The Sanctuary For Independent Media

“DIRT: The Secret Life of Soil” with Arm-of-the-Sea Theater
2022-10-08 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Freedom Square, 35 5th Ave, Troy, NY, 12180, United States
Join us for a theatrical production about the dirt under our feet by Arm-of-the-Sea Theater, an arts ensemble that fuses visual storytelling with live music in contemporary works of mask and puppet theater.

This production will take place outdoors in Freedom Square, a two-minute walk from the Sanctuary.

Where does food “come from” and from what is it made? Here’s a lively primer for urban bumpkins and upcountry gardeners alike. Fusing cutting-edge science and age-old puppetry, DIRT takes audiences on an extravagant journey of discovery into the Great Underneath—revealing the epic alchemy of plants, the fungi’s dance of mutual delight, and the microbes’ herculean labors. Fifty minutes in length, performed by a five- member company, and featuring live music and a myriad of puppet figures ranging from 12 inches to 12 feet tall, the show reminds earthly residents of all ages how profoundly essential the ground beneath their feet is.

Arm-of-the-Sea Theater’s mission is to inspire wonder, offer insight, spark joy and enrich the public imagination. They accomplish their mission through the symbolic visual language of mask and puppet theater. This handmade, low-tech form of communication is decentralized and locally adapted. It can bridge language barriers and engage people of many ages and walks of life.

Arm-of-the-Sea was founded in 1982 by Marlena Marallo and Patrick Wadden as an experimental hybrid performance group combining art, ecology and social action. They continue to experiment with this ephemeral art form as a symbolic visual language that can illuminate the links between human communities and the life-support processes of this blue ocean planet.

Photos by Robert Cooper from the performance at Freedom Square on October 8, 2022

Sponsored by NATURE Lab and People’s Health Sanctuary.

Al Bilali Soudan
2022-10-16 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join us for a concert from Al Bilali Soudan from Timbuktu, Mali. Their performance is an improvisational tour de force of traditional instruments (incl. tehardant and calabash), rhythms, and scales. These traditional instruments are foundational to the development of the style that has evolved into the modern desert blues sound.

Tickets

***In line with our commitment to equity, love and justice, we ask that you please keep your mask on at our indoor events.

The group members all come from a well-known Tuareg griot family who have performed for generations. Aballow Yattara is the current group leader. Other members of the group are his uncle Aboubacrine Yattara and their sons Mohamed Ag Abellow and Tchiale Ag Aboubacrine.

Abellow and Aboubacrine Yattara began to play the tehardant, a three-stringed fretless instrument that some refer to as precursor to modern banjo, when they were adolescents. Both their fathers were master musicians. His uncle can be heard on the first recordings of traditional music in Northern Mali. Abellow Yattara can be heard on early recordings by Ali Farka Toure, on 1970’s recordings of the Orchestre de Tombouctou, and many Radio Mali broadcasts. He accompanied the vocalist, Khaira Arby, on recordings and on tour. In 2010 he gave a master class at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Hear the interview with Al Bilali Soudan

Chris Hedges: "The Greatest Evil is War"
2022-10-21 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Chris Hedges returns to The Sanctuary for Independent Media on the subject of his latest book titled The Greatest Evil is War, an unflinching indictment of the horror and obscenity of war. Pulitzer-prize-winner Chris Hedges draws from experience and interviews for this book that looks at the hidden costs of war, what it does to individuals, families, communities, and nations.

This event is IN PERSON but the audio will be carried live on Sanctuary Radio, heard in the Troy area on WOOC 105.3 FM and streaming live at www.mediasanctuary.org for everyone everywhere. We hope to post the video on Sanctuary TV shortly.

***In line with our commitment to equity, love and justice, we ask that you please keep your mask on at our indoor events.

Full Audio from Chris Hedges: “The Greatest Evil is War”

Images by Sina Basila Hickey

About the Book

In fifteen short chapters, Chris Hedges astonishes us with his clear and cogent argument against war, not on philosophical grounds or through moral arguments, but in an irrefutable stream of personal encounters with the victims of war, from veterans and parents to gravely wounded American serviceman who served in the Iraq War, to survivors of the Holocaust, to soldiers in the Falklands War, among others. Hedges reported from Sarajevo, and was in the Balkans to witness the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In 2002 he published War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, which the Los Angeles Times described as “the best kind of war journalism… bitterly poetic and ruthlessly philosophical” and the New York Times called “a brilliant, thoughtful, timely, and unsettling book.” In the twenty years since, Hedges has not wanted to write another book on the subject of war–until now, with the outbreak of war in Ukraine. It is important again to be reminded who are the victors of the spoils of war and of other unerring truths, not only in this war but in all modern wars, where civilians are always the main victims, and the tools and methods of war are capable of so much destruction it boggles the mind. This book is an unflinching indictment of the horror and obscenity of war by one of our finest war correspondents.

Check out Chris Hedges’ “Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison,” recorded on June 28, 2021 at The Sanctuary for Independent Media!

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated RT America show On Contact.

Be The Media! Workshop: Social Issue Filmmaking with Yoruba Richen
2022-11-03 17:00 - 18:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join us for a workshop with Yoruba Richen who will show clips from a few of her recent documentaries and talk about her approach to social issue filmmaking. Yoruba will also examine different filmmaking genres – archival, investigative, verite- and discuss how stylistic choices, journalistic ethics, and advocacy shape her work.

Yoruba’s most recent film is The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. An unexpected story of Rosa Parks and her life beyond the historic bus boycott, revealing the intent behind her activism, her radical politics, and her courage. Stick around after this workshop for a screening of this film at 7pm.

Curators: Elizabeth Press, Kathy High, Branda Miller.

Sponsored by: iEAR Presents! and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of The Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

5pm – 6pm: Be The Media! Workshop: Social Issue Filmmaking with Yoruba Richen

7pm: The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks film screening and discussion, moderated by Dr. Veneilya Harden

***In line with our commitment to equity, love and justice, we ask that you please keep your mask on at our indoor events.

Photographs by Robert Cooper

Yoruba Richen is an award-winning filmmaker whose latest film, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and will stream on Peacock this fall. Other recent films include the Emmy-nominated, How It Feels to Be Free and the Emmy and Peabody nominated The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show. Her film, The Killing of Breonna Taylor aired on FX/Hulu and won an NAACP Image Award. Yoruba is also a past Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow and recipient of the Chicken & Egg Breakthrough filmmaker’s award. Yoruba is the founding director of the Documentary Program at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Sponsored by iEAR Presents!, EMPAC and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of The Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Film Screening

"The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks" Film Screening
2022-11-03 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
with filmmaker Yoruba Richen

Yoruba Richen will screen The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, NY. This film captures the unexpected story of Rosa Parks and her life beyond the historic bus boycott, revealing the intent behind her activism, her radical politics, and her courage. The screening will be followed by a discussion about the film, voter rights, and activism.

Curators: Elizabeth Press, Kathy High, Branda Miller.

Sponsored by: iEAR Presents! and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of The Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

5pm – 6pm: Be The Media! Workshop: Social Issue Filmmaking with Yoruba Richen

7pm: The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks film screening and discussion, moderated by Dr. Veneilya Harden

***In line with our commitment to equity, love and justice, we ask that you please keep your mask on at our indoor events.

Photos by Robert Cooper

Yoruba Richen is an award-winning filmmaker whose latest film, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and will stream on Peacock this fall. Other recent films include the Emmy-nominated, How It Feels to Be Free and the Emmy and Peabody nominated The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show. Her film, The Killing of Breonna Taylor aired on FX/Hulu and won an NAACP Image Award. Yoruba is also a past Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow and recipient of the Chicken & Egg Breakthrough filmmaker’s award. Yoruba is the founding director of the Documentary Program at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Moderated by:

Dr. Veneilya Harden received her Doctorate of Education and Executive Leadership in August of 2020 from St. John Fisher College and her Masters in Counseling in Community Psychology with a Forensic Mental Health Certificate from The Sage Colleges in 2015 at which time Dr. Harden was also appointed to The New York State Office Of Mental through Governor Cuomo’s Excelsior Fellowship Initiative where she has maintained her employment for the past seven years. Dr. Harden is also a Project Associate with The McLean Group focusing on Diversity, Leadership, Equity, Education, and Inclusion. Dr. Harden serves actively in the Capital Region community on the Albany Community Police Review Board as Vice Chair and Chair of Mission Accomplished and Peer Reviewer of the ACA Journal. Dr. Harden’s work has centered around advocacy, education, equity, and policing disparities.

Workshop

Be the Media! Workshop: Social Issue Filmmaking with Yoruba Richen

Yoruba Richen will show clips from a few of her recent documentaries and talk about her approach to social issue filmmaking. Yoruba will also examine different filmmaking genres – archival, investigative, verite- and discuss how stylistic choices, journalistic ethics, and advocacy shape her work.

Be The Media! Workshop with Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0:
2022-11-10 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
“Gestures in the ‘Border Horror’ of US Immigration Policy”

Join Ricardo Dominguez and Amy Sara Carroll of the collective Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0 as they discuss a brief history of the collective’s previous work in relation to borders; the relationship between NAFTA, US Prevention through Deterrence philosophy, the binational War on Drugs, and the emergence of border art as genre. The workshop will be grounded with a discussion on “Technologies of Disturbance: From Tactical Media to Geo-Poetic Systems,” an overview of artivist gestures from the 1990s and what they might offer artivists and activists now. Then, together with Ricardo and Amy, Yes Man Mike Bonnano will moderate a discussion with attendees brainstorming potential artivist and activist actions.

Presented by EMPAC and iEAR Presents

Curators: Ashley Ferro-Murray, Kathy High, Branda Miller

Sponsored by iEAR Presents!, EMPAC and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of The Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Hudson Mohawk Magazine · Electronic Disturbance Visited the Sanctuary

Photographs by Robert Cooper.

Photographs by Sina Basila Hickey.

More about this event

Each decade of the twentieth century triggered draconian refinements of the “border horror” of U.S. immigration policy. Resulting borderization in the twenty-first century continues as such, now with blurred divides between the flow of goods and the blockage of human beings. Supply chain disruptions and queued shipping containers and the US invocation of Title 42 and “Stay in Mexico” policies, while never comparable, are in equal measure “products” of COVID-19.

Among others, the artists will reflect on the influences, production and distribution challenges, and discordant reception of the collective’s Transborder Immigrant Tool, a project that debuted fifteen years ago. This project consists of an app designed to provide sustenance in grueling desert conditions like those that abut the US-Mexico Border. The app consists of poetry and a navigational system that points users toward water sources provided by humanitarian aid organizations like Water Station Inc.

The talk includes a discussion of Carroll and Dominguez’s new work-in-progress theater production, “The Flight of the Palindrone.” This project instrumentalizes drone activity to provide a sonic theatrical intervention that plays on surveillance technologies in the Mexican-U.S. borderlands, the participation of the University of California, San Diego (the artists’ own institution) in the research and development of unmanned aerial vehicles, and regional eco-catastrophe—all within the context of Carroll and Dominguez’s continued commitment to translanguaging and the artivist gesture.

***In line with our commitment to equity, love and justice, we ask that you please keep your mask on at our indoor events.

The Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0 is made up of members included Brett Stalbaum, Amy Sara Carroll, Elle Mehrmand, Micha Cárdenas, and Ricardo Dominguez. Founded in 1997 as Electronic Disturbance Theater by Ricardo Dominguez, Brett Stalbaum, Stefan Wray and Carmin Karasic, this collective organized and programmed computer software demonstrating their anti-propagandist and military actions. Micronetworks were activated in direct digital actions like virtual sit-ins to prevent website access and other non-violent acts of defiance across and between digital and non-digital spaces.

Ricardo Dominguez is chair of the Department of the Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego. He is a founding member of Critical Art Ensemble and a cofounder of Electronic Disturbance Theater 1.0 (EDT), a group which developed virtual sit-in technologies in solidarity with the Zapatistas communities in Chiapas, Mexico in 1998. His recent Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0 / b.a.n.g. lab project with Brett Stalbaum, Micha Cardenas, Amy Sara Carroll, and Elle Mehrmand, the Transborder Immigrant Tool (a GPS cell phone safety net tool for crossing the Mexico/US border) was the winner of “Transnational Communities Award” (2008) and funded by CALIT2 and the UCSD Center for the Humanities. The Transborder Immigrant Tool was also under investigation by the US Congress, the FBI, Homeland Security, UCSD, and UCOP in 2009-2010. It was also reviewed by Glenn Beck in 2010 as a gesture that potentially “dissolved” the U.S. border with its poetry.

Amy Sara Carroll is Associate Professor of Literature and Writing at the University of California, San Diego and is a member of Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0 since 2008. For the collective she co-produced the Transborder Immigrant Tool. Her books include Secession, Fannie + Freddie: The Sentimentality of Post-9/11 Pornography, and REMEX: Toward an Art History of the NAFTA Era. She coauthored with other members of EDT 2.0 several plays and [({ })] The Desert Survival Series/La Serie de Sobrevivencia del Desierto. Carroll was a Fellow in Cornell University’s Society for the Humanities (2017-18), a Fellow in the University of Texas at Austin’s Latino Research Initiative (2018-19), and a UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy Fellow (2021).

BioArt Visionary @CBIS with Miriam Simun
2022-11-16 12:30 - 14:00 | online
“Corporeal Entanglements All The Way Down“

Join us for this virtual session of the series BioArt Visionary @CBIS, presented in conjunction with RPI’s Center for Biotechnology, the ARTS department & the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and the Sanctuary’s NATURE Lab.

The BioArt Visionary @CBIS is sponsored by RPI’s Arts department, the iEAR Presents series, the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS), the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and the Sanctuary for Independent Media’s NATURE Lab initiative.

The iEAR Presents series has been generously supported by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts by approval of the New York State legislature and the Governor. We are grateful for this support!

If collision is understood as a form of disturbance (in the ecological sense), then in disturbance we find not only damage, but also the opportunity for renewal. As we collide in new and ancient ways, we discover, as the poet Fred Moten said, “a shared need to renew our habits of assembly.” I work with sensorial, corporeal experience e as sites of multi-species, multi-epistemological assembly. The corporeal is political, the political is corporeal. What happens when we treat bioart as performance art and performance art as bioart?

Miriam Simun works at the intersection of ecology, technology and the body, spanning multiple formats including video, performance, installation, writing, and communal sensorial experiences. Of chief concern is the collision of bodies (human and non) with rapidly evolving techno-ecosystems. If collision can be understood to be a form of disturbance (in the ecological sense), then in disturbance we move through damage to an opportunity for renewal. Simun’s centers the sensorial as imperative for this renewal.

Their work has been presented internationally, including Gropius Bau (Berlin), New Museum (New York), Himalayas Museum (Shanghai), The Contemporary (Baltimore) and the Bogota Museum of Modern Art (Bogota) and has been supported by Creative Capital and the Robert Rauschenberg, Joan Mitchell, and Onassis Foundations. More at linktr.ee/mseamoon

Salon Séance: "The End of Time"
2022-11-19 19:00 - 21:30 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join us for an interdisciplinary presentation combining live classical music with visual and theatrical storytelling. This is the regional premiere of The End of Time, an immersive experience with themes of trauma and healing, by Salon Séance. The performance will be followed by an audience conversation about the music and re-interpretations of the themes as seen from the eyes of youth and community members today. The End of Time was inspired by Quartet for the End of Time by composer Olivier Messiaen.

This event is co-sponsored by the Friends of Chamber Music.

***In line with our commitment to equity, love and justice, we ask that you please keep your mask on at our indoor events.

Salon Séance creates a new ritual to experience the intersection between music, history, and our lives. The End of Time is centered around the French composer Olivier Messiaen and his masterwork Quartet for the End of Time, written and premiered during his captivity at the prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz, Germany during WW2 in 1941. It explores the theme of hope in times of desperation through stories that inspired Messiaen to compose this work: the stories of the musicians that premiered this work and the story of the Book of Revelation. The musical work, which embodies the collective experience of captivity as well as the concept of a renewal after the End of Time, become a source of hope for the future as the most destructive war in history was raging.

Founded by Mari Lee and Simon Lee, Salon Séance is a live experience channeling kindred spirits through music and the ritual of seance. Developed in interdisciplinary collaboration with world-class performers and creators, our seances bring composers, audiences, and performers to experience the intersection between music and our lives. Salon Séance is a recipient of Tarisio’s Young Artists Grants and Britten-Pears Foundation’s Britten Award, and has been presented by Yellow Barn Festival, The Crypt Sessions, Schubert Club, among others.

