LAND: REFLECTIONS ON SPACE & POWER

Project for Empty Space is thrilled to partner with LAND Collective for their first publication, “LAND: Reflections on Space & Power.” This publication was developed and presently being printed at PES’ Story Lab in Newark. The 86 page, 8” x 10,” risograph and digitally printed, perfect-bound art book was created in our PES print lab.

The LAND Collective is a group of cultural producers and artists based in Newark whose mission is to uplift marginalized voices through art and storytelling. They aim to cultivate space and community that takes intersectional approaches to explorations of justice, identity and equity.

For their first publication, LAND Collective joins together to address the central questions: what is our relationship to space and how do we define power? Rooted in Newark, the artists and storytellers, reflect on their own unique positions and relations to the city in order to offer insights into how we understand, see, and impact the land in which we occupy. Collectively, they retell stories of migration, policing, protest, water, and gentrification.

The publications contributors include co-founders Alliyah Allen and Nene Aïssatou Diallo, along with artists Chrystofer Davis, Gabriel Ribeiro, and Jillian M. Rock.

PES’ Story Lab partners with creatives and practitioners to develop printed matter that cultivates discourse around important social justice issues. We aim to promote artists whose work is oriented around social impact and create safe spaces for those artists and their audiences alike. 

This project is supported by the Express Newark Third Space Award, and will be presented as a virtual exhibition hosted on www.landnwk.com from December 14th, 2020 to March 15th, 2021. 

About the publication contributors: 
Alliyah Allen is an arts administrator, curator, writer, and visual artist based in Newark, NJ, who focuses on the experiences, narratives, healing practices, and transformational image practices surrounding blackness, spirituality, and womanhood. Allen relies on a pivotal memory and shares with us her relationship to the city, finding balance, and claiming her power.

Chrystofer Davis is a Newark, NJ native and 10-year fine art photographer and filmmaker, whose work is influenced by street shooting/portraits and contemporary culture. Davis’s documentation of the ongoing crisis of lead contamination in Newark’s drinking water reminds us that the people are alive, present, and committed even in crisis.

Nene Aïssatou Diallo is an arts administrator and interdisciplinary artist based in Newark, NJ. As an artist who began making through photography, she is drawn to the ways family albums serve as collections of family histories. Diallo relies on her family's photographic archive to think through her personal narrative, and to ask questions, recall names and stories.

Gabe Ribeiro is a self-taught artist born and raised in Newark, NJ. His practice is at the intersection of street art, streetwear, and community activism and it begins in the context of being a first-generation immigrant living in a city. Ribeiro reflects on the ever changing city of Newark, and the erasure of culture, truth, and people that are at stake amidst the disruption that is gentrification.

Jillian M. Rock is a photographer, printmaker, writer, and a Mellon Scholar. Rock situates her readers in the streets of Newark, drawing parallels between the cruelties of slavery and modern-day racism played out in police brutality.