Arts for Something, April
Hosted at BICA in collaboration with BICA School and Civic Arts (a project by teaching artist Robin Lee Jordan), Arts for Something! is an interdisciplinary program for young and emerging artists (ages 14–19) exploring the intersection of art and civic engagement.
Over the course of the series, participants will build creative skills—like screen-printing, zine-making, sewing, literary arts, and specialized visual arts—while learning how these tools can be used to support civic initiatives such as social justice, activism, and local community needs.
Young artists who commit to all eight sessions (with up to two excused absences) will have the opportunity to create and present a civic arts–inspired project in any medium. These projects will be featured in a collaborative zine and shared during a final exhibition and celebration in June.
Workshops take place the first Saturday of every month, October through May (skipping January), from 12–2 PM.
Arts for Something, May
Hosted at BICA in collaboration with BICA School and Civic Arts (a project by teaching artist Robin Lee Jordan), Arts for Something! is an interdisciplinary program for young and emerging artists (ages 14–19) exploring the intersection of art and civic engagement.
Over the course of the series, participants will build creative skills—like screen-printing, zine-making, sewing, literary arts, and specialized visual arts—while learning how these tools can be used to support civic initiatives such as social justice, activism, and local community needs.
Young artists who commit to all eight sessions (with up to two excused absences) will have the opportunity to create and present a civic arts–inspired project in any medium. These projects will be featured in a collaborative zine and shared during a final exhibition and celebration in June.
Workshops take place the first Saturday of every month, October through May (skipping January), from 12–2 PM.
Arts for Something, June
Hosted at BICA in collaboration with BICA School and Civic Arts (a project by teaching artist Robin Lee Jordan), Arts for Something! is an interdisciplinary program for young and emerging artists (ages 14–19) exploring the intersection of art and civic engagement.
Over the course of the series, participants will build creative skills—like screen-printing, zine-making, sewing, literary arts, and specialized visual arts—while learning how these tools can be used to support civic initiatives such as social justice, activism, and local community needs.
Young artists who commit to all eight sessions (with up to two excused absences) will have the opportunity to create and present a civic arts–inspired project in any medium. These projects will be featured in a collaborative zine and shared during a final exhibition and celebration in June.
Workshops take place the first Saturday of every month, October through May (skipping January), from 12–2 PM.
BICA School Reading Group: Adorno
BICA School Lab | 30 Essex Street
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required
Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.
Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.
What happens to art when we lock it in a museum?
In this short and layered essay, Theodor Adorno takes on two of the 20th century’s major thinkers—Paul Valéry and Marcel Proust—and their opposing takes on what museums do to art. Is the museum a mausoleum? A memory palace? A space for spiritual preservation or cultural disintegration?
This final winter session invites reflection on the role of museums in modern life and the ways institutions shape our encounters with art. Bring your thoughts, critiques, or questions about that one painting you keep visiting—or avoiding.
Arts for Something, March
Hosted at BICA in collaboration with BICA School and Civic Arts (a project by teaching artist Robin Lee Jordan), Arts for Something! is an interdisciplinary program for young and emerging artists (ages 14–19) exploring the intersection of art and civic engagement.
Over the course of the series, participants will build creative skills—like screen-printing, zine-making, sewing, literary arts, and specialized visual arts—while learning how these tools can be used to support civic initiatives such as social justice, activism, and local community needs.
Young artists who commit to all eight sessions (with up to two excused absences) will have the opportunity to create and present a civic arts–inspired project in any medium. These projects will be featured in a collaborative zine and shared during a final exhibition and celebration in June.
Workshops take place the first Saturday of every month, October through May (skipping January), from 12–2 PM.
Community Crochet Collage
Led by wavy
Filet crochet is a style of crochet that creates an image using pixels. The open stitches represent non-filled in pixels, while the closed stiches make up the image. We will start by deciding on a word together, with each artist responsible for making one letter of the word. Then we will use graph paper to make a pattern for the design of the letter we are responsible for. After we have our individual patterns, each artist will filet crochet a small piece of the tapestry. One by one as each artist finishes their letter, we will sew the pieces together to create a tapestry with our chosen word. Skills each artist will take away from this workshop will include how to make and follow a pattern using graph paper, how to foundation chain, how to create open and closed stiches with double crochet and chaining, and how to sew pieces together (creatively or technically).
Ctrl+Print
CTRL+PRINT // announcement.exe
Ctrl+Print is a group exhibition exploring the intersection between digital and physical worldbuilding, curated by H Boone + Quincey Miracle. The show brings together zines, video, and video game projects responding to the idea of the technobody—where digital and physical hybridize.