Credits:

Music // Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time

Created by Mari LeeDirected by Jay StullSound design by John GasperResearch by Simon Angseop Lee

Performers:

Mari Lee, violinist

Jay Stull, director

Nile Assata Harris, actor

Yoonah Kim, clarinet

Henry Kramer, piano

Mihai Marica, cello

Andrea Cunliffe interviewed members of Salon Séance:

• Intro to Salon Séance: “The End of Time” with Friends of Chamber Music President Jennifer Laursen• “The End of Time” Cellist Mihai Marica• Salon Séance Arts Administrator Sam Paris• “The End of Time” Director Jay Stull• Co-Creators of Salon Séance, Simon Lee•“The End of Time” with Mari Lee of Salon Séance

Join the zoom discussion with the artists prior to the event on Nov. 12, 2022 at 7:00pm! To learn more and register, check out the Friends of Chamber Music of Troy NY’s “Conversation with Notables in the World of Classical Music: Performance in Context — Salon Seance.“

"American Caliph” Book Talk
2022-12-01 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
with author Shahan Mufti

Join author Shahan Mufti for a behind-the-scenes look at American Caliph, his riveting true story of America’s first homegrown Muslim terror attack–the 1977 Hanafi siege of Washington, D.C.

Get a sneak-peek at the event with Steve Pierce’s interview of Shahan Mufti.

***In line with our commitment to equity, love and justice, we ask that you please keep your mask on at our indoor events.

One of Publishers Weekly’s “best nonfiction books” of 2022

Late in the morning of March 9, 1977, seven men stormed the Washington, D.C., headquarters of B’nai B’rith International, the largest and oldest Jewish service organization in America. The heavily armed attackers quickly took control of the building and held more than a hundred employees of the organization hostage inside. A little over an hour later, three more men entered the Islamic Center of Washington, the country’s largest and most important mosque, and took hostages there. Two others subsequently penetrated the District Building, a few hundred yards from the White House. When a firefight broke out, a reporter was killed, and Marion Barry, later to become mayor of Washington, D.C., was shot in the chest. The deadly standoff brought downtown Washington to a standstill.

The attackers belonged to the Hanafi Movement, an African American Muslim group based in D.C. Their leader was a former jazz drummer named Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, who had risen through the ranks of the Nation of Islam before feuding with the organization’s mercurial chief, Elijah Muhammad, and becoming a spiritual authority to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Like Malcolm X, Khaalis had become sharply critical of the Nation’s unorthodox style of Islam. And, like Malcolm X, he paid dearly for his outspokenness: In 1973, followers of the Nation murdered seven Hanafis at their headquarters, including several members of Khaalis’s family. When they took hostages in 1977, one of the Hanafis’ demands was for the murderers, along with Muhammad Ali and Elijah’s son, to be turned over to the group to face justice. They also demanded that the American premiere of Mohammad: Messenger of God—an epic about the life of the prophet Muhammad financed and supported by the Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi—be canceled and the film destroyed. The lives of 149 hostages hung in the balance, and the United States’ fledgling counterterrorism forces—as yet untested—would have to respond.

Shahan Mufti’s American Caliph gives a full account of the largest ever hostage taking on American soil and of the man who masterminded it. Informed by extensive archival research and access to hundreds of declassified FBI files, American Caliph is a riveting true-crime story that sheds new light on the disarray of the 1970s and its ongoing reverberations.

Read more about the book HERE.

Shahan Mufti is the chair of the Department of Journalism at the University of Richmond and a former daily news reporter for The Christian Science Monitor. He is the author of The Faithful Scribe: A Story of Islam, Pakistan, Family, and War, and his writing has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and The Nation, among other publications.

Holiday Interfaith Justice and Peace Circle at Freedom Square
2022-12-10 15:30 - 17:00 | Freedom Square, 35 5th Ave, Troy, NY, 12180, United States
Join us in a celebration of light and community. Around an evergreen tree, we will light candles, tie the names of loved ones on branches, and share our light to set intentions for love, justice and peace. Before the tree lighting there will be warm beverages, snacks, arts and crafts, and a radio-making station. Bring your wishes for light, justice and peace, as we reflect on current times and come together with sacred intention, embracing all religions and beliefs.

Co-sponsors: Troy MLK Labor & Community Network, Troy Central Little League, People’s Health Sanctuary, Hudson Mohawk Magazine, SNUG, The Fish Market Project, Mothers Out Front, Troy Bike Rescue,…. and more to come!

Documentation of the Event

Photos by Robert Cooper:

Learn more about our Holiday Interfaith Justice and Peace history

Local and diverse communities of friends and networks have been gathering at the Sanctuary for over a decade. Because of the pandemic, we are not able to have our full community celebration inside… but please join us to continue our tradition of joining together to celebrate the light within each of us and our collective powers!

Check out this video of our fifth annual North Central Holiday Justice & Peace Celebration, which culminated in this interfaith gathering at Freedom Square on Dec. 30, 2016. Share the light in joy and resistance!

Aileen Javier, Board President, The Sanctuary for Independent Media, sharing her amazing light during the 2021 Holiday Interfaith Justice and Peace Circle at Freedom Square.

How you can participate

Please bring your wish for light in the new year. Also, there’s lots of ways you can support this community event, including:

Volunteer to run a small art or activity table

Bring toys and gifts for children

Bake Holiday Cookies

Bring decorations for the interfaith tree and Freedom Square

Reach out to your friends and networks to spread the word

Sign up for our set up or clean up crews

Other ideas? Let us know my emailing info@mediasanctuary.org. Thank you!

Troy Black History Celebration 2023
2023-02-25 16:00 - 19:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join us for an in-person celebration of Black History Month with an exhibition, music, spoken word, and community. Troy NAACP, Team HERO, Coalition for Black Trade Union, and The Sanctuary for Independent Media have partnered together in Troy to honor our Black history and its living legacy. The exhibition is curated by Malik Muhammad, music by King Malachi, spoken word by Diamond Owens, and Shania Jackson, and beats by DJ Hollyw8d.

Masks are encouraged and will be available at this event. If you are feeling unwell or have any symptoms of illness please stay home and rest.

Featuring:

Brother Malik Muhammad is the curator of The Sankofa Project, a traveling visual museum which showcases photos and text of the history of Black people.

Music performance by King Malachi. Website.

Beats by DJ Hollyw8d. Website.

Spoken word by Shania Jackson.

Spoken word by Diamond Owens.

Spoken word by Justin Irby.

