Free First Thursday - October

Thursday, October 3, 2024
3 - 9 pm

First Free Thursday

Join us on the first Thursday of every month for a dynamic evening of sanctuary and community. Museum admission is free from 3 pm through 9 pm and programs kick off at 5 pm. Explore the magic of the Museum’s gardens and galleries at night,stop by Café G for dinner and drinks, and enjoy an evening in which music connects our voices to provide a space for self-reflection, support, and healing.

Learn from the stories of Afro-Latinx cultural bearers and leaders in Boston’s Latin Quarter Cultural District with a special screening of Negrura, an audiovisual storytelling experience aiming to create spaces for conversations about colorism, anti-Blackness, discrimination, and racism within our own communities. This film was created by Neighborhood Salon Luminary and musician Fabiola Méndez, edited by local filmmaker and Luminary Paloma Valenzuela, and co-stars choreographer and Luminary Mar Parilla.

After the film we will host a conversation with Fabiola, Paloma, and Mar as they share their reflections on the film and connections to family belonging within the context of identity and race.

Neighborhood Salon Luminaries is a gathering of Boston's select artists and cultural luminaries. Neighborhood Salon cohorts nurture an active exchange of ideas between Boston's most innovative and thoughtful creatives, fostering collaborations and artistic networks while shaping Gardner Museum programming.

Activities

Art-Making | 5 - 8 pm Bertucci Education Studio Enjoy a clay-making activity led by Polly Thayer Starr Visiting Studio Artist and educator Erin Genia (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate)

Negrura Screening & Conversation with Q&A | 6 - 8 pm Calderwood Hall

About the Artists

Woman in a green dress, standing, playing the guitar

Woman with long large curly hair, pink lipstick and a sleeveless purple dress looking confidently at the camera.

Woman with long, dark curly hair, glassed, red lipstick, jean shirt looking directly at the camera

Woman with dark hair pulled into a bun with a brown shirt looking directly at camera

Fabiola Méndez - Lisette Acuna Photography

Fabiola Méndez is a Puerto Rican cuatrista, singer, composer, and educator that has taken part in a musical and cultural movement, crossing over the lines of genres such as folk, jazz & Afro-Caribbean. Her musicality and original compositions take the listener on a journey through her identities and culture, while celebrating and exploring the versatility of the cuatro puertorriqueño. Recognized for being the first student to graduate from Berklee College of Music with the cuatro as principal instrument (2018), Fabiola performs nationally and internationally and works as a composer for animated children’s show Alma's Way (PBS Kids). She is a recipient of the Quincy Jones Award, the Brother Thomas Fellowship, ASCAP Lucille and Jack Yellen Award 2022, a Children's and Family Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Interactive Media, and being selected “Latin Artist of the Year 2023” by the Boston Music Awards.

Follow Fabiola:
www.fabiolamendezmusic.com
www.facebook.com/FabiolaMendezMusic
@fabiolamendezmusic on Instagram

Photo courtesy of Integarte

Taíno Afroborikua and award-winning choreographer Mar Parrilla is the founding artistic director of Danza Orgánica (DO). She has a BA in Languages (Italian, French) from the Universidad de Puerto Rico and a Master's degree in Dance Education from New York University. She is a proud mother, an interdisciplinary movement artist, an educator, and a community organizer. Aside from working with DO, she also has her individual movement practice, and collaborates with artists of different mediums.

Follow Mar: www.danzaorganica.org

Photo courtesy of the artist

Paloma Valenzuela (She/Her) is a Dominican-American writer/filmmaker and lecturer originally from Boston. She is the creative director of La Palomita Productions and the writer/producer of the web series The Pineapple Diaries. She has taught screenwriting at Brandeis University and taught the ICA Fast Forward Film Program. In May of 2024 her short documentary film The Seltzer Factory premiered in Boston and is an official selection at Cinefest Latino Boston 2024.

Follow Paloma: Instagram: @iamlapalomita
Website: www.lapalomitaproductions.com/

Photo courtesy of the artist

Erin Genia, Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist, educator and community organizer specializing in Indigenous arts and culture. Genia’s work in these areas is focused on amplifying the powerful presence of Indigenous peoples on the occupied lands of America in the arts, sciences and public realm to invoke an evolution of thought and practice that is aligned with the cycles of the natural world and the potential of humanity.

Erin has an M.S. in Art, Culture and Technology from MIT, an M.P.A. in Tribal Governance from the Evergreen State College and studied at Institute of American Indian Arts. She was awarded the 2021 Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Grant from Mass Cultural Council, the 2019 MIT Solve Indigenous Communities Fellowship and the AAF/ Seebacher Prize for Fine Arts in 2018. In 2021, she was named one of the ARTery 25, “Artists Of Color Transforming The Cultural Landscape” of Boston.

Advance registration is encouraged for free timed entry tickets for Museum general admission.

Registration opens two weeks before the event for the general public and four weeks in advance for members. Reserve your tickets online by clicking the button above.

Limited tickets will be available in-person at the Museum’s main entrance, starting at 3 pm, the day of the event. Please note that day-of tickets are not guaranteed.

Questions about accessibility? Please call the box office at 617 278 5156.

Free days are supported in part by the Wallace Minot Leonard Foundation, the Board of Advisors 2022 Fund for Access, and Thomas G. Stemberg Charitable Foundation.

The Neighborhood Salon is supported in part by the Anne Hawley Fund for Programs and the Polly Thayer Starr Charitable Trust.

The Museum receives operating support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which is supported by the state of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts.