Announcing the Zip Code Memory Project, supported by the Center for the Study of Social Difference and The Henry Luce Foundation
The Zip Code Memory Project: Practices of Justice and Repair (ZCMP), co-directed by Marianne Hirsch (Columbia University) and Diana Taylor (New York University), seeks to find reparative ways to memorialize the devastating losses resulting from the Coronavirus pandemic, while also acknowledging its radically differential effects on different Upper New York City neighborhoods. In partnership with community, arts and academic organizations, and working across the zip codes of Morningside Heights, Harlem, Washington Heights and the South Bronx, this project will gather a group of scholars, artists and activists to develop a series of hands-on artistic practices that can transform and enliven those spaces. Building on the networks of care that local communities have created, this project aims to mobilize memory and repair a sense of trust that will help us all build a sense of shared responsibility and belonging.
The Zip Code Memory Project is housed at the Center for the Study of Social Difference (CSSD) at Columbia University and supported by a CSSD Social Engagement grant funded by the Columbia University President’s Office. CSSD is pleased to announce that the Zip Code Memory Project is the recipient of a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation for a two-year term beginning July 1, 2021. These funds will serve as crucial support for the work of the ZCMP, including group meetings and discussions, reparative memory workshops, public roundtables featuring the work of reparative memorial artists, the building of an interactive website, and a final exhibition and memorial event.
Professors Hirsch and Taylor are organizing the ZCMP along with project co-conveners Susan Meiselas (Magnum Foundation), Lorie Novak (NYU), and Laura Wexler (Yale). George Emilio Sánchez (College of Staten Island) will direct the project’s participatory workshops and Maria Jose Contreras Lorenzini, Noni Carter, Jordan Cruz, Kamal Badhey, and Carina Del Valle Schorske will be among the project’s workshop leaders. Lee Xie is project manager.
The ZCMP will collaborate with local academic, arts, and community organizations including, among others, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; The Museum of the City of New York; El Museo del Barrio; The Bronx Documentary Center; City College of New York Black Studies Program and Rifkind Center for the Humanities and the Arts; Centro Civico Cultural Dominicano; The Cathedral of St. John the Divine; and Magnum Foundation.
Public Humanities and Arts Graduate Fellows working with the project include Luis Rincon Alba (NYU), Linda Aristondo (Columbia), Gabriel Carle (NYU), Bárbara Pérez Curiel (NYU), Mia Cecily Florin-Sefton (Columbia), Fadila Habchi (Yale), Kristin Hankins (Yale), Nancy Ko (Columbia), Leah Kogen-Elimeliah (CCNY), Aya Labanieh (Columbia), Guilherme Meyer (NYU/SSHRC,Canada) , Amanda Parmer (NYU), Laura Salvatore (CCNY).
With thanks for additional funding from Columbia School of the Arts; The Society of Fellows and the Heyman Center for the Humanities; Institute for Religion and Public Life; Yale University Public Humanities; City College of New York Rifkind Center for the Humanities and the Arts; Public Humanities Initiative of GSAS, NYU; Institute of Performing Arts, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
More information about the Zip Code Memory Project can be found on the CSSD website here and on the official Zip Code Memory project HERE.