As part of its new Open A.I.R. Artists Services program that offer professional development topics targeted specifically to emerging artists, the Queens Museum invites educators of all kinds to join us for a workshop with the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD). Founded in 1985 on Los Angeles’s Skid Row by performance artist, director, and activist John Malpede, LAPD is made up principally of homeless or formerly homeless people and has been an uncompromising force in performance and urban advocacy for almost 30 years. LAPD creates performances and multidisciplinary artworks that connect the experience of people living in poverty to the social forces that shape their lives and communities.

The work of LAPD will be the subject of a large retrospective gallery show, Do you want the cosmetic version or do you want the real deal? Los Angeles Poverty Department, 1985-2014. The exhibition at the Queens Museum will include documentation of works since their first in 1986 and live performances of two critically acclaimed works: State of Incarceration (2010-ongoing) in its East Coast premiere and Agentes & Activos, the North American premiere of the Spanish language version of Agents and Assets (2001-ongoing).

In this hands-on workshop with LAPD members and leaders, educators will learn:

• about LAPD’s history in Skid Row
• their strategies for using theater and art to build community
• how to use personal narratives and theater to highlight and advocate against broader social and political injustices
• how theater and art can promote collaboration and partnership between teachers and students.

Queens Museum education staff will also be on hand to help connect LAPD’s artistic practice to your own work whether you are teaching in schools or community settings.

Audience:

This workshop is open to classroom teachers, teaching artists, adult educators, counselors and any others who self-identify as educators. In your registration form we will ask you to describe your work as an educator and your interest in this opportunity. 

Performances:

Workshop Applicants are strongly encouraged to attend one or both performances as an integral part of this workshop: State of Incarceration on the California prison system which takes place amidst 60 prison beds installed at the Museum (Jan 31 & Feb 1 at 7:30pm, and Feb 2 at 5pm); and Agents & Assets/ Agentes y Activos, a reenactment of a US House of Representatives hearing on the drug wars abroad and at home (performance in Spanish with English supratitles; locations to be announced; Feb 28, March 1, and March 2). All performances are free of charge and no tickets or RSVPs are required.

Registration for this workshop is now closed.

Do you want the cosmetic version or do you want the real deal? Los Angeles Poverty Department, 1985-2014 is supported by grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and National Endowment for the Arts.  Project funding also provided by Surdna Foundation and Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Additional support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Open A.I.R. is made possible by a generous grant from The Scherman Foundation’s Katharine S. and Axel G. Rosin Fund.