and discussion, they will investigate what these spaces look like, how we live within and negotiate between these spaces, along with the normalized statuses that marginalized communities simultaneously reject and desire.

This ambitious project will run from July to September 2019 at three venues in Kingston, New York: Kingston City Hall (City Hall), the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center (LGBTQ Center), and The Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History (Reher Center). Kingston City Hall will host a three-month exhibition of photographic work by Alex Pacheco, featuring images of his family’s life between Kingston and Puebla, Mexico. The LGBTQ Center will host a group show of LGBTQ artists tentatively titled “The Spaces Between,” featuring work in a variety of mediums from photography to painting to found object art related to gender and sexuality.

The Reher Center, located in the historic Rondout, will host a majority of the events and programming including a mixed media arts show drawing on themes related to Mixed Status. Potential performances include a poetry reading, a fusion session with drummers from India, Latin America, and Africa, and a concert by local musician Yolanda Yolanda.

Humanities New York is a private nonprofit located in New York City that receives federal, state, city and private funds. Its grants program distributes federal funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities directly to projects that give priority to engaging hard-to-reach audiences or that serve communities throughout the state.

Arts Mid-Hudson is the preeminent nonprofit arts service organization serving the Mid-Hudson region. Since 1964 our initiatives have engaged and promoted the arts benefiting our artists, arts organizations and communities. Arts Mid-Hudson provides vision and leadership to support thriving and diverse arts in the Mid-Hudson region.

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