Springs From Below built on a series of spring workshops led by W.O.W. staff, including Creatives Rebuild New York artists, that focused on creatively understanding abolitionist values in the face of megajail construction in the heart of Chinatown.
Click here to learn about our series of spring art-making workshops.
8th Year anniversary: springs from below program
No Such Thing as a Humane Cage: Film Screening
The W.O.W. Project and cinemóvil nyc came together for an evening of films honoring resistance efforts against the US prison system, led and dreamed by those directly impacted. Through these films, we shared the history, wisdom, and art of political prisoners and organizers navigating survival from within, and discussed what we can apply and practice locally in the abolitionist struggle.
Springs from Below: People's Abolition Parade
Our spring parade was a beautiful art and cultural intervention at the proposed Mega Jail site. As policing and prisons are tools of oppression honed and traded internationally, we took this opportunity to ground our local fight against the borough-based jails within the larger context of global movements for liberation. Our resident artists led our community in the creation of pieces of various mediums to dream outside of violent systems in our current reality. Through puppets, windsocks, and clay bells, among other mediums, we transformed Baxter St. into a site of protest, dialogue, and joyous resistance. We asked our community in Chinatown and greater NYC to imagine a world where violence and harm are met not with cages, but with community, accountability, and care.
Carrying the spirit and joy from the parade, we gathered across from the proposed Mega Jail site to ground ourselves in Chinatown's history as a site of resistance to imagine a world where we are all liberated. Through musical performances, poetry readings, and powerful projections, we practiced waging imagination and love as resistance.
We hold so much gratitude for the artists and organizations who brought our abolitionist futures to life through their embodied performances and intentionality. Thank you to Kai Naima Williams, OHYUNG, Huda Asfour, Omotara James, Ghinwa Jawhari, Clae Lu, Mr. Lee, Chinatown Art Brigade, and The Illuminator for coming together for this wonderful night.