This exhibition launches Major Glitch, a year-long experimental exhibition series at the Niagara Frontier Food Terminal featuring immersive installation, video art, and game design. The series explores the glitch as a tool for dismantling norms, amplifying othered perspectives, and activating new modes of play, embodiment, and space in South Buffalo.
— ARTISTS —
@an0th3r.l0p3z
August Berry
Celia Quynh-Mai Chaussabel
Shawn Chiki
Floon
Chris Fritton
Coral Howe
Cody Mejeur + Amatryx Gaming Lab
Christina Vega-Westhoff
Ramona Sittel
In collaboration with Libby Projects + Editions, we are cooking up a limited-edition Risograph print run from the selected works that will be part of the exhibition and available for purchase.
This project is supported by The Generator Fund, a grant for artists administered by The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art and funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
OPENING RECEPTION
Friday, March 6, 2026
1500 Clinton Street Unit 15b, Buffalo NY
(Behind Snowy Owl Tea)
save // the // date
Museum of Cold: Cold Visions
The Museum of Cold is pleased to announce our inaugural show, Cold Visions, a group exhibition featuring the work of three photographers-Dmitry Gudkov (@gudphoto), Palmer Segner (@palmersegner), and Alex Christopher Williams (@alexxphoto).
Cold Visions opens this Friday, March 6th from 6 to 9pm at the Museum (524 Franklin Street between North and Allen).
***
This project is supported by The Generator Fund, a grant for artists administered by The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art and funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
BICA School Reading Group: Heidegger
BICA School Lab | 30 Essex Street
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required
Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.
Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.
What even is technology—and what if it’s not just the stuff we invent, but a way of seeing the world?
In this dense but rewarding essay, Heidegger asks us to reconsider our relationship with technology—not as tools or machines, but as something more fundamental. He introduces ideas like “enframing” and “revealing” to suggest that the modern technological worldview doesn’t just shape what we build—it shapes how we understand truth, being, and even art.
We’ll break it down together (don’t worry if it feels slippery), and think about what this means in an AI-saturated, hyperconnected world.
BICA School Reading Group: Gertrude Stein
BICA School Lab | 30 Essex Street
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required
Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.
Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.
→ Stein, Gertrude. “Objects.” In Tender Buttons. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1997, 3–16.
→ Additional Essay TK
Bring your thoughts, your snapshots, or your questions about what makes an image powerful.
Arts for Something, February
Hosted at BICA in collaboration with BICA School and Civic Arts (a project by teaching artist Robin Lee Jordan), Arts for Something! is an interdisciplinary program for young and emerging artists (ages 14–19) exploring the intersection of art and civic engagement.
Over the course of the series, participants will build creative skills—like screen-printing, zine-making, sewing, literary arts, and specialized visual arts—while learning how these tools can be used to support civic initiatives such as social justice, activism, and local community needs.
Young artists who commit to all eight sessions (with up to two excused absences) will have the opportunity to create and present a civic arts–inspired project in any medium. These projects will be featured in a collaborative zine and shared during a final exhibition and celebration in June.
Workshops take place the first Saturday of every month, October through May (skipping January), from 12–2 PM.
Photography as a Daily Practice
Led by Nando Alvarez-Perez and Palmer Segner
Together, we'll embark on a photographic scavenger hunt through Buffalo’s West Side, using phone and digital cameras to explore our surroundings with fresh eyes. As we track down colors, textures, objects, and moments, we’ll reflect on how photography can be a fun daily habit—but also a tool for deeper awareness, helping us attune to the subtle rhythms of our environment and our community. More than documentation, we’ll approach photography as a practice of radical attention and self-expression: a way of seeing the world more clearly, and seeing ourselves more fully within it.
Openings & Launch: Jova Lynne, Nick Mass, and Cornelia Issue 20
The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (BICA) is pleased to announce The Language of Color, a solo exhibition by Detroit-based multidisciplinary artist Jova Lynne, opening Friday, January 30 from 7–10PM. The exhibition marks the first installment in BICA’s new exhibition series, The Real Deal, a two-year project that spotlights six contemporary artists whose work blurs the boundaries between photography and sculpture.
The same evening marks the opening of Nick Mass: Under Observation in the BICA Project Space and the launch of Cornelia Magazine Issue 20—rounding out a triple event you won’t want to miss.
BICA School Exhibition Walkthrough: Jova Lynne
Join us to preview the exhibition Jova Lynne: The Language of Color! Lynne will give a walkthrough of the exhibition as it comes together, give insights into her artistic practice, and talk about the influences at play in her current body of work.
This BICA School event is open to the public.
BICA School Reading Group: A Short History of Photography
BICA School Lab | 30 Essex Street
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required
Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.
Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.
What do we see in a photograph—and what do we miss?
