'Powerful Womyn Powerful Words' Tonight in El Barrio

Community calendar

Navy Assures Serrano: We Have No Intention of Returning to Vieques

Last Thursday during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Inhofe (R-Okla.) asked the Navy whether it had plans to return to Vieques, since it seemed well placed to respond to a variety of needs in Latin America. Although the Navy was non-committal in its response, Congressman Serrano immediately asked the Navy to clarify its position on Vieques and sought assurances that it had no intention of returning to Vieques.
On Friday, Serrano received confirmation from the Navy’s Congressional Relations office that the Navy has no intention of reopening Vieques as a training range. “I am pleased to hear that the Navy has no plans to return to Vieques,” said Serrano. “The people of Vieques have suffered enough. I am glad that the Navy now realizes the harm that has been caused, and agrees that this painful chapter in the history of Puerto Rico must remain closed.”

Source: Congressman Jose Serrano's statement on Vieques in The Serrano Report

Empire of Desire at MediaNoche

Featured exhibition

Empire of Desire
A multi-screen installation by Ted Ciesielski
March 28 – May 2
Gallery hours: 1 to 7 p.m. and by appointment, Wednesday through Saturday
Opening Reception: 6-8 p.m., Saturday March 28
Artist's talk: 6 p.m., Tuesday, April 16

MediaNoche, Manhattan’s Uptown gallery devoted to new media, presents Empire of Desire, a multiscreen installation by Ted Ciesielski.

The phallic cliché of the Empire State Building returns as a modern-day totem privileging women through its projections. A woman's body becomes a pliable and supple surface for viewing not so much the classic nude but images of the Empire State Building that conceal her.

Ciesielski creates an elusive metaphor of power that weds steel and brick to flesh, resolving the public and private spheres in a manner closer to pornography than art and rendering such distinctions senseless by the brute force of the imaging. Think Abu Ghraib.

For Ciesielski the "installation is a visual bridge between sexuality and architecture in New York City: Multi-screen, multi-color, multi-woman, and one desire. It is the result of many years of seduction from both sides."


ARTIST'S BIO:

Tadeusz "Ted" Ciesielski is a filmmaker from Poland, where he studied at the famed Lodz Film Academy. During the eighties, he directed music videos for KULT, SIEKIERA, and Cityzen GC. In the nineties, he travelled with a film camera throughout Europe and China, eventually settling in New York City. His obsession with urban landscapes results in highly personal and interpretive projects about the Twin Towers, the Empire State Building, billboards, oil tanks and garbage. Some titles are: Requiem 2001, My Empire, Last Letter, and My Gates.

ABOUT MEDIANOCHE:
Judith Escalona, director’s statement
Our media practice is rooted in community, utilizing technology as a tool for transgressing the dynamic, cultural space of Spanish Harlem in order to engage, incite, and transform the dialectics of alternity and marginalization.

MediaNoche, a project of PRdream.com
MediaNoche is the place where art, technology and community converge. We offer artists working in new media exhibition space and residencies in order to provoke a dialogue that blurs all lines of marginality and alternity.

Unique among arts and technology groups in New York, MediaNoche is directly linked to the oldest Latino community of the city, Spanish Harlem, and has showcased a roster of local and international new media artists.

MediaNoche
1355 Park Avenue, Corner store at 102nd Street, Manhattan
For more information, (212) 828-0401 or visit www.medianoche.us.

source: MediaNoche

Note: Judith Escalona will talk to PRSUN Radio next Wednesday night at www.blogtalkradio.com/prsunradio. See related entry below.

The NYC Collective of the Puerto Rican Photographic Society to meet in El Barrio

We are still organizing a local photo collective of the Puerto Rican Photographic Society, a global group especially aimed at highlighting the work of boricua photographers.

Our next meeting in NYC is at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 2, Cemi Underground, 1799 Lexington Ave. @ E. 112th Street, East Harlem.

You are invited to join us if you are interested in being part of the photo collective.

We are a grassroots group.

PRSUN Radio talks with financial pro Xavier Serbia on building wealth

Xavier Serbia, a former Menudo, is now a financial expert and he is the author of a new Spanish guide titled "La riqueza en cu4tro pisos." It's a guide providing readers steps on how to strategize and build financial independence.

Serbia has become a leading financial voice, especially within the U.S. Hispanic media.

Listen to my interview with Serbia in English about his guide and what he has to say about building wealth. Xavier breaks down the steps he thinks people should take to work on achieving financial independence.

Xavier Serbia will be in the Bronx for a book presentation at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 26, at the Barnes & Noble at Bay Plaza in Coop City. Serbia says he hopes to interact with people and discuss his book, which he describes as a "roadmap" to wealth.

For more information about the writer, go to his website at www.xavierserbia.com. -- Clarisel Gonzalez

Xavier Serbia's book is also available at the PRSUN aStore.