Kick-start summer with the third annual "Coladas for a Cause," a fundraiser hosted by @connollysbar for @riserockaway 's summer youth educational programs. There will be a 50/50, a raffle on site.
Click link in bio to purchase your advance $20 entry (can pay at door too), which includes one FREE drink! 21+ to participate.
🎤✨THIS FRIDAY: OPEN MIC NIGHT AT RECESS! A FUNDRAISER🎤 Our legendary Assembly Open Mics are back - and this one is extra special!
For years, Recess Open Mics have been a space for wild experiments, first performances, vulnerable poems, various instruments, freestyles, new collaborators, packed rooms, good shared meals, a kind of energy that only @recessart_assembly brings.
This Friday’s edition is a community celebration and the final push for our Spring Donor Drive. We have ONLY 3 DAYS LEFT to reach our goal!
Join artists, alumni, fellows, friends, and first-timers for an evening of music, poetry, performance,
experimentation, and collective support for the future of Recess.
🎟️Suggested donation: $15-$30
💸No one turned away for lack of funds
⚡️Performing counts as contributing
🥘 Meal provided
🖼️ PLUS: donors + new sustainers will be entered into an Assembly Art Giveaway featuring works by artists from our community.
See you there! :)
Join @recessart for the closing reception and culminating performance of A sonata to seed whatever flourishes after the end of the American empire, Zeelie Brown’s Session at Recess.
Over the past weeks, Zeelie has transformed the Session space into a site of listening, research, rehearsal, and collective reflection. Now, the project reaches its final public form with the premiere of a new sonata developed over the course of the exhibition.
Performed live in the gallery, this one-night-only presentation brings together an extraordinary ensemble working across voice, electronics, strings, and movement—expanding the installation into a rich, immersive sonic landscape.
Featuring:
🎸 Alana Colvin (@alanaamore ) — guitar
🎛 Rena Anakwe (@aspaceforsound ) — electronics
🎤 Yatta Zoker (@yatta.sound ) — vocals, electronics
🥁 Bella Malika Shelby (@bellamalika_ ) - percussion
🌟 Special guest appearance by Dre Cardinal
Together with Zeelie, these artists will activate the gallery through sound, collaboration, and improvisation, drawing together the materials, questions, and energies that have shaped the Session from the very beginning.
Arrive early to spend time with the installation. Stay after the performance for conversation with the artists.
🗓 Friday, May 8
🕕 5-9pm
📍 Recess | 46 Washington Ave, Brooklyn
🎟 Free and open to the public
One night only. Don’t miss it.
I’m proud to be part of Recess (almost 5 years now!), an abolitionist art space that has since 2009 been building a meeting place for economic justice for artists, writers, and system-impacted youth.
We just launched our Spring Donor Drive, and I’m inviting you to support by becoming a monthly Sustainer. Even $15 a month helps sustain:
-Artist fees and production support
-100% free public programs
-Paid arts opportunities for youth
-Universal staff salaries
-Paid board governance
- Host exhibits with values aligned orgs like the Gaza Biennale and Rikers Public Memory Project
Since 2009, artists, writers, organizers, and neighbors have gathered here—not simply to present work, but to test ideas, challenge assumptions, and build new possibilities together.
From May 5–15, we’re raising $15,000 and seeking 30 new monthly Sustainers to help resource our future. Community support allows Recess to remain a space for artistic alternatives to incarceration, free programming, community mutual aid, and boundary pushing art.
Our network is our net worth! 💸
Are you with us? Make a donation and become a Sustainer today at the link in our bio.
Not in a place to give right now? We understand, please show our Dobor Drive some love by sharing 🌐 #RecessSustainer
Open Call: Critical Writing at Recess
Art writing at Recess is playful, experimental, and rooted in storytelling. Here, curiosity is championed. Writers are invited to pose questions, trace ideas, and challenge dominant narratives alongside artists.
After more than 15 years supporting writers and publishing 80+ texts by over 70 contributors, Critical Writing at Recess returns for 2026–2027 with a newly reworked cohort model.
This year we will select three writers (including one Assembly alum) to participate in a year-long program exploring how writing shapes the ways contemporary art is experienced, interpreted, and circulated.
Over the course of the program, participants will:
• publish two original texts in reflection of Session projects during the year
• collaborate on a digital reader of contemporary art writing
• gather monthly with artists, editors, and cultural workers
•organize a culminating public program
The program runs August 2026 – June 2027 and includes both virtual and in-person sessions.
Each participant receives a $4,000 stipend.
The program is open to writers at any stage of their practice. You do not need an extensive publishing history to apply — we are looking for imaginative thinkers, passionate readers, deep listeners, and caring collaborators.
🗓 Deadline April 30
Join us for an Info Session on April 13 at 6pm EST.
Learn more + apply via the link in bio.
After years of hating on snow and being grumpy all winter, I figured I'd try to enjoy it. Behold-here i am snowshoeing, tubing, and snowmobiling. And...I had fun!
