ALL Work
New Alternatives Workshop: Collaborative Storytelling
We returned to New Alternatives for our second workshop using the supplies donated through November’s Codify Art Supply Drive. Starting with some exercises in color, shape, and pattern, we made paintings on small tiles that could be mixed & matched into different narratives. See some of the incredible work at our blog!
New Alternatives is a non-profit that works to increase the self-sufficiency of LGBTQI+ homeless youth by enabling them to transition out of the shelter system to stable adult lives.
February 2, 2020
New Alternatives
410 W 40th St
New York, NY 10018
Workshop: Harvest Collegiate High School
Codify was invited to Harvest Collegiate High School to lead a poster-making workshop for the students. Drawing from the legacy of protest posters, we asked the students: What and who do you want to affirm? What is something in your community that you want to talk about? We were blown away by the depth and breadth of responses, which ranged from bathroom rights for trans people to gang violence and love. Check out some of their amazing work on the blog.
January 16, 2020
Harvest Collegiate High School
34 W 14th St
New York, NY 10011
New Alternatives Workshop: Mental Health & Creative Expression
With the supplies donated through November’s Codify Art Supply Drive, we conducted our first workshop at New Alternatives on the topic of creativity, mental health, and the power of sharing your narratives through art. Check out the blog post for some of the amazing paintings that came out of it!
New Alternatives is a non-profit that works to increase the self-sufficiency of LGBTQI+ homeless youth by enabling them to transition out of the shelter system to stable adult lives.
December 1, 2019
New Alternatives
410 W 40th St
New York, NY 10018
Codify Art Microgrant: Nafis White
Since our founding in 2014, one of our dreams was to support QTPOC artists through grants. In October of this year, the seed of our dream sprouted: congratulations to Nafis White, our inaugural Codify Art Microgrant recipient!
Nafis used this grant to support her residency at MASS MoCA this fall. Nafis White is a multidisciplinary fine artist who creates her work from objects commonly found in beauty supply stores; natural, industrial, and irrigation components; and the seemingly limitless horizons of our global and political landscapes.
Codify Art Supply Drive
This year, we were thrilled to build a new partnership with New Alternatives, a non-profit that works to increase the self-sufficiency of LGBTQI+ homeless youth by enabling them to transition out of the shelter system to stable adult lives. We started the Codify Art Supply Drive to empower LGBTQI+ housing insecure youth to share their personal stories and to inspire creativity by ensuring access to the necessary tools. We believe that personal narratives drive empathy, and that art is the perfect vehicle for sharing and forging meaningful connections.
BRIC and the Public Theater generously acted as donation sites to collect the art supplies that were given to New Alternatives. We collected a van filled with over 15 canvases, gallons of paint, hundreds of markers, pencils, pens, paper, yarn and so much more during the course of the drive. Thank you to everyone who donated!
November 1–30, 2019
Unity Week at the Horace Mann School
We returned to the Horace Mann School in the Bronx, where Codify members Jon Key and Jarrett Key gave keynote speeches at the high school’s Unity Week, a four-day extravaganza of sessions exploring the intersection of art and justice. The keynote and talkback highlighted Jon and Jarrett’s work, as well as Codify's journey from founding to present day. After the talkback, we led a mark-making workshop for middle school students, introducing a range of gestures, materials, and techniques for personal expression. Altogether, we worked with approximately 800 middle and high school students.
January 2019
Horace Mann School
231 W 246th St, The Bronx, NY
Codify ReConnects
After taking the summer to recharge, we came back in September to host an outdoor spin on our Codify Connects series at Prospect Park. We spent the afternoon in the glorious end-of-summer sun, holding space for our community to reunite and spend some quality leisure time together. We were astounded and inspired by the response — over 25 people joined us over the course of the day! In the days following, we received messages from attendees expressing how rejuvenating the event was. We’ll definitely be planning more of these in 2020!
Sunday, September 1, 2019
2-6pm
Prospect Park, Long Meadow
Revision: Translating Histories Artist Talk
Presented by Harlem School of the Arts Department of Art & Design in conjunction with Codify Art. Join us for an afternoon talk-back among exhibiting artists Aqeel Malcolm and Shaina Lee-Shuan Yang. The artists will share their creative process of engaging with cultural ancestries ranging from Haitian migration and Yoruba beliefs to the everyday mythologies of good luck charms and barber capes to craft contemporary portraits of deep-rooted canons.
ARTIST TALK
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
6:30pm - 7:30pm
HSA Gallery, Free & Open to the Public
On view April 12-June 2
Revision: Translating Histories at HSA
Revision: Translating Histories draws from historical revisionism to examine how symbols are translated, codified, and questioned across time. Both past events and imagined futures are denatured across multiple retellings, like a game of Telephone where each recipient passes the narrative through their own filters, whether personal or hegemonic, creating increasingly specific interpretations in the process. At each nexus, the listener becomes the teller. The four artists in Revision: Translating Histories engage with cultural ancestries ranging from Haitian migration and Yoruba beliefs to the everyday mythologies of good luck charms and barber capes to craft contemporary portraits of deep-rooted canons.
