NAVEL

On Thursday December 3 at 4:30 PM PST, join @shumkacentre for the final Critical Transformations roundtable on the topic of Institutional Reformatting, which will ask us to consider the many ways to reimagine institutions from the ground up. How can we build new structures for critical art production, in a way that prioritizes interdependence, non-hierarchical systems and information-sharing? Featuring NAVEL co-founder & director @michael3holt and @aliceyuanzhang of @virtua...lcarelab, Caroline Woolard of @makingandbeing, Vanessa Kwan of @other_sights and @gruntgallery, and moderated by @cecimoss. Hosted on Zoom, the talk is free & open to all. RSVP via link in our bio. Critical Transformations: A Forum on New Futures is a monthly series of online roundtable conversations that invites visionary artists, curators, activists, designers, architects, and arts organizers around the globe to discuss their work in creating groundbreaking new models for the arts sector curated by Ceci Moss and hosted by the Shumka Centre.

Thanks to everyone who joined us at the opening weekend of if. café! We were so happy to be able to connect with friends, old and new, and hold space to recharge together. We hope you’ll join us in the coming weeks! if. will be open Fridays and Saturdays from 4-11pm through December 19 for more info or to RSVP, write to [email protected].

Come by today from 12pm-11pm for if. a pop up cafe in the alleyway at NAVEL Now, more than ever, we’ve missed you. if. cafe is a spot to recharge and reconnect with the NAVEL community. We named her for the If Club, a working class, racially-mixed, butch dyke hangout in MacArthur Park, active from 1939-1968the earliest known lesbian bar in Los Angeles.... if. cafe will be open on Fridays and Saturdays from 12-11pm in November & December. Upcoming happenings: Sat, 11/14 from 6pm- Marathon Screening of Gregg Araki films Fri, 11/20 at 8pm - Screening of @thefutureleft documentary Who Do You Protect? Sat, 11/21 at 8pm - Select films by @nataliefalt & @womenandfilm Proceeds from the cafe will help us to pay our rent <3 Masks on. Please look, but don’t touch. Stay 6ft. apart and if you’ve been feeling sick at all, get tested and come another time

From the colonization of Tongva, Chumash, and Kizh land to the ongoing urbanization of Los Angeles, whole ecological communities have been uprooted without acknowledgement. ‘Requiem for Lost Plants’, part of @creamcakeberlin’s #3hd2020, calls for reversing death. Artists Alice Yuan Zhang @aliceyuanzhang and Alexander Kaye @akaye.world digitally resurrect diminishing plant elders to share their stories for a global public through an immersive online environment, and fo...r locals through site-specific augmented reality filters. Explore ‘Requiem For Lost Plants’ via the link in our bio Web-based visitors find themselves in an anthropocentric representation of urban Los Angeles, juxtaposed by the brightly-lit presence of five ancestral plants. Salix gooddingii, Salvia apiana, Sphaeralcea ambigua, Pseudognaphalium californicum and Layia carnosa dot the environment, hailing from diverse local communities of wetlands, sand dunes, chaparral, and coastal sage scrub habitats. Learn more about the project and explore the immersive environment via the link in our bio. See more

Now online at #3hd2020 : "Requiem For Lost Plants" by @aliceyuanzhang & @akaye.world Plant elders come together through sound and spirit to resurrect a fading memory of Los Angeles in Alice Yuan Zhang & Alexander Kaye’s "Requiem For Lost Plants". Explore augmented reality filters and an immersive online environment to trace the living thread toward alternative ecological futures. Learn more & explore via the link in our bio ... "Requiem For Lost Plants" is commissioned by @navel.la & @creamcakeberlin as part of #3hd2020. See more

