Protocinema

06/11/2026

✨Mulberry Bend press round up✨

“Together, these works flip the coin of art and its elsewhere. They pass in and out of elective presentation as art, and in moving over this threshold elucidate the needs, affordances, and values that direct each sphere.” — IMPULSE Magazine

Thank you IMPULSE Magazine Frieze Documented Gabriel Allred for your thoughtful features!

Swipe to read the press highlights... 👉

06/07/2026

IIT’s A WRAP! ✨ It’s been a joy and an honor to mentor Dylan Seh-Jin Kim on Mulberry Bend, his group exhibition within Protocinema’s Emerging Curator Program with new commissioned works of Sidian Liu , Canal Street Research Association , David L. Johnson , and Paul Pfeiffer , hosted by Immigrant Social Services . Dylan was also mentored by Christopher Y. Lew and Jessica Kwok . Today, we had the second performance by Sidian Liu and are enjoying our final moments of this thoughtful and moving exhibition. Thanks to everyone who had a hand in it and looking forward to whatever the future holds.

06/01/2026

Join us for the final public program at Mulberry Bend with !

📅 Saturday, June 6 & Sunday, June 7
⏰ 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
📍127 Walker Street

For two durational performances marking the final phase of “照拂 reflect/brush”, Sidian Liu activates “cleaning tools” created from the collected hair of participants who self-identify as local caregivers and use these tools in acts of caregiving.

During the performances, audiences are invited to enter a designated cleaning zone where Liu enacts the tools through brushing, caressing, and grooming gestures learned from participants.

🔗 More details:
https://www.protocinema.org/exhibitions/mulberry-bend-public-programs

05/26/2026

05/23/2026

Join us for the public programs of Mulberry Bend!

📅 Tuesday, May 26, 8am–12pm
▪️Pop-up Redemption Center with Sure We Can & Can Fortunes
Canal Street Research Association stages a pop-up redemption center at Columbus Park in collaboration with local canner advocacy organization Sure We Can and artist Siyan Wong .

📅 Tuesday, May 26, 4pm–6pm
▪️Canner Press Conference & Community Panel
Press conference and panel conversation with Executive Director of Ryan Costelia, local artist and advocate Siyan Wong , and local independent recycler Ah Xim, as well as New York State Assembly Member Grace Lee and New York City Council Member Chris Marte .

📅 Sunday, May 31, 3pm–4pm
▪️Curator Walkthrough with Art Against Displacement
Dylan Seh-Jin Kim gives a walkthrough of Mulberry Bend organized with Art Against Displacement .nyc, a collective of artists and cultural workers that opposes predatory development in Chinatown and the Lower East Side, as well as the in-progress megajail. 

📅Saturday, June 6 & Sunday, June 7, 3pm–5pm
▪️照拂 reflect/brush Performances
For two durational performances marking the final phase of 照拂 reflect/brush, Sidian Liu activates “cleaning tools” created from the collected hair of participants who self-identify as local caregivers and use these tools in acts of caregiving. Audiences are invited to enter a designated cleaning zone where Liu enacts the tools through brushing, caressing, and grooming gestures learned from participants.

The public programs are co-sponsored by and Independent Curators International (ICI) .

🔗 More details:
https://www.protocinema.org/exhibitions/mulberry-bend-public-programs

05/23/2026

Join us for the public programs of Mulberry Bend!

📅 Tuesday, May 26, 8am–12pm
▪️Pop-up Redemption Center with Sure We Can & Can Fortunes
Canal Street Research Association stages a pop-up redemption center at Columbus Park in collaboration with local canner advocacy organization Sure We Can and artist Siyan Wong .

📅 Tuesday, May 26, 4pm–6pm
▪️Canner Press Conference & Community Panel
Press conference and panel conversation with Executive Director of Ryan Costelia, local artist and advocate Siyan Wong , and local independent recycler Ah Xim, as well as New York State Assembly Member Grace Lee and New York City Council Member Chris Marte .

📅 Sunday, May 31, 3pm–4pm
▪️Curator Walkthrough with Art Against Displacement
Dylan Seh-Jin Kim gives a walkthrough of Mulberry Bend organized with Art Against Displacement .nyc, a collective of artists and cultural workers that opposes predatory development in Chinatown and the Lower East Side, as well as the in-progress megajail. 

📅Saturday, June 6 & Sunday, June 7, 3pm–5pm
▪️照拂 reflect/brush Performances
For two durational performances marking the final phase of 照拂 reflect/brush, Sidian Liu activates “cleaning tools” created from the collected hair of participants who self-identify as local caregivers and use these tools in acts of caregiving. During the performances, audiences are invited to enter a designated cleaning zone where Liu enacts the tools through brushing, caressing, and grooming gestures learned from participants.

The public programs are co-sponsored by and Independent Curators International (ICI) .

🔗 More details:
https://www.protocinema.org/exhibitions/mulberry-bend-public-programs

05/17/2026

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.

Paul Pfeiffer is an artist living and working in New York City, who has been making work in video, photography, installation, and sculpture since the late 1990s. Known for his innovative manipulation of digital media, Pfeiffer recasts the visual language of mass media spectacle to examine how images shape our awareness of ourselves and the world.

05/17/2026

In “照拂 reflect/brush,” Sidian Liu meditates on invisibilized caregiving alongside its societal and familial expectations to sustain the conditions for everyday life. She 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.

Sidian Liu is an artist, translator, yarner, and nest builder based in New York City. Using ”housewife skills,“ she makes social relationships to facilitate trust and intimacy from a respectful distance, exploring pathways to further solidarity in our challenging times. Living in flux as a Chinese woman and an immigrant in the U.S., her works often take forms in images, performance, light-weight installations, and socially-engaged projects. 

Installation shots

05/16/2026

In the “Loiter” series, David L. Johnson de-contextualizes the hostile architecture, exclusionary designs created on the built environment, surrounding nearby standpipes, extracting them directly and repurposing them as sculptures.

David L. Johnson is an artist who lives and works in New York City. Johnson‘s work focuses on the urban built environment, pinpointing moments of slippage between public and private property. His practice uses photography, video, found and stolen objects, and installation to examine the politics, histories, aesthetics, and forms of use that define contemporary urban space. 

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.

Courtesy Fanta-MLN, Milan, Theta New York
.nyc