The Guardians is a creative installation honoring the small businesses, cultural organizations, and nonprofits who help sustain community and connection in the East Village/Loisaida neighborhood.
Artists
Mark Wilson, Jr, (artist) is a NYC based self-taught sculptor and installation artist using found objects. After playing football at the University of Cincinnati and earning a Master's degree in Applied Behavior Analysis, Mark picked up art as a therapist. He marries the unveiling of African American heritage with Afrofuturism to establish instruments for liberation. Repurposing often hidden narratives such as the Tennessee Rifles and Harlem Hell Fighters. Mark Anthony fuses Afro indigenous influences with history to assemble sculptural guides. He seeks to use charged materials that are familiar to self or family as adornment. Mark Anthony Wilson Jr has exhibited at The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, participated in residencies at The Elizabeth Foundation for Arts and Worthless Studios, and received support from Black Artist Fund, Seattle Arts & Culture, LAAMS NYC, and 757 Street Art. He serves as co-facilitator for the LES Young Artists of Color Fellowship at FABnyc.
Miguel Valderrama (lighting designer) creates work with a focus on a constant exploration of lighting as a medium in different and changing environments and unconventional spaces. He has been an active theatrical lighting designer in New York City for the last fifteen years, working regularly with Latinx theaters and directors. He served as the director of lighting for the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn Festival 2012-2018, for Photoville 2015-2021, and for Teatro Stage Fest 2009-12. Miguel is a professor of Lighting Design at the the department of Entertainment Technology at the New York City College of Technology – CUNY. Originally from Columbia, Miguel is a long time resident of Umbrella House on Avenue C in Loisaida.
Meet the Organizers
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Fourth Arts Block
Fourth Arts Block (FABnyc) is a team of artists and organizers working to preserve, strengthen, and grow the cultural vibrancy of the Lower East Side. FABnyc works in partnership with the community – bringing artists and arts strategies to fight physical and cultural displacement, build collective power and collaboration, increase equity and access to cultural resources and public space, and support local resiliency and community health.
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Cooper Square Committee
The Cooper Square Committee (CSC) works with area residents to contribute to the preservation and development of affordable, environmentally healthy housing and community/cultural spaces so that the Cooper Square area remains racially, economically, and culturally diverse.
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FABnyc has a membership of 45 cultural organizations located throughout the Lower East Side. For more information our network of nonprofit theaters, dance studios, and art spaces see our Members page on the FAB website.
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The East Village Independent Merchants Association (EVIMA) is a merchant-led, membership dues-based organization specifically helping businesses and residents in the East Village.
Discover The Guardians
Each of the Guardians has found their home in 12 different locations across the neighborhood— each with a story to tell about the people and places that have, and continue to, represent the ethos of guardianship.