Artists: Nathalie Jolivert, Aqeel Malcolm, Oluseye, Shaina Yang
Thursday, April 12, 2018 • 6pm
Opening Reception, 6pm
Harlem School of the Arts
645 Saint Nicholas Avenue
New York, NY 10030
BAU HAUS SEMI-ANNUAL VII: THE RETROSPECTIVE
Bau Haus, in collaboration with Codify Art, is pleased to present THE RETROSPECTIVE, featuring work by Bau Haus founders and inhabitants Jarrett Key and Son Kit. This exhibition will be on view for one night only during the opening reception: Saturday, July 28, 7–10PM.
LOCATION:
516 Bainbridge St, Apt 1L
Brooklyn, NY 11233
Twice a year since February 2015, Bau Haus has gutted and reanimated itself for the Bau Haus Semi-Annual Show in the name of experimentation, self-exploration, and community-sharing. Amidst its myriad guiding structures, The Bau Haus Semi-Annual has maintained one cardinal rule: all featured work must have never been shown elsewhere.
SPECULATIVE SKINS
Currently showing at Naughton Gallery at Queen's University in Belfast, Codify member Son Kit's new sculpture and sound installation.
02.15.18 – 04.08.18
Naughton Gallery at Queen's
Queen’s University Belfast,
University Road, Belfast,
BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland, UK
Speculative Skins explores and challenges these questions and more in an internationally-focused group exhibition which delves into the relationship between science fiction and the body.
CODIFY ART:
A group exhibition at The Public Theater
The Codify team took over the walls at The Public Theater's Mezzanine for our second Codify member group show. We have a closing event coming up, but
CODIFY ART presents works by members of the eponymous collective Codify Art, a Brooklyn-based group of emerging Queer and Trans POC artists. Featuring pieces by Sharina Gordon, Jarrett Key, Jon Key, and Son Kit, this exhibition highlights the power of personal narratives as tools to engage in community healing and understanding.
ANTHROPISCINE WAR MACHINE
presented by SOHO20
Currently showing at SOHO20 Gallery, Codify member Son Kit's immersive video installation is up through March 11!
February 8–March 11, 2018
SOHO20
56 Bogart Street
Brooklyn, NY 11206
Anthropiscine War Machine continues the mythology established in Son Kit’s previous works, imagining a parallel or future world where humanity is forced to adapt to an Earth covered entirely by water. The work poetically addresses this proposed post-human evolution, as well as the fictional war machines of Gundam and the historical War Machine that visited Korea in the 1950’s, leaving a legacy of bodily destruction and canned and preserved foods in its wake.
UNTILL at Spring/Break Art Show 2018
The two artists in UNTILL, Jarrett Key and Jon Key, are black twins from rural Alabama. The stories of their ancestors were never recorded in written form. These stories travelled instead as secrets, orally passed down through generations until they became the secrets filling the graves of their kin. The works in UNTILL mark their endeavor to recreate the lost stories of their immediate family as well as those ancestral histories that were consigned to the oblivion of the Middle Passage. They arrive in the past (1619–1953), the present (1954–2018), and the future (a dreamscape) as strangers excavating answers to understand their own history.
OUR GREAT LEADER WILL NUKE YOU at Spring/Break Art Show 2018
OUR GREAT LEADER WILL NUKE YOU is an exhibition of works by diasporic Koreans currently residing in the U.S. Displaced (whether directly or generationally) by a war into a country that does not remember it, the hyphenated Korean experiences estrangement in visibility and invisibility: though they are seen as perpetually foreign yellow bodies, their status as American residents implicates them in American fears. If one Great Leader nukes the U.S., they will die with the U.S. If the other Great Leader retaliates with “fire and fury,” who dies then? Who dies first? Who do they fear for? Where do allegiances originate—from land, from blood, from whoever will spare them in the aftermath?
Framed as yet another speculation into a post-North Korean nuclear apocalypse, OUR GREAT LEADER WILL NUKE YOU asks specifically after the real and imagined survival of Korean bodies who are subject to the war games and thought exercises of their Western surroundings. The exhibition looks to food and preservation techniques as integral motifs in war, post-war, and future survival, and features work by Kira Nam Greene, Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin, Son Kit, and Taehee Whang.
Hair Paintings and Other Stories Presented by La Mama Galleria, together with The Bellwether and Codify Art
Codify member Jarrett Key's first solo show in NYC. Key grew up in rural Alabama to their grandmother singing, “your hair is your strength.” Hair Paintings and Other Stories reimagines the collective bodily memories and rituals of the Black community by engaging its narratives of strength, courage, and resilience in an examination of past, present, and future
Horace Mann Unity Week
We had a fantastic time at Horace Mann School's Unity week, where we talked to the students about Codify Art's mission of uplifting the voices of WQTPOC artists. We are inspired by them and their immense creativity and artistry.
