'Spread Love' Brings a 'Pleasure Revolution' to Fort Greene Park, Public Housing

On a recent foggy evening, members of a Brooklyn arts group dragged chairs into a circle in a Fort Greene performance space to hear from their new artist in residence, Pia Monique Murray.

Next to a whiteboard, Murray, 40, stood elegant as a prima ballerina in a green turtleneck, black leggings with socks over top, and a high bun, brandishing a blue marker.

For the next hour or so, at Murray’s direction, the Intergenerational Community Arts Council members listed specific things that brought them joy, before acting out the list together.

By the end of the session, the group was in fits of laughter from modeling such joy-inducing moments as twerking while talking on the phone, Patti LaBelle kicking off her shoes while giving a concert, and taking a long bath (not with each other, they clarified, giggling).

“Even the act of writing the list was joyful!” Murray pointed out to the group, grinning.

The Bed Stuy choreographer, performer, teacher, and producer was named ICAC’s 2023 Artist-in-Residence in January, after presenting her vision for installations that will act as immersive sets of joy and pleasure for the group’s upcoming “Spread Love” performance series.

The pop-up series launches this month in Fort Greene Park and the community centers of several nearby public housing developments in a buildup to Juneteenth, starting June 14 at the Ingersoll Community Center.

Founded in 2017 by Fort Greene arts and media organization BRIC and social justice institution University Settlement, the arts group flips the script on how Brooklyn residents—especially those in public housing—have traditionally been engaged, or left out, by mainstream arts organizations.

Instead of a top-down approach to arts programming, the grassroots group includes NYCHA residents as central decision-makers in the artistic life of the community.

Today, the Intergenerational Community Arts Council is a diverse team of 17 Brooklynites who develop programming by and for members of the Atlantic Terminal, Farragut, Ingersoll, and Gowanus NYCHA houses and surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Since its inception, ICAC has held block parties and events, created video resources to help locals weather the pandemic, and published the book “Resources for Joy” with its first artist in residence, poet Najee Omar. This year, with Murray’s help, the group will also have a performance series, a Brooklyn-themed song, and a music video to its name.

At the performance space, Murray presented plans for sets featuring silhouetted figures of joy modeled on the members’ poses, macrame plant hangers made with hair extensions (inspired by artist Betye Saar), and mirrors and frames in which people can see themselves in a positive light (inspired by artist Lorraine O’Grady).

“For me it’s about world-making,” Murray told Brownstoner. “I’m interested in creating spaces for people to live in, even just momentarily.”

Over the past three years, starting with her feminist work of photo, film, performance, and installation, “Black Daisies,” Murray has been exploring the theme of a “pleasure revolution” and bringing it to life through performance and installation.

“A lot of my work [before] was about the experience of being a Black person, and had a lot of pain and sadness and anger,” she said.

“I reasoned that I didn’t want my activism to deplete me. There has to be something left after the fight. That’s what made me really interested in a pleasure revolution.”

Raised in Crown Heights, Murray has been dancing since she was 3 years old. The founder of the Pia Monique Murray Dance Collective, she has collaborated with the Kotchegna Dance Company and RAKIA! on traditional Ivory Coast and contemporary dance performances. Murray has worked as an associate producer on the Urban Bush Women’s ensemble dance-theater show “Haint Blu” and, with arts organization Bailey’s Cafe, produced and curated the multidisciplinary Bed Stuy ethnography project “As Quiet as It’s Kept.”

While she has been a working artist for decades, Murray has recently started to see recognition for her work open new doors, giving her access to more resources and opportunities to help her help the community. “It feels damn good,” she said.

Meanwhile, at the meeting, ICAC members also got to hear the first cut of a song they’d laid down the weekend before in a mammoth, ten-hour recording session at a local studio.

Someone hit play. The members listened intently, some tapping their feet, some cheering to their own or others’ raps and riffs on what they love about Brooklyn. When the song ended, an electric sense of pride and potential filled the room.

“I feel better all of a sudden,” University Settlement Performance Project Artistic Director Baba Israel beamed over Zoom.

“I see this as being a cookout summer jam,” ICAC founding member, Farragut resident, writer, and grandmother of fifteen Tanja Richardson offered (although she wanted to do her rap over).

Murray agreed that it could just be Brooklyn’s 2023 anthem: “We need to get block parties to play it!”

Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of Brownstoner magazine.

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