Elastic City to Host First-Ever Participatory Walks Festival, 9/27-10/7

Elastic City celebrates its fifth year by presenting the first-ever participatory walks festival. The 12-day Elastic City Walks Festival, in which all events are free and open to the public via RSVP, will take place in outdoor locations throughout New York City, September 26 - October 7.

A diverse lineup of poets, performing and visual artists are creating and will lead walks. Additionally, 20 artists and curators will convene at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn on September 28 for a total of four unique talks that will contextualize the growing genre of participatory walks, the brainchild of poet and artist Todd Shalom, who founded Elastic City five years ago.

Presenting partners include Pratt Institute's new MFA in Writing, Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and Brooklyn Museum. Hyperallergic is the festival's media partner.

Foundation support received from Foundation for Contemporary Arts & Asylum Arts.
The festival will conclude October 7 with a benefit party at the new Soho gallery Jack Geary Contemporary, for which tickets are on sale at $40/person at: www.elastic-city.org/donate

In addition to the information below, more -- including brief biographies of those leading walks and talks - can be found at www.elastic-city.org/artists

The festival will feature eight participatory walks created and led by a wide range of luminaries including performance artists Karen Finley and Michel Groisman; photographer Anthony Goicolea; urbanist Nisan Haymian; ritualists Amichai Lau-Lavie & Shawn Shafner; poet-theater artists Sarah Schulman, Todd Shalom and Niegel Smith; and aerial artist-choreographer Kristin Geneve Young.

As part of its "Crossing Brooklyn" exhibition, a selection of contemporary Brooklyn-based artists, Brooklyn Museum will co-present two walks: "Favorites," by Sarah Schulman, Todd Shalom and Niegel Smith, and "Dark Hour/Light Moment," by Anthony Goicolea.

Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation will co-present Karen Finley's, "Mandala: Reimagining Columbus Circle."