New York Times – The Laundromat Project was founded two decades ago at a kitchen table on MacDonough Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, when Risë Wilson received her first grant money to make art experiences accessible to her neighbors — miles away and a world apart from gatekeeper institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.
Wilson, having left her corporate job and marrying her degree in African American studies with a love of art, wanted to own and operate a laundromat where she could invite artists to initiate workshops and conversations with people waiting for their laundry to dry.
“In trying to figure out a way to bring art to where we already were, I realized the laundromat is this incredibly democratic, de facto community space,” said Wilson, who in 2005 incorporated her nonprofit organization to support artist projects in underserved areas — “not just for delight and play but as this political tool. Art has always been part of movements for Black liberation.”
When Wilson’s original vision to actually buy a laundromat proved financially out of reach, the Laundromat Project, or the LP as it’s known, shifted to a decentralized approach — supporting artists in communities of color across New York’s five boroughs on projects rolled out in laundromats, parks, plazas, city streets and local cultural venues.
Read more at The New York Times.