Today is the last day to sign up for ‘Full Bodied Expression as Public Health: A Focus on Hip Magic’, a Fall 2020 ASSEMBLY organized by @sapeach & @naomi.mack We will be exploring one of the most oppressed & abused parts of the body: the hips. This area, often connected to the feminine spirit, is where creative energy is generated and supported, yet is simultaneously deeply neglected across genders. This is an unlearning, this is truth telling, and this is all about l...iberation and public health. Deadline to sign up is tonight, October 4 at 11:59PM Learn more about all of the Fall 2020 ASSEMBLIES and how to sign up via the link in our bio Artwork by Jay Are @notyrhomie See more

On August 30, 22 groups pitched their idea for ASSEMBLIES Fall 2020! Thank you to all who participated and proposed groups for the Fall 2020 cycle We are proud to support five ASSEMBLIES which were selected via a vote by the NAVEL community. The Fall 2020 ASSEMBLIES are:... afronowism ep III, organized by black beyond @blackbeyond_ #FuckTheSystem: Liberation Via Black QT Sex Magik, organized by Bee Coleman Full-Bodied Expression as Public Health : A Focus on Hip Magic, organized by Anise S. Hines Theus @sapeach + Naomi Mack @naomi.mack Health, Racism and Wellness with Miss Barbie-Q, organized by TRANScending Art @missbarbieqla Queering Surrender: Expanding, Embodying, Remembering, organized by Jenevieve Ting @tingrolls & Jasmine Lin @allthatjasss Read the full announcement on our website via the link in our bio to learn more about each group and how to sign up to participate. The deadline to sign up is Sunday, October 4 at the end of the day

6 a single-day virtual symposium with @artandpractice @theundergroundmuseum @craftcontemporary @navel.la @theicala @materialsandapplications Join us at 6DEGREES.LA on SEPTEMBER 19 from 10 AM - 5 PM PST for 6 Art+Practice Craft Contemporary ICA LA Materials & Applications NAVEL The Underground Museum ... 6 is a single-day virtual symposium bringing together six L.A. non-profit art organizations. Tune in for individually presented programs from each institution, as we aim to begin a collective and open conversation around racial inequalities in the art world. #6degreesla 10 AM Organizing as Architectural Labor (@materialsandapplications) 11 AM Making L.A. Arts Education More Equitable (@artandpractice) 12 PM This Must Be The Place: Practicing Divestment, Investment, and Sharing Power (@navel.la 2 PM Building Community Within Our Community (@theundergroundmuseum) 3 PM To the Past, Towards the Future (@craftcontemporary) 4 PM Support for Coalitions / Coalitions for Support (@theicala) All times PST and subject to change due to live events. Visit 6degrees.la for all the details! Link in bio See more

, This Thursday September 3 from 6-7pm PDT, join us to share what you’ve been up to, how you are feeling, and what you need from the community. This is an informal space to foster kinship, and exchange and discuss what’s happening at NAVEL. RSVP via the link in bio to receive the zoom info.... Hosted by Yewande Pearse, Irina Contreras and Celine Kuklowsky, who are community representatives on the NAVEL Board of Directors. @yewan_days @cocacolachola @celinekuk

RSVP for ASSEMBLIES Pitch Meeting This Sunday We are blown away by the 24 proposals submitted for ASSEMBLIES Fall 2020. The organizers of these groups are hard at work preparing pitches to the community about their idea for 12 weeks of collaborative learning, research and discussion. This Fall, ASSEMBLIES groups are creatively and critically engaging with social and racial justice, black liberation, anti-racism/oppression, with a focus on mutual aid and creative init...iatives that redistribute resources, actively dismantle white supremacy and challenge the individualism of capitalist culture. Interested in participating in an ASSEMBLY? Join us this Sunday, August 30 from 4-6pm PDT at the Pitch Meeting where organizers will have three minutes to present an idea for an ASSEMBLY they would like to lead this Fall. Following the Pitch Meeting, five groups will be elected to participate this Fall via a vote by members of the NAVEL community and you can sign up to join these groups beginning September 16. Learn More & RSVP via the link in our bio See more

