No Longer Empty Curatorial Lab and NYC Health+Hospitals/Kings County present
(after)care, curated by the 2019 NLE Lab
June 1 – June 23, 2019

Opening: Saturday, June 1, 12 – 5 pm
Hours: Wednesday – Sunday, 12 – 7 pm
Location: Kings County Hospital Center, 451 Clarkson Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11203.
Room CG-95 is located in the C-Building on Clarkson Avenue near East 37th Street
Subway: 2, 5 to Sterling Street or Church Street

BROOKLYN, N.Y., May 9: No Longer Empty Curatorial Lab (NLE Lab) is pleased to present (after)care, a site-responsive exhibition and series of programs in Room CG-95 at NYC Health+Hospitals/Kings County in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. The exhibition opens Saturday, June 1, 2019, with a reception from 12 to 5 pm. At 12:30 pm in front of CG-95, representatives of the Lenape Center will hold a ceremony to welcome visitors to the Land of the Lenape, Lenapehoking, and to initiate the (after)care program with a blessing and land acknowledgment that offers respect to the indigenous peoples upon whose land our work takes place. From 4 – 5pm in the outdoor plaza between D & C Buildings, Muziksteel Productions — Steel pan master Earl Brooks Jr. and djembe drum player Zephaniah Hodge — will play a  wide variety of Pop, Soul, R&B, hip-hop, and Caribbean Beats.

(after)care re-envisions a former emergency waiting room, a space often associated with anxiety and fear, as a site of remembrance, possibility, and celebration of radical care—both within and beyond hospital walls. The exhibition takes its name from the process of transitioning out of institutional medical care and back into one’s home and community. Looking beyond the constraints of traditional healthcare systems, the artists in (after)care expand definitions of care in the present, while memorializing the failures of the past and moving towards a more radical future. The exhibition is curated by the 2019 NLE Lab: Amalie Frederiksen, Maleke Glee, Lillian Hanan Al-Bilali, Sofia Jamal, Katrina D. Jeffries, Fang Yu Lee, Shimrit Lee, Julie Yunhee Moon, Ogemdi Ude, and Margot Yale.

Acknowledging that care for oneself and for others can be a radical act, the exhibition brings together artists and practitioners whose work moves away from notions of wellness as individualistic and commercial, and illness as short-lived and deficient. (after)care features works by Pamella Allen, Bobby Anspach, Quinci Baker, Chloë Bass, Damien Davis, Diane Exavier, Kearra Amaya Gopee, Charlie Gross, Kathryn Ko, Taja Lindley, Jenny Polak, Malik Roberts, Sol Sax, Tattfoo Tan, Larry Weekes, and Ezra Wube. Working in a variety of media, including video, installation, writing, painting, photography, printed matter, and mixed media, the artists in (after)care take an expansive approach to care. 

The work of Damien Davis, Malik Roberts, and Sol’Sax bring the invisible to the foreground, examining the burden of non-recognition and trauma within the medical system. The work of Pamella Allen, Quinci Baker, Kearra Amaya Gopee, Charlie Gross, Taja Lindley, and Larry Weekes address accounts of survival and amplify a fabric of care that is everyday, collaborative, and generative. Participatory and community-engaged works by Bobby Anspach, Chloë Bass, Diane Exavier, Kathryn Ko, Tattfoo Tan and Ezra Wube navigate towards a future of collective survival and joy.

A series of public programs will engage with modes of holistic wellness and dialogue to center practices of care that exist outside of the Medical Industrial Complex. Free, public programs throughout the course of the exhibition will focus on themes of mental health and accessibility, professional development for Flatbush artists, and exhibition tours provided by NLE Lab curators and NLE’s Youth Exhibition Makers (Y.Ex). For updates, please visit www.nolongerempty.org

NYC Health+Hospitals/Kings County was first established as the Brooklyn County Almshouse in 1830 and contained a mental asylum for much of the nineteenth century. The hospital is the site of innovation within the medical field, where physicians performed the first open-heart surgery in New York State in 1955, conducted the first studies of HIV infection in women, and produced the first full-body images using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 1977. In 1981, the hospital became the first site to provide AIDS treatment in Brooklyn.

Today, the NYC Health+Hospitals/Kings County runs one of the largest creative arts therapy programs found anywhere in a single institution, taking an innovative approach of exploring mental illness through creative arts and incorporating art interventions to impact health care outcomes. As Carlos Rodriguez-Perez, Director of Wellness and Recovery at the hospital explains: “At Kings County, we embrace a philosophy of continuous improvement, therefore, we are always exploring and learning about better ways to serve our community. Artist interventions are one of the ways we are exploring how to engage our community, as well as enhance the experiences of both staff and those we serve.”

The 2019 NLE Lab is part of a multi-year relationship with NYC Health+Hospitals/Kings County, a partnership that seeks to emphasize the role of creativity within the provision of health services through ongoing programs and youth education, artist residency programs, and exhibitions on and in the vicinity of Kings County Hospital’s 40-acre campus.

The 2019 NLE Lab is facilitated by Rachel Gugelberger, Curator at No Longer Empty and Director of NLE Lab.

Related Events:
(after)care opens concurrently with InJustUs, curated by the 2019 Young Exhibition Makers (Y.Ex) on view in the D-Building lobby. InJustUs explores community wellness by sharing different viewpoints of various social injustices in the hopes of educating visitors. The exhibition features teen artists from across New York City whose work touches on issues relevant to police brutality, mental health, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and immigration. Through the discussion of these themes, Y.Ex hopes that InJustUs serves as a mirror to the community’s concerns.

About No Longer Empty Curatorial Lab
Expanding on No Longer Empty’s mission to curate site-responsive and community-centered exhibitions and programs in unique spaces, the No Longer Empty Curatorial Lab (NLE Lab) is a professional development program for emerging curators interested in direct experience curating in an expanded field. With a focus on research, project-based learning and collaboration, the program includes a curriculum of critical readings, guest speakers, site/historical research, and studio/exhibition visits, culminating in a collectively curated exhibition with related programming.

About NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County
NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County is a 639-bed teaching hospital serving Central Brooklyn, East New York-New Lots, and Flatbush. The hospital was the first Level I Trauma Center for Adults in the nation, and the only Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center in Brooklyn. It is an NYSDOH-Designated AIDS Center and Stroke Center and has also been designated as a Center of Excellence for diabetes and for Parkinson’s disease. In 2016, more than 113,000 people were seen in the emergency room and 678,900 people were seen in outpatient clinics. NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County’s Behavioral Health Services Program has 235 inpatient beds; there were 2,481 adult admissions and 662 adolescent and child admissions in 2016. More than 7,400 people visited the Psychiatric Emergency Room in the past year, and 158,000 people receive care in the Behavioral Health outpatient program. The hospital has played a major role in providing health care to vulnerable populations in Brooklyn since 1831 and is part of NYC Health + Hospitals, the largest public health care system in the nation.

Special thanks: Beryl Benbow, Robin Cembalest, Tanisha Christie, Raquel de Anda, Dr. Myrah Brown Green, Imani Henry, Patra Jongjitirat, Mica Le John, Christine Licata, Sara Reisman, Carlos J. Rodriguez-Perez, Bevon M. St. Louis-Brewster, Sol’Sax, Peter Vogl, Alan Waxman, Shelley Worrell, BRIC Media Arts Center, Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, and Urban Glass. 

The 2019 NLE Curatorial Lab is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, with in-kind support from Materials for the Arts, Paper Monument and NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County.

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