Congratulations, you have been awarded $5,000 from the City Artists Corps Grants!

Proposed creative public engagement outline*

My creative public engagement proposal is an art-making workshop, called "Creative Writing Picnic!". It will be a 120 minutes in-person meeting on DIY culture, poetry, and zines for up to 20 people at Prospect Park.

Based on my experience as Founder & Publisher at "Editorial Negra"—a Latin American poetry press based in New York—, I will offer a space for attendees to gather, talk, write, and listen.

The session will be divided into two sections: First, I will present Editorial Negra’s literary press project to the public. I’ll do this by giving its whole collection of six zines to attendees at no cost. Furtherly, I will offer a poetry concert to collectively read some of the zine's poems.

For the second stage, I will host a creative writing workshop. I am a published author of three books of narrative (fiction and nonfiction), and I’ve been holding literary workshops and book clubs for a wide range of audiences since 2014. So, I will invite assistants to draft short poetry passages, prose, or storytelling, based on their own experiences during the pandemic or their current concerns on politics, environment, arts, etc. Then, they will have time to voluntarily read and share their pieces within the group. Finally, I will show them how to succinct their creative writing work into a one-page zine—the simplest do-it-yourself book that has ever existed.


How do you plan to promote your creative public engagement?*

The first promotional space I count on is social media. Editorial Negra and I are on Instagram (@editorialnegra, and @uribearelis, respectively), and together both accounts sum +13,000 followers. This community is integrated mainly by literary art lovers and Spanglish speakers living in New York City. Thus, I will design digital ads to promote the Creative Writing Picnic, and I will use the power of my social media influence to spread the invitation to join the event. I also contemplate paying for online ads if needed.  Finally, I will trust the power of word-of-mouth.

Thank you for visiting the MCA: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

 

Christina Quarles, When It'll Dawn on Us, Then Will It Dawn on Us, 2018. Acrylic on canvas; 77 1/4 x 96 x 2 in. (196.2 x 243.8 x 5.1 cm). © Christina Quarles. Courtesy of the artist, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and Pilar Corrias Gallery, London.