NEWS AND EVENTS
EVENTS
Globalization: Preventing the Sameness of the World NEW ANIMATION

JUST RELEASED: CLICK HERE OR ON IMAGE TO VISIT SCREENING ROOM PAGE

This video, directed and animated by Warren Lehrer with Brandon Campbell, features the words of Eugene Hütz—leader of the gypsy-punk-cabaret band Gogol Bordello—sharing his views on ‘globalization’ and putting forward an alternative vision of what he calls “multi-kontra-culture.” This animation, with sound production and arrangement by Judith Sloan, is the newest manifestation of Lehrer/Sloan’s multi-media project, Crossing the BLVD: strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America, which documents and portrays new immigrants and refugees in the United States.

Read about it in the Huffington Post

Transforming Trauma Into Art- Matching Grant from Viper Records
EarSay received a matching donation from Viper Records for our Arts and Activism workshops and theatre workshop Transforming Trauma into Art, for youth, and are needing to match it dollar for dollar. Transforming Trauma Into Art is an initiative of EarSay’s, created and directed by Judith Sloan, born out of our partnership with the International High School at LaGuardia Community College where many students come from war-zones and conflict. The premise of this workshop is based on healing through artistic expression using a combination of music, movement, theatre and storytelling. This process helps release the stories and stressors that prevent people—who have been traumatized by war, economic or natural disasters—from moving forward. This program is specifically designed for teenagers who recently migrated to the United States. It brings an understanding of confronting obstacles through artistic expression to communities that are poor, displaced, or don’t have access to artistic training, serving approximately 450 students. The project grows out of our commitment to educational and creating artistic works that evolve out of individual experience and community. In this case, the community is immigrant and refugee teenagers attending school in New York City. At a time of war, global tension, and polarization, it encourages a depth of scholarship and storytelling that shapes the experience of the participants. It gives them the tools to make connections between cultures, shed light on the complexity and humanity of each individual, and deepen what it means or could mean to be part of a global community.Thanks for your support.

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EarSay Youth Arts and Activism GIVE NOW.

All donations are tax-deductible. You can donate on line through the link above or through Network for Good link on this page. Go to our contact page for more info.

View the video about the project on youtube

1001 Voices, A Symphony for Queens – Coming in the Spring 2012

Sunday April 29, 2012 at Colden Auditorium, Queens College, Kupferberg Center for the Arts Commissioned by the Queens Symphony Orchestra


Crossing the BLVD exhibition, performances and workshops

Successful Run of Exhibition and Performances at SUNY Oswego, August 29 through October 10
Stay Tuned for future exhibition sites.

Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan’s Crossing the BLVD traveling exhibition of photographs, sounds, and stories create a multimedia experience documenting the lives of new immigrants and refugees in the most polyglot locality in the United States—the borough of Queens, New York. Ninety photographic portraits by Warren Lehrer portray the pride, beauty, struggle and colorful humanity of individuals who have crossed through war zones, borders, oceans, and cultural divides.  Audio sound stations produced by Judith Sloan enable visitors to hear the voices, sounds and music of those portrayed in the exhibition. An ambient soundscape of people praying, voices on the streets, found and composed music, bring visitors into this crossroad of the world upon entering the exhibition. The Crossing the BLVD exhibition premiered at the Queens Museum of Art in 2004 and has since traveled to over 14 locations in the United States including MICA in Baltimore Maryland, Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase New York, The Hudson Museum in Orono Maine, Art Museum of the University of Memphis Tennessee, Weber State University in Utah, Urban Arts Space/University of Ohio in Columbus Ohio.

“Crossing the BLVD is a powerful social record… Most of the subjects live in Queens, but their stories resonate far beyond the borders of this multicultural New York borough. What often gets lost in the national debate on immigration is the human dimension, an understanding of the lives of those people who give up everything to come here... Extraordinary people, extraordinary lives… A living work of art.” The New York Times Benjamin Genocchio

“Crossing the BLVD—a multi-media installation of photography, text, and sounds  is more akin to watching a movie, because the narratives take time to unfold, and there is an inherent drama in the real life personal accounts… Crossing the BLVD offers an object lesson in the new aesthetic—how it looks, how it generates its meanings—as well as a window on the lives of people who, mostly unnoticed by the rest of us, are steadily enlarging the concept of what it means to be an American.” The Baltimore Sun Glenn McNatt

PROJECTS
A LIFE IN BOOKS: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley

After seven years of loving toil, Warren Lehrer is just now putting the final touches on A LIFE IN BOOKS: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley, an illuminated novel that contains 101 books within it, all written and designed by Lehrer’s protagonist, who finds himself in prison looking back on his life and career. Mobley’s autobiography/apologia runs alongside a review of all 101 of his books. Each book is represented by its first edition cover design and catalogue copy, and more than half his books are excerpted. The resulting retrospective contrasts the published writings (which read like short-short stories) with the author’s confessional memoir, forming a most unusual portrait of a well-intentioned, obsessively inventive (but ethically challenged) visionary. Stay tuned for more information on the book, Warren’s reading/performance tour, and the traveling exhibition.

Coming in 2012.

Read about the project in The Atlantic