In this richly layered essay, Walter Benjamin explores how photography transformed our relationship to images, memory, and truth. Written just a few years before The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, this piece previews many of Benjamin’s key concerns: aura, authenticity, reproducibility, and the politics of visual culture.
We’ll talk about early photographic portraiture, what it means to capture a face, and how new technologies continue to reshape how we look—and how we’re seen.
Bring your thoughts, your snapshots, or your questions about what makes an image powerful.
Generator Fund Grantee Happy Hour
Join us to celebrate the 2025 Generator Fund grantees!
This informal happy hour is your chance to meet the ten artists and collectives awarded a total of $60,000 through this year’s Generator Fund. Stop by to learn more about their projects—ranging from backyard installations and immersive performances to analog media labs, public sculpture, and cold-weather art experiments.
We’re gathering at 1500 Clinton Street, Unit 156—home to Libby Projects + Editions and H Boone and Quincey Miracle, two of this year’s grantees. Expect good vibes, great conversations, and light refreshments in a working artist space that reflects the energy of the Generator Fund community.
This event is free and open to the public—no RSVP required. Whether you’re a past applicant, a future one, or just Generator Fund–curious, come celebrate with us!
Contemporary Communications Telethon
Step out of the cold (or don’t) and join the CONTEMPORARY COMMUNICATION TELETHON LIVESTREAM!!
LIVE in BICA’s Main Gallery OR LIVEstreamed, this 12 hour event (6am to 6pm) features a variety of sonic audio experiences from the Buffalo area, as we raise funds for BICA School. Love what you see? We suggest a $10 donation to support our school. Come make some friends or just lurk in the chat!
Schedule
6-9am auxcab, DJ TwinPuppy, 4.ds
9-10am Skenderton, BlueBag Poetry Block
10-11am Chango4, happygroupppp
11-12pm Nerix Jazz Set, Radio Calisthenics, Ryan Bell, James Pardue and Tim Georger
12-2pm Devon logel, Captain Lemo
2-4pm Degi-Degi, Headbutt
4-6pm GENRE BLENDER (puhgeez X jake king, chango X SAINT BLIND, Lex X Aneris, Ryan X Lex X Jack X Host Nick)
Organized by Silas Rubeck.
LOCI Opening Reception
The 2026 exhibition season of the Buffalo Society of Artists opens early in 2026 with LOCI, a three-way collaboration between the Buffalo Society of Artists, Locust Street Arts, and the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art.
This cross-city exhibition elevates emerging voices from within the Eastside and Westside artistic communities of Buffalo for a combined presence that transcends locale while respecting the unique voices of the communities. Artists working within proximity to LSA and BICA art centers were invited to submit work that highlighted the themes of Cooperation over Distance, Elevation of voice, Connection through Art, Identity, and the axis of Accessibility/Exclusion.
This exhibition is the first of its kind for the Buffalo Society of Artists and is made possible through charitable donation from anonymous donor partners and funding from the BSA treasury. This exhibition showcases artists working in the Westside and Eastside of Buffalo regardless of membership status with the Buffalo Society of Artists to exhibit as part of this exhibition – all artists working in the Eastside and Westside communities of Buffalo are encouraged to participate.
This exhibition is staged with staggered dates:
January 9 – 23, 2026 at BICA: The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art at 30D Essex Street
and
January 16 – 30, 2026 at Locust Street Art at 138 Locust Street
The exhibiting locations were chosen to represent their individual artist’s voices, and the curatorial team worked together to select individual work for cross-city exhibition within each respective venue to represent community identity, cooperation and connection through the arts. Some artists are represented at both locations, based on the curation of their individual works.
Opening Receptions will be held from 5 pm – 8 pm on the following dates:
January 9, 2026 5 pm – 8 pm at BICA, 30D Essex Street
January 16, 2026 5 pm – 8 pm at Locust Street Art, 138 Locust Street
Work included in this exhibition was chosen by a three-panel jury: Emma Brittain, Director of Locust Street Art, Tami Fuller, President of the Buffalo Society of Artists and Emily Reynolds, Director and co-founder of The Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art.
LOCI showcases the work of Caitlin Andrejova, Axens, Kayliee Bertrand-Henretta, Nicholas Christakis, M Clark, Margaret Connolly, Cassandra Cook, Deidra Duell, Doretha Edwards, Sarah Gerass, Alton Hosey, Gilly Jay, Katharyn Ketter-Franklin, Iris M Kirkwood, Edie Monroe, Ari Moore, Shanti Morrissey, Scott Olmstead, Sabrina Parsons, Silas Rubeck, Rachele Schneekloth, and Sky Vance.