We're looking for a fierce Community Program Intern who will work closely with the NAVEL team on ASSEMBLIES Fall 2020, an online group exhibition organized by NAVEL Collective Residents and Members, our participation in creamcake's 3HD festival, and other ongoing NAVEL Membership activities and events. Students with an interest in new models for cultural production, non-hierarchical decision making and curation, and developing experimental, multidisciplinary and subversi...ve projects in a caring, kinship-focused community are especially encouraged to apply via the link in our bio by August 31. Thanks to a grant by @lacountyarts we are excited to offer a stipend of $6,000 to the chosen intern (approx. 400 hours completed between September 2020 & March 2021). All applicants must verify they meet Los Angeles County eligibility requirements. We especially encourage members of historically underrepresented communities to apply for this position, including Queer & Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, womxn, and people with disabilities. Need help with the application? Reach out to [email protected]

The "Practical Guide to ASSEMBLIES" is an attempt to consolidate our collective learning and reflections on the creation and facilitation of braver, collaborative and caring spaces for learning. Check it out via the link in our bio This guide is a result of feedback and ongoing conversations with ASSEMBLIES participants and organizers, about the rewards and challenges of collaborative learning, as well as the fun (and less fun parts), of organizing and facilitatingin ...other words, what works, what didn’t, what might. In the spirit of this iterative and collaborative process, this guide is deliberately a google document and is a work-in-progress draft. This way, it can easily be shared and modified as the program evolves and continues to be shaped by its participants. Thinking about submitting to the open call for Fall 2020 ASSEMBLIES? Applications are due Sunday, August 23 at 11:59PM PDT. More info via link in our bio. Guide Illustrations and document design by Alice Yuan Zhang @aliceyuanzhang. Text by @amandavincelli. Contributions by all ASSEMBLIES organizers and participants. See more

This Spring, the Workshopping Work Beyond Capitalism ASSEMBLY met remotely to envision the post-capitalist workplace. Along the way, the group evolved their intent to become a space to process the pandemic together. "We realized what was really valuable was holding space in a regular cadence. In such a space we could process what was going on in the world, explore complex ideas, learn from each other, and reinforce our values in a culture constantly pulling us away from ...them." What resulted from their 12 weeks together includes an ongoing event under the working title Solidarity Club (learn more at SolidarityClub.org), as well as member work by Cedric Tai, Anise Hines, Emaline Friedman and Colombene Gorton. Explore the full archive of this ASSEMBLY via the link in bio. This ASSEMBLY was organized by Colombene Gorton @columbine & Emaline Friedman. Have an idea for a collaborative learning group you'd like to organize? The deadline to submit a proposal for an ASSEMBLY for Fall 2020 is this Sunday, August 23 at 11:59PM PDT. Learn more via the link in our bio. See more

ASSEMBLIES Fall 2020 Deadline Extended: August 23 This Fall, NAVEL welcomes all to propose ASSEMBLIES which are creatively and critically engaging with social, economic and environmental justice. While we welcome proposals of all kinds, we are particularly seeking groups with an intersectional and pleasure activistic approach to social and racial justice, black liberation, anti-racism/oppression, and with a focus on mutual aid and creative initiatives that redistribute ...resources, actively dismantle white supremacy and challenge the individualism of capitalist culture. Or, as adrienne maree brown puts it: how can we make our work towards justice and liberation pleasurable? All ASSEMBLIES will be hosted online and we will provide a $700 stipend per group for organizers and offer an anti-racism/oppression training for all participants. The deadline to submit a proposal has been extended to Sunday, August 23, 2020 at 11:59PM PST. Everyone submitting a proposal is asked to present publicly on Sunday, August 30 from 4-6PM PST. Learn more about how to propose via the link in our bio See more

, Join us to share what you’ve been up to, how you are feeling, and what you need from the community. This is an informal space to foster kinship, and exchange and discuss what’s happening at NAVEL. RSVP via the link in bio to receive the zoom info.... Hosted by Yewande Pearse, Irina Contreras and Celine Kuklowsky, who are community representatives on the NAVEL Board of Directors. @yewan_days @cocacolachola @celinekuk