Sunday August 10, 2025 | 1:00 PM
Location: RU House at Colonels Row, Building #404B on Governors Island (map)
Ferry information | Video directions
Free Workshop
Limited to 15 participants. RSVP required.
Join Brooklyn-based Polish-American social practice artist Asia Sztencel (2017, 2020-2021 RU alum) for an intimate, participatory workshop exploring the emotional landscapes of immigrant memory through the lens of soap operas and telenovelas.
In this workshop, participants are invited to bring the title of a show their mother watched, a telenovela their grandmother loved, or a series they themselves remember fondly. These titles and stories will be used as source material for a communal memory painting by the artist, incorporating landscapes and scenes that connect personal history with shared experience.
This workshop is part of Sztencel’s ongoing project, which investigates the relationship between immigrant nostalgia and the static backdrops of television melodrama. By dissolving these remembered settings into collective visual works, the project creates space for connection, reflection, and shared belonging.
Telenovelas. Soap operas. Immigrant memories, the landscapes of longing.
A shared remembrance of what we hold, what we miss, what makes us one.
About
Asia Sztencel is a first-generation Polish immigrant, Brooklyn-based artist. Sztencel is inspired by the role of the artist in community, emphasizing sensitivity and a respectful approach. Through conceptual practice and traditional craft, her work offers a personal exploration within the larger narrative of the immigration experience. Highlighting landscape as a narrative, dissecting the feelings of exile, recall, and longing.
RU is grateful for the partnership with Governors Island Arts.
