Laura Nova

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LES Citizens Parade, 2018 Premiered at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s River to River Festival on June 22 and June 24, 2018. Literally described as a moving company, the LES Citizens Parade is a celebration in storytelling, dance and music of the migration and settlement experiences of long­time residents of New York’s multilingual Lower East Side neighborhood.

Artist, Athlete, Activator: Long-time Lower East Side resident Laura Nova generates site-specific, action-oriented projects which invite participatory energies of neighbors and strangers alike. She uses cardio, comedy and cooking to create activ/ist audiences who, in turn, reveal and preserve stories of both people and places. Recent commissions have included multi-year, social engagement projects like "Feed Me A Story," (co-produced with Theresa Loong) an interactive video installation and documentary video cookbook of secret family recipes; "Moving Stories," a senior citizen-led, storytelling-walking tour; and The Crescendo Project which used RFID technology to create an automated praise-singing machine for disabled athletes during a road race. In tandem with Dances For A Variable Population, she transformed residents and dancers alike into a moving company for the River to River Festival’s "LES Citizens Parade." Nova's work has been shown at the New Museum, the Museum at Eldridge Street, the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the Moving Image, Real Art Ways and many galleries including the Substation Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa and the National Arts Center in Tokyo, Japan. She has received grants from the MAP Fund, National Endowment of the Arts, New York State Council of the Arts, PBS/POV and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She has been published in DNAinfo, New York Magazine, Hyperallergic and WNYC. Her residencies include SPARC (Seniors Partnering with Artists Citywide), the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island National Monument, Governors Island, Vermont Studio Center and LMCC Workspace. Nova received a B.F.A. and B.A. from Cornell University and an M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently an Associate Professor of Expanded Media in the Creative Art and Technology program at Bloomfield College and the 2016 recipient of the LMCC President’s Award in Visual Art.

Art Seed at Marble House Project