Jon Key, Man in the Violet Suit No. 7
The Anxious Body at Angell Gallery
ANGELL GALLERY is proud to present The Anxious Body, an exhibition featuring nine artists from Toronto and New York whose works reflect how social media and the current socio-political climate are influencing contemporary figurative painting. Curated by associate director Bill Clarke, the exhibition runs from Oct.13 to Nov. 11 with an opening on Friday, Oct. 13 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
BAU HAUS SEMI ANNUAL No. 6
Nov 11, 2017
Bau Haus in collaboration with Codify Art is pleased to present Hello, World!, featuring work by Jarrett Key, Jon Key, Sharina Gordon, Son Kit, and Wael Morcos. This exhibition will be on view for one night only during the opening reception: Saturday, November 11, 7–10PM.
Codify Art Talks at Yale University
September 17, 2017
As part of Yale St Anthony Hall’s Fall Speaker Series, Codify Art spoke to students about QTPOC voices in the arts. In this exciting talk back, Codify Art discussed their work, their future endeavors and creating inclusive art in our times. This event was co-sponsored by the Yale Dean of Arts, the Afro-American Cultural Center and the Asian-American Cultural Center.
Thresheld at Underdonk
August 11 – September 10, 2017
Codify Art in collaboration with Underdonk was thrilled to present THRESHELD, a group exhibition of works by Janaye Brown, Orlando Estrada, Jes Fan, Ilana Harris-Babou, Inhye Lee, Pastiche Lumumba, and Adrienne Elise Tarver. THRESHELD explored the intimacy of routine, home as a constructed space, and ritual as a sanctified mundane.
Study Sessions: Codify Art at Whitney Musuem
June 9, 2017
Study Sessions at the Whitney Museum is a new, ongoing event series inspired by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney’s notion of study as “what you do with other people.” Codify Art facilitated a conversation around the themes of Nation and Work with Jacob Lawrence's War Series (1947) and Elizabeth Catlett's I am the Negro woman linocuts as our departure points. Framed as a writing and zine-making workshop, our Study Session examined the work as each artists' effort "to create her or his own vision of American life" and invited participants to share their own contemporary reimaginings.
Codify Connects: Happy Hour
April 4, 2017
We hosted our THIRD Codify Art Connects: A QTPOC Happy Hour at Bo’s, Tuesday April 4th from 6–9PM. Emerging artists and creative professionals were able to mix and mingle, hear about our upcoming events and others ways to get involved!
Standard Standard at Spring/Break 2017
March 1-6, 2017
Codify Art curated STANDARD STANDARD, a new exhibition of work by QTPOC artists at SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2017. The show confronted the question of whether art should ‘hide the artist’ in relation to the dynamics of power. Some artists simply cannot hide. For so long as the black mirror is held by the institution, the marginalized artist remains the subject on view. The artists in STANDARD STANDARD are not monolith but acknowledge the possibility of being viewed as such. Their work confronts, accepts, or simply exists in their responsibility as it relates to their truths. They fly their own standards, aware to which they will be held.
Brown Paper Zine & Small Press Fair at MOCADA
January 28-29, 2017
Codify Art was invited to participate in the first ever Brown Paper Zine & Small Press Fair for Black and PoC Artists at MoCADA Museum, presented by 3 Dot Zine. In this festival, Artist Devin Morris — the founder of 3 Dot Zine — curated a space where the creative efforts of Black and PoC artists working in print mediums could be celebrated.
Can I Pay my Rent tho? Workshop
Finding a way to financially sustain ourselves while sustaining our souls through art-making has always been a struggle, particularly for QTPOC artists. That’s why Codify Art was thrilled to welcome J Mase III to facilitate Can I Pay My Rent Tho?!, a workshop centered on making a space for artists to develop long-term strategies towards a life supported by our creative work. Mase walked through tangible steps on how to better market ourselves and create a sustainable financial plan.
Codify Connects: Happy Hour
September 27, 2016
Codify Art Connects is back, this time in our collective home in the borough of Brooklyn! If you made it to the last one, then you know this is a great opportunity to connect with a vibrant circle of QTPOC artists and supporters. If you didn’t make it to the last one, ya missed it. Don’t miss this one.
Work. at Outlet
June 8-24, 2016
OUTLET in collaboration with Codify Art was pleased to present WORK. featuring work by Jarrett Key, Jonathan Key, and Son Kit. Through bodies and permanent impressions on paper, repurposed imagery and cloaked soundscapes, CODIFY investigates, as individuals, the diversity and nuance within an identifier and upholds, as a collective, its larger histories.
[Dot]Com: Open Mic Nite at 440 Studios
[dot]COM, or [dot]Codify Open Mic, welcomed members of our community to share their talents at 440 Studios in the East Village! The first half of the night was scheduled programming featuring dance, music, and poetry, after which was opened it up to interested performers.
Codify Connects. Networking
February 16, 2016
Before we launch into everything we have planned for 2016, Codify Art wants to meet you and want you to meet us. This casual, afterwork mixer is an opportunity to match some faces to names and to mingle with emerging artists and creative professionals. There will be a short presentation at 7pm and happy hour specials throughout.
Projection Written By Liz Morgan