New York Folklore’s Year in Review

New York Folklore’s support for artists continued in 2023. We were pleased to sponsor 19 artists for NYSCA-supported individual artist or apprenticeship grants for 2023 and look forward to supporting 18 artists through grants from the New York State Council on the Arts in 2024. As always, New York Folklore continues to support artists for short-term mentoring and professional development through our ongoing technical assistance programs, providing skills-training and information for artists to build their capacity. A Critical Folklife Forum on copyright and intellectual property took place in December 2023.

2023 saw an expansion of New York Folklore’s role as a leader in folk arts education. With support from the Our Town Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Schenectady Foundation, and in partnership with the City of Schenectady School District, New York Folklore began two initiatives for the Schenectady City School System. The first is ongoing instruction by Ghanaian drummer, Zorkie Nelson, and members of the ensemble Gballoi, to teach the instruments and skills for the introduction of a city-wide Pan African Youth Orchestra. Ghanaian drummers have been working twice a week within Schenectady’s elementary school to teach drumming, dance, and flutes with the intention to forge a lasting ensemble serving the youth and families of the Capital District. A second folk arts education initiative was initiated by North Indian classical musicians Veena and Devesh Chandra, to perform and present North Indian classical music on the sitar and tabla in each of Schenectady’s schools. Workshops and presentations began in September 2023 for the 2023-2024 school year and will continue until July 1st. In addition to this immersion into Indian classical music, the project is supporting a community mural, and programming highlighting Guyanese cultural traditions and their connections to India.

New York Folklore’s exploration of foodways traditions continued throughout 2023, with support from NY Humanities, the New York State Council on the Arts, and from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation’s Initiative for Columbia County. Local community chefs representing Costa Rican, Bangladeshi, Afghan, rural, Czech, Congolese, Jamaican, and Albanian foodways traditions presented as part of our ongoing “Cooking up Community” series at the Hudson Library, at the 2023 Mohawk Hudson Folklife Festival, and in partnership with the West Hill Refugee Welcome Center.  

Community cultural documentation continued, with the involvement of community fieldworkers Akilah Briggs-Melvin in Binghamton, Ladan Nikravan in the Capital District and Utica, and folklorists Anne Rappaport Berliner (Capital District and Mohawk Valley) and Edgar Betelu (Capital District and Hudson Valley).  

We continue to expand this program through support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ralph Wilson Foundation, to include community documentation in Allegany, Chautauqua, and Cattaraugus Counties in partnership with Tri-County Arts Council. Nada Odeh will be providing documentation and programming for this project and New York Folklore plans to engage one other community fieldworker to reach populations in this region.

Our gallery hosted several exhibitions in 2023.  We began the year showcasing the work of quilter Beth Taylor.  In March we partnered with Lifeworks Community Action of Saratoga for a community documentary photography project, “Estamos Aqui: We are Here” with an exhibition focused on photographs taken by Latino workers within Saratoga’s resort industries.   Thanks to board member, Vicie Rolling, and the professional expertise of Jill Breit of Traditional Arts of Upstate New York, we were able to host “Hattitude: the Hats of Louise Hughes Rolling” for several months during the summer months.  With a nod towards the Mexican celebration of Dia de los Muertos, our gallery hosted the cartoneria of Aurelia Fernandez Murare of Yonkers in October and November.

We ended the year with our current exhibit, “Cuts Across Cultures: Jewish and Chinese Papercutting”.

When possible, New York Folklore provides companion programming to our exhibitions.  In 2023, our gallery hosted workshops in making sachets, “cocktail” hats, hip hop clothing design,and the decorated sugar skulls for Dia de los Muertos.

New York Folklore continues to forge new ground and to work with new partners.  Arising from a planning meeting supported by the Appalachian Regional Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Conservation Fund, New York Folklore launched a watershed “place marking” project in 2023.  Community advocate and Seneca artist, Bill Crouse, developed artwork based upon oral historical interviews that he held with Seneca elders to ascertain places of significance within the Allegany River Watershed.  This project will continue in 2024 and will expand to the Mohawk and Schoharie Watersheds, through support from the Mohawk Basin Grants Program of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and Humanities NY, working with community partners to accomplish the documentation.