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2020

December 1st, 2020 Celebrate GIVING TUESDAY with the Monira Foundation!

 

The Monira Foundation spent 2019 focused on fundraising initiatives, discussing board policies, and creating a first yearlong program calendar. All was unfortunately affected by the pandemic in early 2020 as Monira’s headquarters in Jersey City became a Covid hot spot.  Despite this challenge, the Foundation created and implemented several artistic opportunities for artists and community members alike.  Successful 2020 partnerships include the Guggenheim Museum, Mana Contemporary, The Brooklyn Rail, Pegasus, Pomegranate Arts, the City of Jersey City, and the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation.

 

Currently, Monira’s special projects include the Digital Art Month, The Attention Series, Jonas Mekas: Open Archives and Mmmm! with Machine Dazzle. Most recently, Monira partnered to present the Outdoors exhibition with social distancing community programs at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, New Jersey. Outdoors featured works by Jersey City-based artists to celebrate the reopening of the Journal Square area. Artists took over Mana’s grounds as their canvas to explore current and urgent subjects such as solitude in a world that needs to be more just and inclusive. Additional outdoor performances helped to revitalize the arts, businesses, and community.

 

As 2020 comes to an end, the Monira Foundation continues to develop exciting new programs with the support of its working board and dedicated volunteers. Monira’s mission is to expand the reach and quality of art available to the public through residencies, exhibitions, and educational programs that address urgent and ongoing community needs, particularly as these needs evolve and change.  Resiliency is key.  The success of Monira’s programs during the pandemic proves that though this is a newly established not-for-profit, it is a hard-working, well-supported, and determined arts organization.

 

With your assistance, Monira will continue this good work in 2021.  Click here to learn more and to make a secure and tax-deductible GIVING TUESDAY contribution. Together, we can truly make a difference.

 

THANK YOU!

June 25-28th

Meet our Artists-in-residence

OPEN HOUSE

Our first ever Digital Open House, in Partnership with CADAF ONLINE and Mana Contemporary.

Visit the digital studios of over 250 artist members, and join live events including studio visits, performance features, and community conversations—all mediated through a uniquely social interface.
The Digital Open House is accessible twenty-four hours a day through Sunday, June 28 at 6PM EST.

See you online!

June 27th

Machine Dazzle:

Ghost Town in the Sky

Commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim on the occasion of New York City Pride. Co-presented by Monira Foundation, Museum of Art and Design, Park Avenue Armory, and The Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

October 1-31st

Digital Art Month

NYC

A celebration of digital and new media art that happens in various public and private locations in the US, internationally and online. This initiative promotes creativity, community building and innovation, creating a dialogue between cutting edge art and a general audience.  Participating artists: Peter Burr, Anne Muntges and Jonas Mekas

October 15-17th

Film Screening: Einstein on the Beach

Monira Foundation and Pomegranate Arts present a film screenings of Einstein on the Beach, an Opera in Four Acts by Robert Wilson and Philip Glass with choreography by Lucinda Childs and text by Christopher Knowles.  The film screenings will be introduced by principal performer in the production and radio and podcast host, Helga Davis in conversation with a special guest.

October 17th

Outdoors, Lets Social Distance Together

Most recently, Monira partnered to present the OUTDOORS a social distancing community program at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, New Jersey. OUTDOORS featured works by Jersey City-based artists to celebrate the reopening of the Journal Square area. Artists took over Mana’s grounds as their canvas to explore current and urgent subjects such as solitude in a world that needs to be more just and inclusive. Additional outdoor performances helped to revitalize the arts.

October 17th

Folk Inspirations by Pegasus: The Orchestra

A concert where the audience will be swept from the intricate Spanish folk melodies of de Falla to the raw and energetic Romanian melodies of Bartók; from the joyful Armenian folk melodies of Khachaturian to Schoenfield’s modern take on Klezmer to Gershwin’s and Kapustin’s bold and exuberant jewels of classical Jazz. The program will also feature showpieces by Bach, Weber, Poulenc and even John William’s famous arrangement of Gardel’s “Por una cabeza”. Featured performers are Pegasus’s concertmaster Eiko Kano at the violin, principal Moran Katz at the clarinet with the artistic director Karén Hakobyan at the piano.

October 17th

Family Activities

Decorating face masks with our artist-in-residency.

An afternoon outdoors for families to decorate their face masks with rhinestones, beads, 3D fabric paint, neon ink stamps and more with the little ones.

October 26th

Mmmm!

Monira Mondays at Mana with Machine

An Instagram LIVE take over with artist-in-residence Machine Dazzle, an ongoing program that takes place online at Monira’s IG account on selected Mondays.

November 14th

A Manifesto for the Freedom of Attention

For the launch session of the Attention Program, Artist Stevie Knauss presents an online version of her pre-COVID Cloud City performance — “a love letter to a sound mind.” Directly addressing the alienation, atomization, and disillusionment we experience at the disintegration of shared reality, Knauss speaks in a flash-bang of clarity, and sings a burning desire to live in a better world, a desire to desire on our own terms with clear-eyed imagination.

November 25th

 Jonas Mekas Studio, Open Archives

A weekly glimpse into the personal archives of the late filmmaker and artist Jonas Mekas, who for over eight decades chronicled his life with typewriter and camera. Ranging from ephemera to video diaries, unseen letters to newly transferred reel-to-reel audio recordings, each week will focus on an item from the archives at its new home at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City.

December 7-31st

Digital Art Month

Miami

A celebration of digital and new media art that happens in various public and private locations in the US, internationally and online. This initiative promotes creativity, community building and innovation, creating a dialogue between cutting edge art and a general audience.  Participating artists: Seth Brown, REO and Shuli Sade.

December 12th

The Cinema of Attention

Using a curated sequence of classic cinema scenes, LA-based filmmaker and activist LANE STROUD will awaken the eye and dramatize the moving camera as an attentional instrument. How has cinema figured the work of looking?  Can screen-vision show the difference between looking and seeing? Pour an evening cocktail and join host D. Graham Burnett and guests for another “Second Saturday” with the Friends of Attention.