Co-Organizers:

NAACP Troy Branch #2182-B: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) mission in the 21st century is “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination.” Contact: TroyNYNAACP@gmail.com or on facebook.

Team HERO: H.E.R.O. standing for Helping Everyone Recognize Opportunities which focuses on youth mentoring, character and leadership development and linking families to resources. https://www.facebook.com/TeamHero101

Coalition for Black Trade Union: CBTU is not a black separatist or civil rights organization. It is the fiercely independent voice of black workers within the trade union movement, challenging organized labor to be more relevant to the needs and aspirations of Black and poor workers. https://cbtu.org/about.html

"Storming Caesars Palace" Film Screening
2023-03-08 19:00 - 21:30 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join us for a film screening of the Indie Lens Pop-Up Storming Caesars Palace followed by a community-driven conversation and local resource sharing by local partners. Presented by WMHT in partnership with The Sanctuary for Independent Media, NYS Poor People’s Campaign, Rensselaer County Dept. of Social Services, Troy Area United Ministries (TAUM), Unity House, and YWCA of the Greater Capital Region.

REGISTER

Masks are encouraged and will be available at this event. If you are feeling unwell or have any symptoms of illness please stay home and rest.

About This Film

After losing her job as a hotel worker in Las Vegas, Ruby Duncan joined a welfare rights group of mothers who defied notions of the “welfare queen.” In a fight for guaranteed income, Ruby and other equality activists took on the Nevada mob in organizing a massive protest that shut down Caesars Palace. (See preview.)

More information available at https://pbs.org/stormingcaesars

David Carpenter: "Science for the People"
2023-03-19 14:00 - 17:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join us for a celebration of SUNY Albany Professor David Carpenter’s long career as an environmental advocate! We’ll be gathering with Dr. Carpenter along with some of his graduate students and colleagues, as well as representatives of some of the many grassroots organizations who have worked with David over his decades-long career. Dr. Carpenter will speak, along with former EPA Region 2 administrator Judith Enck and other local luminaries. We’ll hear an update on the ongoing legal case surrounding Monsanto’s pollution of the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, and other local environmental struggles. But mostly we’re gathering to acknowledge a true hero of the environmental justice movement!

The celebration will close with a free community meal of soup and cake. This is a zero waste event–bring your own reusable plate, utensils, cup and napkin!

Co-sponsored by NATURE Lab, United University Professions- Albany Chapter, Beyond Plastics, Clean Air Coalition of Greater Ravena-Coeymans, Rensselaer Environmental Coalition, PAUSE, Green Education & Legal Fund, UNCAGED, Environmental Advocates NY, Riverkeeper, NYPIRG, Lights Out Norlite, Healthy Schools Network, Community Advocates for a Sustainable Environment, Stop NY Fracked Gas Pipeline, Zero Waste Capital District, Housatonic River Initiative, Inc, and Housatonic Environmental Action League, Inc.

Download the flyer here.

Masks are encouraged and will be available at this event. If you are feeling unwell or have any symptoms of illness please stay home and rest.

Judith Enck and Dr. David Carpenter at Dunn Landfill

David Carpenter is a public health physician whose current position is Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany, as well as Professor of Environmental Health Sciences within the School of Public Health at the University at Albany. After receiving his MD degree from Harvard Medical School he chose a career of research and public health. After research positions at the National Institute of Mental Health and the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, he came to Albany in 1980 as the Director of the Wadsworth Center for Laboratories and Research of the New York State Department of Health, the third largest public health laboratory in the US after NIH and CDC. In an effort to build ties to an academic program, he initiated efforts to create a partnership between the New York State Department of Health and the University at Albany, resulting in the creation of the School of Public Health in 1985. He was then appointed as the founding Dean of the School of Public Health, a position he held until 1998 when he became the Director of the Institute of Health and the Environment. In 2011 the Institute for Health and the Environment was declared a Collaborating Centre of the World Health Organization in Environmental Health. While his early research was study of animal and cellular models of brain function, his more recent studies have focused on environmental causes of human disease. He has more than 485 peer-reviewed publications.

Photos from the event

By Robert Cooper

photograph by Caroline Tennant

Author Joshua Frank presents "Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America"
2023-03-25 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for an in-person book talk with Joshua Frank author of Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America. The 2022 book (Haymarket Books) examines the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State, which once was home to the United States’ largest plutonium production site.

“In the context of renewed support for atomic power as a means of combating climate change, Atomic Days provides a much-needed refutation of the myths of nuclear technology—from weapons to electricity—and shines a spotlight on the ravages of Hanford and its threat to communities, workers and the global environment.”

About the Book

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State is laced with 56 million gallons of radioactive waste. The threat of an explosive accident at Hanford is all too real—an event that could be more catastrophic than Chernobyl.

The EPA designated Hanford the most toxic place in America; it is also the most expensive environmental clean-up job the world has ever seen, with a $677 billion price tag that keeps growing. Huge underground tanks, well past their life expectancy and full of boiling radioactive gunk, are leaking, infecting groundwater supplies and threatening the Columbia River.

Whistleblowers, worried that the worst is ahead, are now speaking out, begging to be heard and hoping their pleas help bring attention to the dire situation at Hanford. Aside from a few feisty community groups and handful of Indigenous activists, there is very little public scrutiny of the clean-up process, which is managed by the Department of Energy and carried out by contractors with shoddy track records, like Bechtel. In the context of renewed support for atomic power as a means of combating climate change, Atomic Days provides a much-needed refutation of the myths of nuclear technology—from weapons to electricity—and shines a spotlight on the ravages of Hanford and its threat to communities, workers and the global environment.

Joshua Frank is an award-winning California-based journalist and co-editor of the political magazine CounterPunch. He is the editor and co-author of several books. Most recently, he is the author of the book Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America (Haymarket Books 2022).

