Dear Friends,
Do you believe in miracles?
The Invisible Dog opened in October 2009 in the midst of a major crisis and a four months after, Sylvain Cypel, correspondent for Le Monde in the U.S., wrote a story titled: A Giant Ant in the Heart of a New York Miracle.
Today in the midst of another crisis we believe in another miracle.
The Invisible Dog was born thanks to a crisis. It will brave another one.
Running an arts space may be the most beautiful job in the universe, but it requires to always be aware, attentive and ready for radical changes.
It would be so tempting to write a long litany of complains about "this uncertain time". But that will sound too French, wouldn't it?
Instead, let's talk about an exciting future for The Invisible Dog we can build together. That sounds more American, amirite?
To see the future, a quick look to the past is essential:
March 2020: New York City shuts down for confinement. For two, three weeks? A month? Ah, we were naive!
April: we canceled all our programs and lost 60% of our revenues. Desperate, I tried to become a YouTube star with Lucien Chef Ambition's cooking lessons online. No stardom but we offered some comfort and we surely had a lot of fun.
May: as harmful as it was, the sudden halt had multiple benefits like falling asleep at 8pm for instance but what else? Supporting our community and our artists, more than ever.
First concerned were the 27 resident artists of The Invisible Dog.
None of them left, holding tight what I always called the heart of The Invisible Dog. This year, they kept this heart beating.
One of them, Anne Mourier, created The Taking Care Fund in support to artists in immediate need. $18,000 were raised and redistributed to 36 artists through the Invisible Dog with one simple rule: no endless application, the artists were invited to send a short email telling us why they needed money. The funds were wired in the next 24h. There was no need to add more burdens.
June: With Raja Feather Kelly as curator and producer, The Invisible Dog commissioned 15 brilliant LGBTQ+ artists and launched Pride Music Festival. We created a durable program to be renew in 2021 and beyond and it gave us the chance to gossip everyday over the phone.
July : Coney Island beach every day from 7 to 10am was magical. That explains my nice tan on the video.
August: Dancers Athena Malloy and Connor Voss were the first to re-enter the space for a two weeks long residency. They were like a kiss on a sleeping beauty. And Coney Island was still magical.
September: we re-opened The Invisible Dog with three projects: The Other Side, a massive installation by Steven and William Ladd, narrating their nine years collaborations with inmates in the prison of NYC, Static Apnea directed by Christopher McElroen, a performance for one audience member and one performer and Theater in Quarantine - Closet Works by Joshua William Gelb and KatieRose McLaughlin, where a closet turns into a stage.
And we did more (ah, the famous french list): we distribute fresh fish to dozen of artists thanks to the generosity of Marc Agger, we moved La Salle A Manger (SAM) into the garden of The Invisible Dog and our dinners became more romantic, Shannon Finnegan's bench returned to its sunny spot on the sidewalk of Bergen street, and I wrote you a dozen of confined newsletters, with my broken english but from the bottom of my heart, perfectly designed by Arly Maulana, our gallery manager without whom all of these communications would have been less sexy!
And as an undreamt reward, our 2018 fundraising video won five NYC Emmy Awards: Best Director, Best Writer, Best Performer, Best Photography, Best Audio.
For the fun, we created a video-shelve with all the fundraising videos make over the past nine year, all of them directed by Mac Premo. We made more movies together than Alfred Hitchcock and Grace Kelly.
The crisis has offered us an opportunity to re-think the way we work, collaborate and support artists. And this reflexion will shape not only the program of 2021 at The Invisible Dog but also our mission.
So, if a miracle happened in 2009 why don't we just believe that another one can happen in 2021?
We have the energy for, now we need your support.
Thank you for reading, for sharing and for donating.
Lucien Zayan,
Founder - Director of The Invisible Dog Art Center
Video Credits
Written and performed by Lucien Zayan
Directed, filmed and edited by Mac Premo with assistance from Danny Rash
Sound Design by Jad Abumrad
Animation by Mac Premo and Danny Rash
Idea developed by Lucien Zayan, Mac Premo and Adrianna Dufay