PROJECTS

ABC No Rio and Loisaida in NYC

The “archival laboratory” about the 45 year run of the NYC cultural center ABC No Rio is coming to pass this April ’25. Artists, activists and archivists will come together to gather in the stories of those who participated in that extraordinary experimental space on the Lower East Side of New York during decades of dynamic change in the city and the barrio.

My friends and collaborators started ABC No Rio. We accounted for our own first few years. But since then all that has happened at that extraordinary place has passed like water under the bridge. While other museums and noncommercial so-called ‘alternative spaces’ have published books about their history, the always under-funded often political ABC No Rio has not.

Our project proceeds with sadness, since the December passing of longtime director Steven Englander. Steven brought the new building through the storms and it is now under construction.

See Instagram @abcnorio for details about the building and projects ABC is running. The social media for “ABC No Rio 45 Years” has yet to launch.

planquatting

Since I was sidelined by academia, I pursued a research no one would fund – the story of squatting in Europe. Starting in 2009, I worked with a collective called SqEK, the Squatting Europe Kollective. I published six issues of an informational zine called House Magic: The Bureau of Foreign Correspondence. (Six issues are here: sites.google.com/site/housemagicbfc.) I ran a blog throughout those years called “Occupations & Properties”, which is still extant with occasional postings at: http://occuprop.blogspot.com/.

In 2015, drawing on the House Magic issues, I published “Occupation Culture: Art & Squatting in the City from Below” with Minor Compositions, and “Making Room: Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces”, an anthology co-edited with Alan Smart (Other Forms and the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest). You can access both books as free PDFs at the website linked on this page.) In addition to the blog “Occupations & Properties” I tweet and toot (Mastodon) about squatting events and issues at @joeblowenarbol.

I plan a followup to “Occupation Culture” I hope in ’26. It’s taking shape on the blog now, and I’ve been making some posts into zines in Spanish. Finally the book will come out in both languages.

Running in the Background

The long-term problem of archives and the art collection is moving forward ever so slowly. We relocated paper archives to Carbondale, IL in ’24, and I’ll work on them there. The collection remains in Milwaukee, along with boxes of books. Derek Beyer is selling off much of the stuff that isn’t related to the core of the collection — (@derek.beyer.315 on Facebook). 

Neverland

Gee, I’d love to write a novel. I’ve been making notes… And I’m always up for some odd moving image project in Madrid. I’ll be dragging around the social centers and bookish places as much as I am able. It’s all I can do to keep away.