Launching STUDIO BIRDHAUS
Donation protected
Support STUDIO BIRDHAUS as we launch into the world!
STUDIO BIRDHAUS is a fine-art documentation & design studio (Circa 2012, LLC 2022) founded by Brandon Perdomo, focusing on narrative-based media with a focus of photography. birdhaus supports community-centered interview work and public programming including exhibitions featuring interdisciplinary storytelling & testimony of the body, new artworks, performance art, music, and public discussion.
In short! We make interviews with artists, community organizers, activists, and researchers, with particular focus to communities whose narratives are historically neglected.
We need your help to support collaborator fees, printing, and public sharing of these works!
Goals
- ≥ $18,000 :: *tech upgrade: computer *subscriptions: adobe suite, encrypted email suite, websites, transcription software *printing of a monthly interview-based zine *marketing *event production (1 collaborative exhibition) *safety-net for tech failure & repair *accessibility consultation *travel to present work at the European Social Science History Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden *commissions for at least 20 narrators
- ≥ $22,000 :: all of the above + *intern stipend *graphic designer *event production (3 collaborative exhibitions) *commissions for at least 20 more narrators
- ≥ $25,000 :: all of the above + *commissions for at least 20 more narrators
Projects currently on their way
Interviews focused on :: *Iran, 2022 *reproductive healthcare, body autonomy & safety *accessibility rights *dance and music in diaspora *musician and artist advocacy *efforts in mutual-aid *housing rights *immigration & refugees
Recently..
- Diversity Project Grant :: Lift Every Voice: Racism, Power, and Activism in the Arts: A Conversation with Civil Rights Icon Angeline Butler :: Columbia University - OADI
- Bluestockings Cooperative (NYC) Zine of the Week :: Mx. Sugar Mamasota
- Listen Here... :: online exhibition - Columbia University Oral History M.A.
- There's a lot to say so we'll say this :: pop-up exhibition :: Bessie’s Brooklyn
- Recorded interviews + photographs :: LEIMAY, A Meal :: HERE Arts Center
- Recipe Storytelling Circle :: LEIMAY, A Meal :: Here Arts Center, NYRP
About Brandon
- Brandon Perdomo is an interdisciplinary artist fascinated with self-reflection and alterity, which serves as the engines for his work in photography, video, performance, sculpture, installation, and socially engaged intervention.
- Perdomo’s work in oral history interviewing as a social practice provokes a reclamation of narrative power, featuring narratives concerned with the experience of being in a body, and often a negotiation as other, with focus towards questions of race, place & history, and sexuality & gender.
Testimonial..
- "One of our board members recently summarized the impact Brandon had in his time with us, noting that she has “never been so moved emotionally” as when listening to his presentation on human rights and the connections between the Holocaust and challenges today." - Anne Frank Center For Mutual Respect, RE: Keynote Presentation at the Florida Holocaust Museum
Donations of any amount help us activate use of public facilities for project development, collaboration fees, and administrative costs. Any small amount can help make this work accessible to a larger community. Our projects strive to amplify the intersectional participation of artists from all over the world. We look forward to this year's collaborations and fair use of services - which, as always, means enabling and advocating for fair pay for artists and collaborators. -- See WAGE Fee Calculator
More about..
Early days between Lake Erie and the Big Dipper
My best friend Steph rang the doorbell of the house I moved into with some boys from Rochester. We were undergrads living between the city of Dunkirk and the village of Fredonia which was in the town of Pomfret.
About a mile and a half further North, you'd reach Lake Erie. Depending on the season, you'd either land the waves of the fresh lake, or its frozen ice volcanoes, just across from Toronto. About three doors down and across the street, you'd find the Big Dipper Ice Cream Parlor - they still have my favorite Rocky Road, and its neon sign still shines through what was my bedroom window.
Steph rang the doorbell, and it sounded like a cuckoo clock. A roommate and I gave each other a look and shouted BIRDHAUS!
Ideas and their gifts
birdhaus was an idea shared with friend Ja, who then told their professor Pe, who called me to his office for a secret meeting. After sharing the idea of using the living room to host monthly salon-style events including artworks, videos, experiments, food, and a lot of music, he came along with JV and installed picture molding and gifted me all the materials I'd need for hanging just about anything without harming the wallpaper.
We invited hundreds of students, professors, townies, traveling artists, friends, and families to our space during first Saturdays of each month during the university calendar for three years, from 3 November 2012 to 7 March 2015. Other events included the United States Department of Arts & Culture (USDAC) People's State of the Union , a ceremony and potluck with Miguel Sague (Taíno), and other storytelling circles.
For those three years, we held over 14 events.
There were no grants, there was no funding.
Still, we partied.
When the wind picks up..
During the pandemic, I dug deeper into the social practice of storytelling, joining the 2021 cohort of Columbia University's Oral History MA program. My thesis titled SHEDDINGSOMETHINGSHEDDING includes narratives of artists amid the ongoing pandemic and reflections of becoming relating to their work. This work has been featured internationally during the UNFIX festival (2021) and is featured as printed matter by the Bluestockings Co-op in NYC. Looking forward, I am excited to bring this work to the European Social Sciences History Conference - the largest conference on social history in Europe - April 2023, in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Donor Gifts
- ≤ $10 :: name included on website supporter page + printed zines
- ≤ $50 :: all of the above, + a signed zine
- ≤ $100 :: all of the above, + a signed print (~ size A3)
- ≤ $350 :: all of the above, + a specialized interview session *or* photo session
- ≤ $700 :: all of the above, + request a reasonable graphic design job from our team
- ≥ $1000 :: ask and ye may receive
Organizer
Brandon Perdomo
Organizer
Staten Island, NY