Be The Media! Workshop: Participatory Design in Journalistic Process
2023-04-01 17:00 - 18:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
With Directors Zara Katz and Lisa Riordan Seville, and Documentary Participant Kristal Bush

Join us in this workshop to learn about the art of co-creation from the film team of A Woman on the Outside, discussing how the directors centered Kristal’s voice and the active collaboration between the film team and participants in the documentary process. A focus will be on how the team grappled with both the journalistic process and the ethical questions of documentary today, as well as how they developed the cinematic language to incorporate Kristal’s self-documentation and the filmmakers’ footage. They will share the importance of spending time together, relationship and trust building, and how to collaborate on a story.

Curators: Branda Miller.

Sponsored by: iEAR Presents! and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of The Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Masks are encouraged and will be available at this event. If you are feeling unwell or have any symptoms of illness please stay home and rest.

After the workshop, at 7pm, A Woman on the Outside will be screened at the Sanctuary, followed by a panel discussion.

Director’s Statement:

More than a quarter of women in this country have had a loved one incarcerated. For Black women like Kristal, the odds are even higher. To love someone who’s locked up isn’t a marginal experience – it’s an American one. For six years, we have collaborated with Kristal and her family to make a film about their experience, through the female lens. Braiding Kristal’s photos, videos and voice with our verite footage, we strove to go beyond a story about prison to tell one of family, love and how women care for themselves while caring for others.

Zara Katz (Director/Producer)

Zara Katz is a filmmaker and photo producer for editorial, documentary and branded content, specializing in crafting character-driven visual stories. Katz is currently Photography Director at NBC News.com, and has worked with outlets including The New York Times Lens blog, Time magazine, Medium, The Guardian U.S., Pop-Up Magazine and Lifetime/A+E Networks. She was the Senior Photography Producer on a Getty Images/Dove campaign photographed by more than 100 women and non-binary photographers, which won the Silver Glass Lion at Cannes in 2019.

Lisa Riordan Seville (Director/Producer)

Lisa Riordan Seville is an award-winning reporter and independent filmmaker whose stories explore how money, power and policy shapes the lives of everyday people. Her investigative and enterprise work has appeared across NBC News platforms, on BuzzFeed News, The Guardian U.S., Lifetime/A+E Networks and WNYC Radio. It has been recognized with a Peabody, a Hillman Award and a Sigma Delta Chi from the Society of Professional Journalists, among others. Her most recent piece was a cover story for New York Magazineabout the deaths of 15 men in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex.

"A Woman on the Outside" Film Screening
2023-04-01 19:00 - 22:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join Directors Zara Katz and Lisa Riordan Seville and protagonist Kristal Bush for the screening of the documentary film A Woman on the Outside, about the struggle to keep families connected despite incarceration. Before the film screening, all three women will give a Be The Media! workshop and give a brief opening reception to the Women on the Outside exhibition. After the film there will be a panel discussion with local prison justice activists.

5pm: Be The Media! Workshop: Participatory Design in Journalistic Process with directors Zara Katz and Lisa Riordan Seville with documentary participant Kristal Bush.6:30pm: opening reception for the Women on the Outside exhibition in the Sanctuary cafe.7:00pm: screening of A Women on the Outside followed by a panel discussion and networking.

Curator: Branda Miller.

Sponsored by: iEAR Presents! and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of The Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; Co-sponsored by: The Chris Wilson Foundation, The Release Aging People in Prison/RAPP Campaign, Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, The Center for Law and Justice, and Capital Area Against Mass Incarceration.

Masks are encouraged and will be available at this event. If you are feeling unwell or have any symptoms of illness please stay home and rest.

“A Woman on the Outside” Q&A

About the Film

Growing up, Kristal watched nearly every man in her life disappear to prison. She channeled that struggle into keeping families connected, both as a social worker and with her van service that drives families to visit loved ones in far-off prisons. But when Kristal’s dad and brother return to Philly, her happiness meets the realization that release doesn’t always mean freedom. Passionate, funny and resilient, Kristal remains determined to carve out a different future — for herself and for her young nephew, Nyvae. Part observational documentary, part family album, A Woman on the Outside is a tender portrait of one family striving to love in the face of a system built to break them. website

https://vimeo.com/725900136?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=9616283

By the end of the trip, Lois and Rachel, who are newer riders, laugh and talk with the other women. Kristal’s regular riders say they look forward not just to the visit, but to catching up with friends they have made on the van.

“It’s something to look forward to,” Tanesha says of visiting day. “We talk about this stuff all week long, all of us. Sometimes we all get together and cook food and sit down and talk. Because that’s what we be needing. From one sister to another. From one wife to another.”

Photos and Videos by Zara Katz and Lisa Riordan Seville

Filmmaker Bios

Zara Katz (Director/Producer) is a filmmaker and photo producer for editorial, documentary and branded content, specializing in crafting character-driven visual stories. Katz is currently Photography Director at NBC News.com, and has worked with outlets including The New York Times Lens blog, Time magazine, Medium, The Guardian U.S., Pop-Up Magazine and Lifetime/A+E Networks. She was the Senior Photography Producer on a Getty Images/Dove campaign photographed by more than 100 women and non-binary photographers, which won the Silver Glass Lion at Cannes in 2019.

Lisa Riordan Seville (Director/Producer) is an award-winning reporter and independent filmmaker whose stories explore how money, power and policy shapes the lives of everyday people. Her investigative and enterprise work has appeared across NBC News platforms, on BuzzFeed News, The Guardian U.S., Lifetime/A+E Networks and WNYC Radio. It has been recognized with a Peabody, a Hillman Award and a Sigma Delta Chi from the Society of Professional Journalists, among others. Her most recent piece was a cover story for New York Magazine about the deaths of 15 men in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex.

Panelist Bios

Kristal Bush is the protagonist of the documentary film A Woman on the Outside.

Jose Di Lenola, Clemency Campaign Director of RAPP

At the age of 16, Jose was sentenced to 26 1/3 years to life for second-degree murder and served eighteen of those years in Attica prison and various correctional facilities. While incarcerated he worked as a rehabilitation peer educator in relapse prevention, anger management, and mental health; and mentored at-risk youth diversionary programs. Jose co-founded and served as President of the Attica Lifer’s Organization and consulted several organizations. Jose was released in December 2021, has his own consultation business, Carceral Consultation, and is the Clemency Campaign Director for the Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP).

TeAna Taylor, Co-Director of Policy & Communications and Capital Region Organizer at RAPP

TeAna advocates for children of incarcerated parents, informed by their father’s nearly two decades of incarceration and working with We Got Us Now and the HALT Solitary Campaign. They have been engaging their community in restorative justice work for the past five years. They created and maintained a peer mediation program at a local middle school, leading mediations between youth, parents, and teachers; facilitating circles that ranged from community building within classrooms to repairing harm between community members; providing conflict coaching sessions for students; and training students in peer mediation and conflict resolution. TeAna has also facilitated circles to address issues faced by students and faculty of color at their alma mater, SUNY Schenectady, that led to policy change for a more inclusive and diverse campus.

Co-sponsors

The mission of the Chris Wilson Foundation is to transform the incarceration system by providing better and more sustainable programming for incarcerated individuals that centers personal relationships, resilience, development and agency. Our Master Plan Program focuses on trauma and resilience, systemic oppression and mass incarceration and goal-setting and reentry. The program is being implemented in three states, and is currently running at the Capital District Youth Detention Center in Albany.

The Release Aging People in Prison/RAPP Campaign is a grassroots advocacy organization created and led by formerly incarcerated people and family members of people in prison. We work to end mass incarceration and promote racial justice through the release of aging people in prison and those serving long sentences. We work to dismantle the racist policies of mass incarceration by expanding the use of parole, compassionate release, clemency, and other forms of release in New York State. We work with other organizations across the country to end life imprisonment in the United States. By organizing community power to free incarcerated elders, we work to uproot a system of endless punishment that fuels mass incarceration and damages Black and other communities of color.

The mission of Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York is to provide high quality, effective legal representation and assistance to indigent prisoners, help them to secure their civil and human rights and advocate for more humane prisons and for a more humane criminal justice system.

The Center for Law and Justice recognizes that the criminal justice system in the United States has a history of racism and classism, stemming from both laws and practices, that continues to this day. It is the center’s mission to reform the criminal justice system and dismantle its oppressive elements.

The Center for Law and Justice aims to eliminate the gap between law and justice by creating an equitable criminal justice system which values all human life and acknowledges community members as partners in public safety. The center seeks to achieve this goal through amplifying the voices of marginalized people and communities, while educating and empowering those same communities to demand an end to mass criminalization, mass incarceration, and systemic oppression.

Capital Area Against Mass Incarceration (CAAMI) seeks to challenge and dismantle mass incarceration and the systems of oppression that sustain it. We do this through coordinated actions and by opening the dialogue about mass incarceration and the criminal injustice system in a way that is empowering to all individuals and communities affected by them. CAAMI defines “mass incarceration” as both the excessive quantity of people caught in the criminal justice system, and the racially discriminatory and cruel quality of the current punitive model of social control. Police brutality, racially disparate sentencing, and post-prison discrimination function as a self-reinforcing system that damages communities.

"Rooted in Independent Media, Growing Toward a Just Future" with Eljuri & Taína Asili
2023-04-21 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Two amazing Latinx artists, Taína Asili and Eljuri reunite on the Sanctuary stage for the first night of our weekend celebration Rooted in Independent Media, Growing Toward a Just Future! Join us on Friday, April 21, for an eclectic mix of salsa, reggae, and political hip-hop that will speak to your soul and make you move!

Rooted in Independent Media, Growing Toward a Just Future! is a weekend celebrating the contributions of Steve Pierce to the Sanctuary’s legacy.

“Rooted in Independent Media, Growing Toward a Just Future” Sanctuary Weekend Celebration!

Join us for a weekend celebrating this historic time at the Sanctuary, starting with a night of amazing music by Taína Asili and Eljuri and ending the following night with a presentation by Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman! During this weekend celebration, each evening will include refreshments and reflections from friends old and new about how the Sanctuary (and Steve) has made an impact on them!

It seems incredible but, thanks to Steve’s leadership, we owe just $25,000 left to pay off the complete mortgage for our entire Sanctuary campus! This includes four buildings — the Sanctuary with presentation venue, live production, radio and video studios; NATURE Lab with a level-1 Biology Laboratory and Peoples Health Sanctuary, the NATURE Lab Residency House, the Carriage House, plus Collard City Growers Gardens’ four lots and our outdoor community presentation space Freedom Square!

Your contribution, of any size, would greatly contribute to the impact of our organization by helping us move into the future with a new Executive Director with our goal of being fully debt free!

See all ticket options here.No one will be turned away for a lack of funds

Photos by Sara Beck

Taína Asili is a New York-based Puerto Rican singer, filmmaker and activist carrying on the tradition of her ancestors, fusing past and present struggles into one soulful and defiant voice. Taína Asili combines powerful vocals with a multi-genre fusion – confidently weaving between salsa, rock, reggae, cumbia, reggaeton, and hip hop – with multilingual songs that beat with the heart of social change. Asili’s music offers a sound that spans continents, exuding strength of Spirit, inspiring audiences at venues across the globe – From Carnegie Hall to the Women’s March on Washington to the main stage of San Francisco Pride. With energetic and infectious rhythms, Asili’s music urges people to get on their feet and dance to the rhythm of rebellion.

