Touching Hearts, Not Hands

Touching Hearts, Not Hands

As we are confronting the coronavirus crisis, City Lore, in New York City, is putting out a call to collect creative responses to the crisis in song, poetry, video and other forms. New Yorkers are famous for coming together in community after September 11th. There were many creative responses to this sorrowful and challenging time including singing together and communal memorials on the street. Today we can’t get together and hold hands to sing — but we can be creative in other ways.

City Lore’s dedicated staff has the skills to document the myriad ways that people and communities express their identities, humanity and connection with each other.  After September 11th , City Lore documented the memorials that appeared on New York City’s streets.  This culminated in an exhibit at the New York Historical Society, Missing: Streetscape of a City in Mourning.  More recently, City Lore collected and documented signs from the Climate and Women’s marches nationwide. (An exhibit that features signs from the Women’s marches is just now being postponed!)
So to help us collectively and safely to find comfort, humor, and joy during this crisis, City Lore is putting out a call for poems, stories, songs, and videos that convey the experiences , encouragements, meditations, and innovations of this challenging time.   Please send your materials to Jake@citylore.org with the subject line Touching Hearts, Not Hands”.     We all respond in our own way, we all do what we can, and this is the way a folklore center can respond.  The human spirit is irrepressible.
Local Students to Become Junior Curators for Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition about Water

Local Students to Become Junior Curators for Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition about Water

New York Folklore and Schoharie River Center Partner for Smithsonian Educational Initiative

New York Folklore has been selected to create one of sixteen projects nationwide for the Smithsonian’s Stories from Main Street: Youth Engagement and Skill-building Program (Stories: YES). The program is a collaboration between youth participants of The Schoharie River Center and New York Folklore to develop stories around the theme of the Smithsonian Museum on Main Street Exhibition “Water/Ways”.

Stories: YES participants weave national narratives from the exhibition into the history of their own region by conducting research and interviews to create a project highlighting their communities. The program engages kids with regional history and contemporary local issues, while providing an opportunity to use professional equipment and learn real-world skills. Youth projects will be displayed locally and their digital stories will be shared on Museum on Main Street’s website. Equipment purchased through the project will be available for future student success.

Funding for Stories: YES is generously provided to Museum on Main Street (MoMS) with internal Smithsonian Institution Support from the Smithsonian Youth Access Grants Program. MoMS is a partnership between the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and state humanities councils. It was created to serve museums, libraries and historical societies in rural areas, where one fifth of all Americans live. SITES has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington, DC for over sixty-five years. It connects Americans to their shared cultural heritage through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science, and history, which are shown wherever people live, work and play.

Since 2010, New York Folklore has been working in partnership with the Schoharie River Center, a youth development program that engages youth in educational and scientific inquiry of their regions’ waters, to document the region and to create digital portraits of the Mohawk Watershed.

For information on the local Stories: YES project or to participate, please contact John McKeeby, Executive Director of the Schoharie River Center at john.mckeeby@scoharierivercenter.org or Ellen McHale, Executive Director of New York Folklore at emchale@nyfolklore.org or 518-346-7008.