ABOUT THE LP

WHO WE ARE

The Laundromat Project is an arts organization that advances artists and neighbors as change agents in their own communities.

ABOUT THE LP

WHAT WE SEE

We envision a world in which artists and neighbors in communities of color work together to unleash the power of creativity to transform lives.

WHAT WE DO

We make sustained investments in growing a community of multiracial, multigenerational, and multidisciplinary artists and neighbors committed to societal change by supporting their artmaking, community building, and leadership development.

THEORY OF CHANGE

When artists and communities collaborate toward collective goals, we create meaningful transformation and wellbeing. Making art and culture in community and fostering new leadership helps shape a world in which members feel truly connected and have the ability to influence and shape their communities in creative and effective ways.

LP HISTORY

The Laundromat Project (The LP) was incorporated in 2005 to make art accessible and relevant in New York City neighborhoods where people of color reside.

Our roots reach back to 1999, when The LP founder, Bed-Stuy resident Risë Wilson, left the corporate sector to build a life around art and community service. Risë’s original idea for The Laundromat Project was to meet people where they already were and use art as a tool for turning strangers into neighbors. A belief in creativity as a powerful means of self-determination—and a keen desire to redraw the lines between art maker and art consumer, art as luxury and art as necessity—led Risë to the laundromat: “No matter what was happening in the economy, people had to do their laundry, and this was a kind of de facto public space.” The idea of a laundromat as a primary place for engagement has expanded over time, now serving as a metaphor for a variety of settings in which artists and neighbors transform their lives and surroundings. Our programming has evolved to take place in community gardens, public plazas, local cultural

HISTORY TIMELINE

1999

Risë Wilson first dreams up The Laundromat Project as a vehicle for bringing art to spaces where community members already gather.

2006

The board expands and is joined by present-day ED Kemi Ilesanmi. Rudy Shepherd, Shinique Smith, and Miriam Neptune become The LP’s first Create Change Artists-inResidence, staging projects in existing laundromats throughout NYC

Projects culminate with an installation at Skylight Gallery at the Bed-Stuy Restoration

Community Development

Corporation

2009

Create Change returns, with projects taking place in laundromats in Bed-Stuy and Harlem. The LP launches its Community Arts Education program in Harlem, a series of artmaking workshops at laundromats. Petrushka Bazin Larsen is hired as The LP’s first staff member, becoming an early and integral part of LP’s programming. 2005

The LP is incorporated by Risë Wilson and the founding board, including Alea Woodlee and Dawn Strickland. The LP receives its first funding via the Echoing Green Fellowship and a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council. Risë’s goal is to eventually purchase and operate a real laundromat that will host arts programming

The first public LP art program, a fabric mural workshop, takes place at the

Stuyvesant Heights Senior

Center in Bed-Stuy, facilitated by Risë

2008

The Financial Crisis hits, making the purchase of a laundromat ever more difficult. The board suspends the Create Change program for one year to recalibrate.

2010

The LP officially becomes a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

After 5 years offering the Create Change residency, The LP adds a fellowship program for artists looking to develop or deepen their community engagement practice. Kemi Ilesanmi joins The LP as the first full-time and paid Executive Director. Risë Wilson becomes Board Chair.

2014

The LP collaborates with Kelly Street Garden, Banana Kelly, and Workforce Housing to transform a two-bedroom apartment in the Hunts Point/Longwood neighborhood of the Bronx into a community art space

2019

The LP launches a new strategic vision to carry it forward through at least 2022. With great care and community engagement, The LP bids farewell to its Kelly Street space while setting intentions to bring its programmatic and administrative operations under the same roof. The organization holds multiple community listening sessions to determine where our new home should be. 2013

The LP completes its first full strategic plan with Yancey Consulting, and identifies three “anchor neighborhoods” for sustained programmatic focus: Bed-Stuy, Harlem, and Hunt Point / Longwood. The inaugural Field Day—a daylong activation of Create Change artist projects —takes place across the three neighborhoods, happening annually through 2017.

2018

The LP begins a communityengaged strategic visioning process in partnership with Buscada.

2020

The LP finds a perfect space in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. We sign a 10-year lease the same week that the COVID-19 pandemic shuts down New York City! While the move can’t happen exactly as planned, The LP is able to begin its community engagement process.

WHAT WE VALUE

As we strive to achieve our mission and embody our vision, we are guided by our values, and always reflect upon how we can best:

NURTURE CREATIVITY

We value creativity as a rich and renewable resource that turns strangers into a community of strong and resilient neighbors.

BE POC-CENTERED

We value the voices, imaginations, knowledge, cultures, and leadership of people of color (POC).

CREATE CHANGE

We value addressing community challenges and creating opportunities for new visions.

VALUE PLACE

We value meeting people where they are and the legacies embedded in place.

WRITE OUR OWN HISTORIES

We value self-determined narratives as an essential basis for building lasting community power.

PRACTICE ABUNDANCE

We value our communities’ collective capacity to shape an equitable future. Together, we encompass everything we need.

BE PROPELLED BY LOVE

We value love as a radical and essential act of power and protest to create the kind of world we all deserve to live in.

