WHO WE ARE

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COLLECTIVE BARGAIN is a mobile installation-performance-intervention created by ART&COM and collaborators Tracy Collins and Toya Mileno, that displays information, media and ephemera related to collectivity, action, gathering, healing, and the power of union in today’s social and political environment. 

During AiOP 2017, it moved along 14th Street in Manhattan to places of historical significance for collective action in a 3-day schedule of activities (see schedule). It also founded UAAU (pronounce wow ), the United Artists & Activists Union.

In September 2018, COLLECTIVE BARGAIN will appear at the (c)art Festival, organized by the South East Queens Artists Alliance, at King Manor Museum in Queens (see News)

ART&COM (Thiago Szmrecsányi & Natalia de Campos), is a performance-installation-exhibition and a platform for social interaction and interventions that displays works created with materials and stories collected locally. Shown in JAMAICA FLUX 2016, Emma Thomas Gallery, NYC, and in Epicentro Jardins: Emma Thomas in São Paulo, Brazil.

Natalia de Campos is a multidisciplinary artist working with performance, text, video, sound, writing, interactive media, and theater. She is also a producer, educator and translator. Under Syncretic Pleasures since 1999,  Natalia produces plays, performances, art events, solo works, and exhibitions with international collaborators in New York City & São Paulo. Most recently at: AiOP 2017 (NY), Festival de Música Estranha 2015  & Kunsthalle São Paulo, 2013 (Brazil); New York: chashama 461 gallery (2012), Grace Hotel, SCOPE Art Fair, Bowery Poetry Club (2007), Jamaica Flux 2016. Performed with Mikhail Baryshnikhov’s White Oak at BAM, and in many other live performances, including experimental films. A member of The Living Theatre, the Lincoln Center Theater’s Directors Lab , and the International Federation of Theatre Research. She holds a BA in History from the University of São Paulo and an MFA in Performance & Interactive Media Arts at Brooklyn College/CUNY.  ART&COM Work Displays History is her most recent project with long term collaborator Thiago Szmrecsányi. https://syncretic.carbonmade.com/about ; www.artandcom.org 

Some video here

Some sound: https://soundcloud.com/syncretic-pleasures

Thiago Szmrecsányi is a Brazilian artist working primarily as a sculptor and based in New York since 1994. Recently he has shown his work at the Flomenhaft Gallery (2013),  CultureFix (2012), the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center Abrazo Interno Gallery and the CutLog Art Fair. He was part of the Bronx Museum AIM Program in 1995. Abroad, he has shown his work at Le Centre Vu, Quebec; Paço das Artes, Sao Paulo; Projeto Macunaíma, Rio de Janeiro; and Centro Cultural Vergueiro in Sao Paulo. Thiago is a recipient of the Artists Space Independent Project Grant for his curatorial work “insert” produced for Cuchifritos Gallery at the Essex Street Market (2002-03). He was a Teaching Artist for Studio in a School (2004-08) and holds a BA from Hunter College/CUNY.Additionally, Thiago has been a collaborator in performance projects and designed sets and spaces at chashama 461 gallery, the Flamboyán Theater, Connelly Theater, and Hostos Theater and many others. 

www.thiagosz.com

Tracy Collins is a self-taught multimedia artist in Brooklyn, New York. His primary medium is photography, with an emphasis on architecture, photojournalism, and street photography. Recently, he’s been working with 3D animation, video, video mapping, video installation, and interactive electronics. His latest work-in-progress, word (word.threeceelabs.com), is a multi-channel video, multimedia project started in 2016 that visualizes the language used in the most recent U.S. presidential election in a real-time graphic representation; a dynamic “word cloud” of Twitter activity from media outlets, governments, politicians, businesses, academics, NGOs.

www.threeCeeMedia.com
www.threeCeeLabs.com

Toya Mileno is a hackavist and media activist since the late 90’s. She uses media and technology as organizing tools to empower the people’s struggle.

Akiko Ichikawa is an interdisciplinary Japanese American visual artist. Her work is concept-based and has encompassed performance, video, sculpture, writing, and Net art. In her performative work, she seeks to foreground a moment of understanding within the city’s fluid heterogeneity anchored in her experience translating between two strikingly contrasting cultures—American and Japanese.  She is interested in openings in communication, connection, and feeding grounded transculturalisms.

Born in Sagamihara, Japan, she was raised in the Boston suburbs and in Nashville. She attended Brown University then Hunter College, CUNY, for her MFA. She has exhibited her work at Andrew Kreps gallery, Midway Art in St. Paul, and in the Hague and Berlin. She has presented her performance work at Performa and the Spring/Break Art Show, Jamaica Flux (Jamaica, Queens), the Incheon Women Artists Biennale (Incheon, South Korea), Socrates Sculpture Park, Newark’s Aljira contemporary art center, Philadelphia’s Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia, and in Washington D.C. Videos at: https://vimeo.com/channels/914124/videos

John Bonafede (P.A.U.) lives and works in NYC. He studied painting at Syracuse University, School of Visual Arts (NYC), LLOTJA (Barcelona) and Tibet House (NYC). From his painting background Bonafede incorporates formal compositional elements into his performance art practice. His work also includes a unique form of street printmaking called chemography. Having studied for years with a Tibetan master Tangkha painter, he helped start a non-profit organization helping nomadic poor children in East Tibet (tibetanbridge.org), which continually influences his work.  John co-founded, produced and performed in monthly variety shows in a Midtown Manhattan loft for ten years (https://www.facebook.com/groups/221884271335730/), bringing his performance art to the fore. He enjoys performing in alternative art spaces as well as established institutions such as MoMA, (performing for three months in Marina Abramovic: Artist Is Present) and Alvin Ailey Theater.  Bonafede’s performance art ranges from socio-political commentary to testing the physical limits of his body.  The performances often challenge accepted formal notions of line, forms or painting and sculptural mediums. Video documentation is taken as an additional art medium for his performances to be viewed in. His career as a Production Designer and Art Director bear direct influence on his videos. His storyboards are those of a draftsman with years of experience writing and illustrating graphic novels. Designing sets and costumes is part of his process too. Durational and installation-oriented performances often appear, reflecting his love for special design.

@gammykillz (Instagram) is an artist, socialist and retail worker. Gammy’s art has been part of Breaking the Chains feminist magazine and many flyers used by union organizers, anti-war activists, LGBTQ rights and many other struggles.

Jane's passion is teaching and facilitating meditation groups and has a vast spectrum of experiences from a career on Wall Street, a masters in Holistic Ministry and the gift of being a wife and mother. She has been guiding and facilitating meditation groups for 10 years.  Women Within was her first meditation group in NJ until she moved to Amsterdam in 2011.  There, she led a Spiritual Book Club at the American Book Center and meditation events at their annex.  She moved back to the US in 2015 and started a spiritual book club at Namaste Book Shop.  She also runs The Omega Lounge Spiritual Exchange NYC at Namaste Book Shop.  www.namastebookshop.com

Patrick Grant is a composer, performer, and producer living and working in New York City. His works are a synthesis of classical, popular, and world musical styles that have found place in concert halls, film, theater, dance, and visual media over three continents. More at www.peppergreenmedia.com

Mike C. is as an organizer with large experience helping workers form unions and get better contracts in New York City. A political activist, he often prefers to dedicate the stage to the workers to have their own voice in the organizing movement.