Cecilia Villar Eljuri is a revered storyteller and genre fuser. She is a Latina artivist living in NYC who tours internationally sharing her music and message of empowerment. Touted as one of the top Latinx guitar players in the world, Eljuri navigates through the musical landscapes of her Ecuadorian, Spanish and Lebanese heritage all presented with an elegant and socially conscious voice. As a musical activist for Immigrant and Women’s Rights, Eljuri has her guitar strings and voice on the pulse of some of the most timely issues echoing through our communities.

"Rooted in Independent Media, Growing Toward a Just Future" with Amy Goodman
2023-04-22 19:00 - 21:30
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! comes to the Sanctuary stage for the second night of our weekend celebration Rooted in Independent Media, Growing Toward a Just Future! Join us on Saturday, April 22, for a conversation about the role and future of independent media, followed by a conversation about stories over the past two decades building the Sanctuary’s campus with outgoing Executive Director Steve Pierce. They will be joined by Hudson Mohawk Magazine’s Willie Terry and moderator KP Holler, the Executive Director of Media Alliance.

Rooted in Independent Media, Growing Toward a Just Future! is a weekend celebrating the contributions of Steve Pierce to the Sanctuary’s legacy.

Co-sponsored by: Women Against War.

*Masking is mandatory for this event

“Rooted in Independent Media, Growing Toward a Just Future” Sanctuary Weekend Celebration!

Join us for a weekend celebrating this historic time at the Sanctuary, starting with a night of amazing music by Taína Asili and Eljuri and ending the following night with a presentation by Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman! During this weekend celebration, each evening will include refreshments and reflections from friends old and new about how the Sanctuary (and Steve) has made an impact on them!

It seems incredible but, thanks to Steve’s leadership, we owe just $25,000 left to pay off the complete mortgage for our entire Sanctuary campus! This includes four buildings — the Sanctuary with presentation venue, live production, radio and video studios; NATURE Lab with a level-1 Biology Laboratory and Peoples Health Sanctuary, the NATURE Lab Residency House, the Carriage House, plus Collard City Growers Gardens’ four lots and our outdoor community presentation space Freedom Square!

Your contribution, of any size, would greatly contribute to the impact of our organization by helping us move into the future with a new Executive Director with our goal of being fully debt free!

See all ticket options here.No one will be turned away for a lack of funds

Photos by Robert Cooper

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,400 public television and radio stations worldwide.

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard honored Goodman with the 2014 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence Lifetime Achievement Award. She is also the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ for “developing an innovative model of truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to millions of people the alternative voices that are often excluded by the mainstream media.” She is the first co-recipient of the Park Center for Independent Media’s Izzy Award, named for the great muckraking journalist I.F. Stone, and was later selected for induction into the Park Center’s I.F. Stone Hall of Fame. The Independent of London called Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! “an inspiration.”

Goodman has co-authored six New York Times bestsellers. Her latest, Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America, looks back over the past two decades of Democracy Now! and the powerful movements and charismatic leaders who are re-shaping our world. Before than, The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance, and Hope, and Breaking the Sound Barrier, both written with Denis Moynihan, give voice to the many ordinary people standing up to corporate and government power. She co-authored her first three bestsellers with her brother, journalist David Goodman: Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (2008), Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back (2006) and The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them (2004). She co-writes a weekly column with Denis Moynihan (also produced as an audio podcast) syndicated by King Features, for which she was recognized in 2007 with the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Reporting.

Goodman has received the Society for Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence; American Women in Radio and Television Gracie Award; the Paley Center for Media’s She’s Made It Award; and the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. Her reporting on East Timor and Nigeria has won numerous awards, including the George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s Meet the Press. PULSE named Goodman one of the 20 Top Global Media Figures of 2009.

She has also received awards from the Associated Press, United Press International, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Project Censored. Goodman received the first ever Communication for Peace Award from the World Association for Christian Communication. She was also honored by the National Council of Teachers of English with the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language.

Death Cafe
2023-04-27 19:00 - 21:00
Where: 2nd floor of the NATURE Lab building, 3319 6th Avenue.

Join us for for a Death Cafe, an evening of discussions about death and how to make the most of life under the context that there is an end. The discussions will take place as a group and in breakout discussions at People’s Health Sanctuary in NATURE Lab.

At a Death Cafe people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. Our objective is ‘to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives’. A Death Cafe is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counseling session.

Death Cafes are always offered:– On a not-for-profit basis– In an accessible, respectful and confidential space– With no intention of leading people to any conclusion, product or course of action– Alongside refreshing drinks and nourishing food – and cake!

For more info on Death Café, check out: https://deathcafe.com.Credit to Jon Underwood with founding Death Café based on the work of Bernard Crettaz.

This event is co-sponsored by People’s Health Sanctuary at NATURE Lab and organized by Veronica Maroulis.

Veronica Maroulis is a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a master’s in Business Analytics. After being introduced to the work of The Order of the Good Death and content by Caitlin Doughty via YouTube, she has been fascinated by death and the macabre. Veronica is an advocate for alternative death care and death justice and wants to encourage thoughtful conversations about death to destigmatize the taboo topic. Death is an inevitability of life and Veronica wants to give people the resources so that they receive the death care they want and deserve.

Hudson Mohawk Magazine Radio Open House
2023-05-13 13:00 - 15:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
For all the radio lovers and radio curious, join us for an open house where you will have a chance to engage with Hudson Mohawk Magazine producers, engage with our content in an interactive way, and come into the radio studio to get your own story out there.

At 2pm, join us for a workshop about how to make a Hudson Mohawk Magazine radio story. This is also a time for visitors to contribute ideas that they would like to hear on the radio.

Hudson Mohawk Magazine is volunteer-produced, local news, and public affairs show is broadcast live on WOOC 105.3 FM Monday through Friday from 6-7 p.m., and repeated at 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. the following weekday.

Celebrate grassroots media, suggest stories we should cover from the local community, and get your own voice on the radio. Learn more about our radio program here.

Register
