Homecomings!
A major update on my recent comings and goings, D🌎T’s positive transformations, and many chances to gather together soon!
Dear dear you,
Sometimes, the most profound revelations arrive when I’m tangled up with a complete stranger in a web of purple yarn. The soft constraint of a familiar material used unusually, the anxious charge created by intimate proximity, the real-time negotiation of novel relations between humans—it’s an intoxicating alchemy that never fails to surprise. I’m sure you know just what I mean… What’s that? You don’t? Well, perhaps I do owe you a bit more of an explanation.
Thanks for your patience with this latest missive. It’s been quite a time—a whirlwind of chaos and disturbance at all scales, from the personal to the political. Most days I wonder with uncertainty about the future and reflect on what I ought to—what I can—do. But amid it all, I guess I’m keeping on keeping on doing what I know best: gathering different kinds of curious people together, sharing the tools I’ve encountered for conflict and connection, wielding art as a weapon of love, and learning learning learning (and sometimes unlearning) along the way from other brilliant humans—all while using karaoke as a pretty good vehicle for connection and vulnerability ;) !
Believe it or not, I’m just getting started. Or rather, we are just getting started. Change is the only constant we can count on during these times of uncertainty, so change we—D🌎T—will. I’m about to share some new ways you can keep in touch and support this work—so I hope you’ll continue to be a part of it, too!
Let me first catch you up on what I've been up to since I last landed in your inbox, which feels like decades ago. Had I even mentioned my new-ish book back then? It’s called Past Words, König published it with KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Kunsthal Gent. The book collects nearly 20 years of my writing in one place, including thoughts on art, design, curating, exhibitions, and time. Years ago, when KW asked me to make this book, I hesitated. What value do these old old thoughts have for others? Is it worth wasting the paper? But in making the book, I learned one important thing: we change over time, but—perhaps miraculously—we often stay true to our core. It turns out that what I’ve been saying about the transformative power of art and design, bumpiness and friction, attention, and more has been remarkably consistent over these past decades. Who knew? Since September, Past Words has already enjoyed experimental book launch events in Barcelona, Berlin, Ghent, Richmond, San Francisco, and Toronto. To celebrate my renewed status as a full-time New Yorker (!), we’re going to launch it one more time here—on our home turf at the MoMA PS1 bookstore on May 10. Mark your calendars, there will be reading, writing, participation, performance—and maybe, just maybe, some timely karaoke ;)!
The massive lift of this book ran in parallel with the most significant initiative I’ve undertaken so far over these past 47 years: founding, directing, and expanding Department of Transformation into the fully-fledged artist-organized group it was always meant to be. We’re working our best to develop new methods for the arts to connect and heal ourselves, our communities, and our planet. At its start, D🌍T was—let me now admit—mostly just lonely old Prem, cruising the country in a yellow hybrid pickup truck with Ohio “TRNSFRM” plates. My job was to visit art and design schools around the country leading experimental workshops on collaboration. But D🌏T grew from there, when it landed at Canal Projects in NYC for a generous residency that allowed me to prototype new programming formats, from reading groups to sound baths, one-on-one conversations to public sessions with artist-therapists and others, in collaboration with brilliant multi-hyphenate folks from the fine and healing arts. During this time, I was also able to produce some larger public events with other artists that played with audience expectations, performance, and participation—including karaoke for upwards of 1000 people! Then, around the 2024 US general election season, D🌎T embarked on its second teaching tour, commissioning talented artists and facilitators to lead more in-depth workshops with us at public art and design schools including University of Kentucky, Lexington; Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond; Penn State in State College; and College of Staten Island and Social Practice CUNY in New York. This time our workshops centered on sharing skills for conflict, connection, and collaborative art-making—and sometimes all three, wrapped up in skeins of yarn.
And now, D🌍T is molting yet again: last summer, we were given the incredibly generous gift of a studio residency and fiscal sponsorship by The Clemente—in my humble opinion one of the most inspiring stalwarts of the downtown NYC scene. At home in our new D🌎T HQ, we have reemerged as a true team: a tightly-knit cohort of four humans (myself included) with the urgent goal of mobilizing the arts to transform society, one person at a time. With this little gang, we’ve already pulled off major public and closed-door, foundation-funded convenings, and are starting to roll out our next season of programming. March through May 2025 alone feature everything from multi-format public events (hybrid reading groups; protest karaoke; group workshops with artists, therapists, and mindfulness practitioners; collaborative pedagogical exhibitions; day-long convenings) to grant-funded think tank sessions that reimagine the relationship of institutions of art and medicine—plus some other wild things to boot. And in the Fall, D🌍T will roll out its third teaching tour, which already looks like it’ll bring us (and our band of merry artist-facilitators, puttering around in a purple sprinter van!) to Detroit, St Louis, and beyond. We’ll also continue to document the methods we pick up along the way in a compendium called The Cookbook: an offering of experimental “recipes” for creative connection and more.