POC PRINCIPLES

Since our beginning, The LP has centered the voices, cultures, imaginations, knowledge, and leadership of people of color (POC). We do this to push against complex systemic injustices in pursuit of a world in which all people–across race, ethnicity, class, age, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, disability status, and migration status–are free to be their whole selves. As we mature institutionally, The LP strives to more fully articulate how and why we do our work. We start from a place of bold visioning so we can help build the world we want to see. We manifest being POC-centered as an ongoing organizational practice rooted in multiracial solidarity. Below, we outline what being POC-centered and intersectional means to us.

WELCOME COMPLEXITY

We commit to diversity that is more than skin deep by continually asking ourselves and our communities how we can be a more welcoming and supportive organization across race and ethnicity as well as across class, age, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, disability status, and migration status.

CULTIVATE REPRESENTATIONAL POWER

We commit to maintaining a board and staff that is at least majority people of color, particularly leadership positions. We will continue to serve artists of color predominantly and communities of color exclusively.

MATCH ORGANIZATIONAL POLICIES & ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES

We commit to developing and enhancing our internal organizational policies, practices, and systems––e.g. advocacy, gift acceptance, and personnel policies––to be fully values-aligned.

NURTURE LEADERSHIP

We commit to investing in the leadership and professional development of LP community members, including artists, neighbors, staff, and board. We will provide training to LP staff on anti-racist, gender, and disability equity practices. This commitment includes making space for reflection and self care in action and policies.

We commit to being thoughtful when setting program fees as well as compensation for staff, interns, artists, faculty, partners, etc. We are committed to prioritizing POC-led and community-based vendors for needed services. When possible, we will use financial institutions that value and invest in POC communities.

KNOW THAT LANGUAGE MATTERS

We commit to using accessible, multimodal, and multilingual language that upholds the dignity, complexity, and full humanity of

LP community members and communities––verbal and written, spoken and unspoken, virtual and otherwise.

HONOR PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE

We commit to grounding our work in concrete power analyses as well as the often intersecting histories, present day realities, and future dreams of POC communities. We strive to respect and record

POC voices, creativity, and knowledge now and for the future.

SHAPE CONVERSATION

We commit to using our organizational voice to ignite, shift, influence, and amplify important conversations in our field for productive learning and engagement.

BUILD A NET THAT WORKS

We commit to fostering stronger relationships with values-aligned and POC-centered organizations, in order to partner as well as exchange knowledge and resources that strengthen our collective power.

HOLD OURSELVES ACCOUNTABLE

We commit to rigorous and transparent criteria, learning, selfreflection, feedback loops, and real time adjustments––e.g. programs, partners, resources––that help us grow our POCcentered practice. We will produce annual reports that detail our progress across these principles in order to manifest collective strength and understanding in our field.

P O C PRINCIPL E S

MEETTHE LP STAFF

Moncho Alvarado she/her, they/them Operations Coordinator moncho@laundromatproject.org

Tiara Austin she/her, they/them Artist Engagement Coordinator tiara@laundromatproject.org 929 - 251 - 3294

Amelia Brod she/her, they/them Development Manager amelia@laundromatproject.org

Ebony Golden she/her Cultural Organizing Consultant ebony@laundromatproject.org

Emma Colón she/her Media + Storytelling Manager emma@laundromatproject.org

Brittany Grier she/her Community Engagement Fellow brittany@laundromatproject.org

Kemi Ilesanmi she/her Executive Director Kemi@laundromatproject.org

Ladi'Sasha Jones she/her Artist Engagement Manager ladisasha@laundromatproject.org 646 - 801 - 3024

Julia Mata she/her Storytelling Fellow julia@laundromatproject.org

Ayesha Williams she/her

Deputy Director ayesha@laundromatproject.org

Erica Rawles she/her

Community Engagement Coordinator erica@laundromatproject.org

Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani she/her Interim Director of Programs gabrielle@laundromatproject.org

Cievel Xicohtencatl she/her Community Engagement Manager cievel@laundromatproject.org

LPSTAFF

MEETTHE LP TEAM

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Ashima Aggarwal Naomi Beckwith Alison Cuzzolino Susan (Suzy) Delvalle Patton Hindle Rasu Jilani Jessica Lee Panthea Lee Salvador Muñoz Kevin Rabsatt Diya Vij George Suttles (Chair)

NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD

Dr. Deborah Willis Erin Barnes Eugenie Tsai Glenn Ligon Javier Valdes Katy Rogers Larry Ossei-Mensah Laura Zabel Merele Williams Adkins Nelini Stamp Ryan Dennis Sonia Guiñansaca Susana Torruella Leval Teresita Fernandez Thomas Lax Tiana Webb Evans

SUPPORTORS

The Create Change program is made possible in part by The Bay & Paul Foundations; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Artha Foundation; Ford Foundation; Jerome Foundation; Robert Sterling Clark Foundation; The New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowship Program; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; and the New York State Council on the Arts. The Create Change Fellowship is supported in part by our Catalyst Circle members.