MULBERRY BEND

Opening Reception: Wednesday, April 29, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
On view: April 30 - June 7, 2026, Thursdays - Sundays 12:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Hosted at: ISS Storefront for Ideas, 127 Walker Street, Chinatown, New York

Protocinema, presents Mulberry Bend, a group exhibition with Canal Street Research Association (CSRA), David L. Johnson, Sidian Liu, and Paul Pfeiffer, curated by Dylan Seh-Jin Kim within Protocinema Emerging Curator Series 2025-2026, mentored by Mari Spirito, Jessica Kwok, and Christopher Y. Lew. Taking its title from Mulberry Bend, a name historically used to describe the area surrounding Mulberry Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown for its bend in the road, since 1755, this exhibition explores the relationship between art’s autonomy, use value, and civic function by responding to contemporary social struggles facing the community.

Emerging from a need to reckon with the public conditions that shape life in the neighborhood, Mulberry Bend considers how artistic practices might generate modes of civic engagement without reverting to the didactic or extractive models that have historically accompanied social practice. Rather than mirroring struggle through representation, the works presented here mobilize aesthetic strategies, opening space for shared forms of gathering, reflection, and action, and are situated within the lived immediacy of the neighborhood and its publics.

Mulberry Bend explores new forms of aesthetic action that embed artistic production within ongoing struggles in labor, real estate development, and collective space. The exhibition responds to the terrain of Chinatown and the abutting neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan, which have long been sites of transnational intersection and mutual aid, often reflecting the ongoing living conditions of greater New York. Today, the area is being cast by the coercive policing of public space, urban displacement framed as inevitability, neglect of maintenance, escalating ICE raids, racialized violence, and mechanisms of incarceration with the planned Manhattan jail site. As these encroaching forces converge, the need for us to imagine new forms of collective life and civic action becomes all the more urgent.

Founded by Shanzhai Lyric (Ming Lin and Alex Tatarsky), Canal Street Research Association (CSRA) centers the local legacies of gleaning, from the ragpickers of nearby Ragpickers’ Court (where Columbus Park is today) to present-day canners and trash pickers. Conducting their research within a site-responsive office, CSRA foregrounds the under-recognized and under-compensated labor of local recyclers as ecological engineers operating at the margins. As the exhibition unfolds, they will work with artist Siyan Wong and SureWeCan, a non-profit recycling center, community space and sustainability hub in Brooklyn, to set up a temporary redemption center on a select date that advocates raising the canner wage and pays five cents (set in 1982) per per can to ten cents.

In David L. Johnson’s Loiter series, the artist de-contextualizes the hostile architecture, exclusionary designs created on the built environment, surrounding nearby standpipes, extracting them directly and repurposing them as sculptures. Through this act of guerilla intervention, Johnson spotlights the violence and severity of such designs, created to prevent people from sitting or otherwise occupying a space. The artist’s contribution simultaneously exists in public space through the absence of the hostile architecture, providing a material outcome via their removal.

In 照拂 reflect/brush, Sidian Liu meditates on invisibilized caregiving alongside its societal and familial expectations to sustain the conditions for everyday life. Liu invites those who reside in Chinatown and self-identify as caregivers to participate. The artist defines caregiving broadly to encompass the performance of reproductive activities across domestic, communal, and professional contexts, all devoted to caring for others. In her temporary salon, she offers participants free haircuts and the option to have their oral histories recorded. Following the haircutting sessions, Liu creates cleaning tools from the collected hair and leads a series of public brooming performances alongside the playback of the participants’ stories.

Paul Pfeiffer presents Perspective Study, projecting footage of the construction site on 124-125 Walker St. where the Borough-Based Jail Facility is scheduled to be built. Using the video as a backdrop, Pfeiffer creates an adjunct platform for the voices and positions of stakeholders who have been involved for years in the protest against the jail construction, the construction itself, affordable housing alternatives, and/or the context and history of the site. In this effort, a growing list of community resources and ongoing public events surrounding the jail site will be publicly displayed to attune the public about the plurality of positions, sharing knowledge, organizing efforts, and municipal channels.

Responding to the needs and concerns of specific groups of residents, stakeholders, passersby, and people surrounding the exhibition and neighborhood, the artworks together meet the contemporary moment with its own uncertainties and potentialities. Mulberry Bend expands the use value of the art exhibition outside its conventional, historical orientation and explores the conditions of artistic practice as a tactical necessity with material value for the public.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a zine catalogue Protozine: Mulberry Bend which includes an original text by Dylan Seh-Jin Kim, Protocinema’s Emerging Curator for 2025-2026. Launched in 2015, the Protocinema Emerging Curator Series (PECS) is a mentorship program that provides professional training, first-hand experience, and network and camaraderie building, utilizing the exhibition-making process as a teaching tool. PECS is an incubator for emerging curators to gain hands-on experience through the process of realizing an exhibition from inception to deinstallation, including fundraising, developing concepts, building artist lists, writing critical text for Protozine, securing an exhibition space, installation, documentation, communication, promotion, press, opening events, and public programs. This program offers tailored mentorship and guidance to nurture experimental curatorial work and time working closely with Mari Spirito and invited mentor curators. PECS serves as a valuable platform for the emerging curator to present their vision and create further professional opportunities. See previous Protocinema Emerging Curator Series exhibitions here.

Read biographies here

Immigrant Social Services (ISS) was founded in 1972 to improve the conditions of immigrants and other under-resourced persons living in Manhattan’s Lower East Side/Chinatown. Since that time, ISS has diligently and proudly served multiple generations of immigrants in the neighborhood. Over the years this has taken the form of various activities and services, including English language instruction; assistance with housing, employment, and immigration; afterschool/summer programs for children and youth; substance abuse and violence prevention programs; youth employment; cultural, sports, and recreational programs. issnyc.org ISS Storefront for Ideas, located at 127 Walker Street, is a space for inquiry, curiosity, and creativity. It exists to explore community issues that matter and to co-imagine the possibilities for Chinatown, now and into the future. storefrontforideas.co

Protocinema is a non-profit arts organization that collaborates with artists and institutions to create artworks exploring the shared human experiences that connect us all. We build relationships across local and international contexts, bringing together individuals with diverse perspectives and backgrounds. With a presence in both the US and Turkey since 2011, Protocinema advances this urgent and nuanced work through commissions, exhibitions, public programs, the Protocinema Emerging Curator Series (PECS) mentorship program, and Protozine exhibition texts. These initiatives are rooted in our belief in the common ground where we live, gather, and grow. Protocinema.org

Press Inquiries: Dylan Seh-Jin Kim, dylan@protocinema.org, or Mari Spirito mari@protocinema.org +1 917 660 7332

Supporters: The Jenni Crain Foundation, an initiative dedicated to preserving the legacy of the esteemed artist and curator; Cowles Charitable Trust, New Jersey; Independent Curators International (ICI); Miyoung Lee; Michael Ito Edmonson; including Board of Trustees: Defne Ayas, Dillon Cohen, Blessing Way Foundation, David Howe, Jane Lombard, The Kettering Family Foundation, Ari Meşulam, Jason Heard, Sheldon La Pierre; Protocinema’s International Commissioning Committee: Haro Cümbüşyan and Bilge Öğüt; Adnan Yerebakan; SANATORIUM; Christian Stone, Abstract Insurance Brokerage LLC.

Special Thanks: Hamid Amini, Shuky Ayi, Morgan Becker, Gavin Brown, William Chan, Howie Chen, Jungmin Cho, Naz Cuguoğlu, Qingyuan Deng, Lars Fischer / common room, Cindy Hwang, Tamara Khasanova, Joy Kim, Justine Lee, Matthew Lyons, Gervais Marsh, Emilio Martínez Poppe, Serubiri Moses, Lila Nazemian, Liz Park, Manuela Paz, Philip Poon, Renaud Proch, Judy Reissmann, jess saldaña, Jon Santos, Caroline Taylor Shehan, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Alper Turan, Danie Wu, Simon Wu, Sarah Zhu.

Courtesies: Creative Time, New York; Fanta-MLN, Milan; Theta, New York; Skowhegan School Of Painting & Sculpture, Maine; Paula Cooper Gallery, New York; Thomas Dane Gallery, London