Even jotting down this incomplete resumé, I’m realizing it’s a lot of things! For me, for sure, but also for our team, as well as for others who are trying to sync up with us in one way or another.
And so, I’m thrilled to share a new way to stay connected: D🌏T Dispatch, a new, more tightly organized monthly-ish e-mail newsletter. It will focus mostly on the facts: where D🌎T will be landing next; when our upcoming public gatherings are; how you can transform your work through readings, references, music, videos, and more. Basically, if you’re less interested in my occasional bi-annual meanderings and more interested in knowing how and where to find us, please click this link and become part of D🌍T.
All of the work that we’re doing requires support of different kinds—emotional, practical, conceptual, and, for sure, financial. To keep on keepin’ on, D🌏T needs help from many people. And so, I’d like to make a humble appeal: If you believe that the arts can transform themselves into a place for human connection and care, collaboration and community, conflict and consensus, would you support our work now and in the future with a simple donation? Every amount, whether $10,000 or $10, counts more than you know.
You can use the link below to make a tax-deductible contribution through our generous fiscal sponsors at The Clemente. (To make sure it reaches us, click on “Write us a comment” and type “Department of Transformation” or “DOT.”)
And if you can’t support us now: no worries! Maybe you know someone else to whom you could forward this email who might help? And even if that’s not an option: no worries! Just knowing that we’re going at this together, that you’re in conversation with me here, is the most important thing. Showing up for the people and things that matter to you can take many different forms and scales, so in the weeks and months ahead, we hope to invite you into our work in whatever way resonates for you.
Before I sign off, let me share a handful of the upcoming events we have in the next six weeks—opportunities to meet us and many others. All of these sessions are free and open to anyone. There’s a webpage to find a listing of all of them. We’ll announce these on other forums including our growing Instagram page, but let’s start here:
🖼️ March 30: Opening of Re: Turning, Parsons 2025 MFA Fine Arts Thesis Show
Curated by P! Krishnamurthy / Department of Transformation.
This semester, it’s been a privilege to mentor talented MFA students at Parsons and Yale, trying to introduce collaborative methods for them to use in creating their exhibitions. This opening is the first one, where we’ll test it out and see what happens! I’ll also be giving a participatory curator’s tour on Friday, April 4. It should be wild and wacky!
📖 April 2: Transforming Texts #2, an experimental book group at The Clemente
We’ve restarted D🌍T’s monthly offering, where we prototype new ways of reading together with a rotating host of co-facilitators. At this second session, we’ll focus on Imperfect Solidarities by Aruna D’Souza and The Arab Apocalypse by Etel Adnan, co-facilitated by Talia Shiroma and myself. Come for some format hijinks plus Palestinian food!
🎤 May 1: Another Protest Song: Karaoke! by Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere at The Francis Kite Club
As part of a roving series of unique karaoke events in partnership with other artists and institutions, D🌏T has curated the next session of Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere’s long-running protest karaoke project. Feel free to pick a tune or cheer others on! On International Workers’ Day, it seems that we should each be able to find something to passionately protest through collective song.
🧘🏽 May 4: Experimental mindfulness & connection workshop at The Clemente by Jonathan Bruce Williams & Payal Parekh
D🌎T is also continuing its series of experimental events focused on individual and group healing through the arts. Each of these sessions invites hybrid artistic / healing practitioners to test out a new methodology in public. This session, led by techno-dystopian artist / budding yoga instructor Jonathan Bruce Williams and art advisor / mindfulness teacher Payal Parekh, will (mis)use technology to create connection instead of alienation. This program also kicks off a pop-up presentation of Jonathan’s new somatic lightbox works from May 4–11—not to be missed! The pop-up is viewable by appointment only; please write us if you’d like to check it out.
📗 May 10: Past Words book launch at MoMA PS1 bookstore
This is the one I’ve been waiting for: after launch events around the world that have incorporated nearly all of the book’s main collaborators, we’ll land back on home turf in NYC to stage our most extensive, weirdest event to date. It’s probably clear already, but let me spell it out: this won’t be a typical book launch! Expect music, writing prompts, small group conversations, out-loud-readings, and, of course, a little karaoke! Participation is optional but encouraged ;)
‼️ And much much much more yet to come...
So, with these approximately 1,800 words (sorry!) behind us, I’ll leave you to the rest of your hopefully sunny day. But when the brutal news cycle or personal problems pop up, please remember: We are a growing family. You don’t have to go at it alone. Let’s gather some steam and cook up great things together.
Sending tons of love & hugs,
P!, New York, March 2025
P.S. Music is also super important in difficult times. If you’re curious what I’m listening to right now, I’ve been working for a while on a long-form playlist called “Letters to the Future” focused on time, trauma, and transformation. These days, it provides the soundtrack for most of my talks, performances, workshops, and classes. If you have a chance to give it a spin, please let me know any playlist recommendations!
Department of Transformation is supported by The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center.
Looking forward to reading your Past Words!