This year it has been an honor to complete strategic plans for three amazing organizations—Asian American Writers Workshop (AAWW), the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP), and Kundiman—and to return in a very deep way to an organization whose 2018-2022 strategic vision we facilitated, the Laundromat Project. We have great respect for the work these organizations do—we invite you to get to know … Read more
We all need sustenance to keep going lately, and Kaushik’s thinking about sustainable creativity is essential in that effort. Have a listen to this great new interview with him about the work on the Re:Considering podcast. The episode “Rediscovering Creativity with Kaushik Panchal” is full of deep insight into design and practice and sneak peeks into his love of ⚽️ and … Read more
We’re thrilled to announce that Family List, our curated weekly collection of activities, books, and projects for kids, is now free! We started it mid-pandemic to share things that were keeping us afloat as a family and it has evolved into a vibrant resource! We’ve recently created collections of themed activities–so if you love sport, you can find it all in one … Read more
Gabrielle spent the first half of 2022 directing Buscada while also working inside one of our very favorite organizations! It was a real delight for her to act as Interim Director of Programs for The Laundromat Project, working with Create Change fellows and imagining the first public events and community engagements in their beautiful new space in Bed Stuy! Back when Buscada facilitated the LP’s 2018-2022 Strategic Vision it was hard to imagine … Read more
Watch Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani and Chloe Bass in this wide-ranging conversation about everyday life, and what we lose when we can’t talk with each other at the diner. The Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY hosted this conversation as part of our work with them, back in January of this year. We two as artists, … Read more
We’re thrilled to announce that “Radical is a Process: Public History Pedagogy in Urban Universities” is out now—the chapter Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani had the pleasure of writing with Rebecca Amato, Dipti Desai, Denise Meringolo, and Mary Rizzo. It’s in great company in this excellent new collection, Radical Roots: Public History & a Tradition of Social Justice Activism edited by Denise Meringolo. And! It’s all … Read more
Buscada co-founder Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani’s book Contested City was honored by the Municipal Art Society’s Brendan Gill Prize—for a work that that best captures the spirit and energy of New York City—as both a finalist for the prize and with a special designation as a book that has “contributed to greater understanding of the history of our city … Read more
“Sustaining the arts through networks & peer learning” is the culmination of our strategic realignment work with FABnyc around how learning spaces and peer networks help sustain arts practitioners through challenging times. When we began this work in 2019, we had little idea how much more challenging our times could get. Our research with community arts practitioners in New York City shows how the … Read more
On Friday April 16th, Gabrielle joined the Laundromat Project for Radical Mapping: Where is Home on the Map? How have our experiences of our homes and local surroundings been impacted by forces like housing policy, gentrification, and redlining throughout history? Further: how can uncovering these histories lead us to shape positive social change in our communities? This event … Read more
On April 14th, Kaushik and Gabrielle gave a webinar with Next City, How Immersive Oral Histories Can Shape The Future of Neighborhoods. Gabrielle and Kaushik talk about how Buscada uses oral history and design to engage and collaborate with community members. We talk about our work on the Lower East Side at SPURA, and in Brooklyn, to create valuable and productive conversations between … Read more
Haven’t read Contested City yet? Here’s your chance to get a sneak peek. We’re thrilled that Next City featured a chapter excerpt from the book in their recent article How Oral Histories Can Spark Dialogue Across Communities.
On the one-year anniversary of pandemic and remote learning (!) we’re excited to share the new endeavor our family has been working on this year to bring more play to you and the kids in your life. Each week, Family List shares six new practical, collaborative, free/low-cost activities that are fun for parents and kids! Exhausted by 24/7 parenting? Us too. We want to move beyond just surviving, … Read more
Join us March 30th at 6pm EDT at the New York Public Library, Seward Park Branch (on zoom!) for Contested City: A Virtual Tour of New York’s Seward Park Urban Renewal Area. Gabrielle will be talking about Contested City and the fifty years of community activism at the controversial Seward Park Urban Renewal Area on New York’s Lower East Side, helping participants gain … Read more
🔥🌟Contested City continues to resonate, and recent reviews have been tremendous. For a start, in her incredible review in Planning Perspectives, Boston’s Chief of Equity Karilyn Crockett really gets Contested City. A few excerpts below–and you can read the whole review here.🔥🌟 “This is a book about power and how to fight for it within neighborhoods under economic siege.” “Groundbreaking … Read more
One year ago, a postcard Gabrielle wrote for another Gabriele came out in the Journal of Architecture. Who knew that this meditation on how an empty street might not be empty at all—that life might be just behind the walls, just outside the frame, just a few seconds earlier “at once precious and endangered”—would be so prescient for the … Read more
David Halle reviewed Contested City in the journal City & Community, calling it a “delightful, highly original, and fascinating book… a study of the history and present of an area of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. [Bendiner-Viani’s] approach is both wonderful and subtle.” Scroll down below to read the whole review!
On a cold December Saturday, we had a huge group for our final Layered SPURA walk of 2019, hosted by the Van Alen Institute’s LES NYC: Crossing 2020 Festival. As each new building at Essex Crossing rises, and community members work to figure it out, the space that the Layered SPURA tours create for conversation about development, housing, and history … Read more
We’re honored by Barry Goldberg’s review of Contested City in The Metropole, in which he calls the book a model “to untangle the sticky legacies of urban renewal” and to “illustrate the complex definitions of “community” and the intangible meanings — cultural, psychological, and emotional — embedded in physical space.” Read on below for an excerpt of the … Read more
October 2019 kicked off with Contested City at the International Center of Photography on Monday April 7, 6:30pm, in a talk at Abrons Art Center on Grand Street on the Lower East Side. Gabrielle was at Imagining America in Albuquerque on October 18, giving a workshop on participatory public history and creative practice and a virtual Layered SPURA tour. … Read more
Over the summer we were honored to participate in the Winterhouse Institute Symposium on Design Education for Social Impact at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. So many friends and colleagues, and yet another way to reconnect with the Watson Foundation, whose fellowship for Gabrielle in many ways made possible the creation of Buscada. Looking forward to continuing … Read more