This spring, @recessart presents: a sonata to seed whatever flourishes after the end of the american empire, a new Session project by Zeelie Brown ( @zeeliebrownlovesyou )
From April 2–May 9, the Session space becomes an evolving installation and performance laboratory exploring sound, ecology, and systems of value across the Gulf and Global South. Drawing from research into Black Gulf Coast histories, Haitian revolutionary musical traditions, and Indigenous rural Alabama cultural practices, Zeelie transforms the space into a site of composition, reflection, and collective gathering.
Throughout the exhibition, Zeelie will develop a new sonata through open rehearsals on a newly commissioned cello built by luthier Christo Wood, while assembling hand-painted fabric hangings, altars, and sound works drawn from years of research and travel.
Visitors are invited to spend time in the space as the work unfolds— listening to records from the artist’s personal collection, gathering through shared food traditions, and contributing to a collective prompt:
“What do you need to leave behind for you to be free?”
Opening Reception & Solo Concert
April 2 • 6–9 PM
Visit our website for the full list of public programs throughout the exhibition.
🔗 Learn more + RSVP at recessart.org
Free and open to all
Image: Zeelie reclining on a couch holding a cello courtesy of Colin Riggins and New Amsterdam Records.
Raffle to Support @riserockaway Deadline 10am Friday, April 10, 2026
100 percent of all proceeds will support RISE's youth programs: SHORE CORPS, a service learning program for high school students, focused on environmental stewardship, food justice, community planning, and civic engagement; LIVING CLASSROOM, a pre-K to sixth-grade STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) program that brings the great outdoors into the classroom, utilizing the natural shoreline for hands-on experiential learning; ENVIRONMENTOR, a science research mentorship for high school students to conduct authentic environmental research on Jamaica Bay and the Rockaway shoreline.
RAFFLE TICKETS: $25 each or $100 for five (5)
DRAWING: Friday, April 10, 2026, 10:00 a.m. (EDT)
PRIZES:
-Vino By the Sea Gift Card + Specially Selected Bottle
- Skudin Surf Week of Half-Day Surf Camp
- Kennedy’s $100 Gift Card
- JetBlue 2 Round-Trip Travel Certificates between any JetBlue-served cities
CLICK on link in bio to purchase your lucky chance at winning! Check the box for Add note/comment and type Raffle! Only persons eighteen years or older may participate.
Plus if you become Coastal Champion monthly donor at $10 or more, you will automatically get a free raffle ticket!
Applications are now open ✨
You can now apply to the 2026 Salon of Authentic Journalism.
In August 2026, we will gather in Mexico for an intensive week of collective learning, honest conversation, and skill-building for those committed to telling the truth and changing the world with rigor, care, and courage.
We welcome applications from journalists, community organizers, activists, security and cybersecurity specialists, writers, content creators, researchers, and others working at the crossroads of information, power, and community.
We are looking for diverse voices, grounded experiences, and critical perspectives. What matters to us is not titles or credentials; if you care about truth, dignity, and the real-world impact of your work, this space is for you.
📍 Mexico
🗓 August 2026
🔗 Apply now — link in bio
#SalonOfAuthenticJournalism #CommunityOrganizing #Activism #InvestigativeJournalism #Cybersecurity See less
Recess Session Open Call Reminder: Applications are due February 23rd!
Yes, the window is closing— and yes, we’re still here for your questions.
We’re sharing answers to some of the questions we get most often about the Session Open Call: timelines, eligibility, what we’re really looking for, and how to approach the application without overthinking it.
Missed our Open Call info session? No stress.
The workshop recording is now live! Find it at the link in our bio ↑
Don’t see your question answered here?
You can always reach us at [email protected]
We actually love hearing from you.
If you’ve been sitting with an idea, revisiting a draft, or wondering if your project “fits” — this is your nudge. We’re excited to read what you’re imagining.
🗂️ FAQs in the slides
🔗 Workshop recording in bio
💌 Questions welcome, always
This winter, @recessart presents Abolition Film Society: Recess, a work shaped by systems-impacted young adults in Recess’ Assembly Fellowship program and members of Life Line Creative Arts, a writing group inside Eastern Correctional Institution in Napanoch, New York. Facilitated by Session artist Kriss Li, the project unfolds through a careful, multi-stage process: reproductions of prior artworks are shared with incarcerated participants; three short screenplays written in response; and a collective production process with Assembly Fellows that transforms the scripts into a single short film.
From February 7–March 14, the Session gallery becomes a living archive of Abolition Film Society: Recess, shifting as materials, ideas, and scenes accumulate. Visit the link in the bio to learn more and register for upcoming events ↑
#AbolitionFilmSociety #Session #Assembly #prisonart
As Board Chair of @rockawayfilmfest , I invite you to a special benefit party on February 7th at the Crown Hill Theatre in Brooklyn. The evening will feature a DJ set by the legendary MGMT @whoismgmt along with performances and surprises throughout the night. I’d love for you to join us if you’re able—ticket proceeds directly support the organization’s mission as they enter their ninth year. $50 early early bird tickets currently available until the end of the week when full lineup is announced. Tix at link in bio.
RFF is at a pivotal moment of growth, working to become a year-round arts organization in a community with very limited access to cultural programming—especially during the off-season, when opportunities to gather are scarce.