BICA School Reading Group: Ruskin & Riegl
BICA School Lab | 30 Essex Street
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required
Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.
Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.
We’re kicking off our winter season with two short, spirited texts that ask: What is art for—and what does it reflect about the people who make it?
John Ruskin’s “The Nature of Gothic” is a defense of craftsmanship, labor, and the values of imperfection—part art history, part social manifesto. Paired with that, we’ll read Alois Riegl’s “Mood as the Content of Modern Art,” where the 19th-century theorist suggests that it’s not subject matter or style that makes art “modern,” but the inner feelings it conveys.
Together, these texts open up big questions about ornament, intention, emotion, and the role of the artist in society—questions we’ll be carrying all winter long.
BICA School Reading Group: What is Contemporary Art For Today?
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required
Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.
Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.
This final session of the season centers on a simple but disarming question:
What is contemporary art for today—and what should it be for, if anything?
This anthology grew out of The Seaport Talks, an informal series of conversations held in a New York City bar throughout 2023. There were no recordings, no transcripts—just real people talking about art face to face. The book carries that same spirit forward, gathering unfiltered reflections from artists, curators, critics, and regulars alike.
The result is something honest, open-ended, and sometimes contradictory—just like contemporary art itself. Join us as we reflect on the year, share thoughts, and maybe ask a few better questions.
Art Market (day two)
🎁✨ BICA’s Winter Art Market ✨🎁
Saturday, December 13 & Sunday, December 14
11:00 AM–6:00 PM
Join us for the fourth annual Winter Art Market at BICA, a two-day celebration of creativity, community, and cozy holiday vibes. With over 20 local artists and makers, this is your one-stop shop for thoughtful, handmade gifts—including jewelry, prints, ceramics, clothing, and more.
Come for the art, stay for:
– Hot & festive mocktails and cocktails
– DIY wrapping that’s delightfully eco-friendly
– A chance to snap your very own holiday card photo
– And surprises that only an art school market can deliver
Whether you’re checking off your gift list or just in it for the vibes, you’ll be supporting local artists and BICA School with every purchase. Free to attend, and full of cheer.
Art Market (day one)
🎁✨ BICA’s Winter Art Market ✨🎁
Saturday, December 13 & Sunday, December 14
11:00 AM–6:00 PM
Join us for the fourth annual Winter Art Market at BICA, a two-day celebration of creativity, community, and cozy holiday vibes. With over 20 local artists and makers, this is your one-stop shop for thoughtful, handmade gifts—including jewelry, prints, ceramics, clothing, and more.
Come for the art, stay for:
– Hot & festive mocktails and cocktails
– DIY wrapping that’s delightfully eco-friendly
– A chance to snap your very own holiday card photo
– And surprises that only an art school market can deliver
Whether you’re checking off your gift list or just in it for the vibes, you’ll be supporting local artists and BICA School with every purchase. Free to attend, and full of cheer.
Arts for Something, December
Hosted at BICA in collaboration with BICA School and Civic Arts (a project by teaching artist Robin Lee Jordan), Arts for Something! is an interdisciplinary program for young and emerging artists (ages 14–19) exploring the intersection of art and civic engagement.
Over the course of the series, participants will build creative skills—like screen-printing, zine-making, sewing, literary arts, and specialized visual arts—while learning how these tools can be used to support civic initiatives such as social justice, activism, and local community needs.
Young artists who commit to all eight sessions (with up to two excused absences) will have the opportunity to create and present a civic arts–inspired project in any medium. These projects will be featured in a collaborative zine and shared during a final exhibition and celebration in June.
Workshops take place the first Saturday of every month, October through May (skipping January), from 12–2 PM.
December Workshop:
Feedback Feedback: Collaboration Across Mediums
Description:
Silas and Natalie's workshop will explore what it meant to collaborate, through conversation and shared visual languages collaboration can mean more than just working together on a piece, Working in parallel to one another we will show how subtle the actual act of collaboration can be. Silas and Natalie will share their collaborative process of painting and digital glitch art, then invite participants to create their own collaborative pieces in any art form drawing on Silas’ projections for inspiration. Finally some pieces will be added to a larger collaboartive piece symbolizing the collective nature of collaboartion and how as you make together you also create a unique style and language to the place and time and people making alongside you.
BICA School Reading Group: Tj Clark, Olympia’s Choice
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required
Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.
Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.
What made Édouard Manet’s Olympia so shocking—and what does that shock still tell us about modern life, class, and the act of looking?
In this chapter from his groundbreaking book, T.J. Clark places Olympia not just in art history, but in the messy, changing world of 19th-century Paris. With sharp analysis and rich historical context, Clark explores how the painting challenged polite taste and forced viewers to confront the realities of modern urban life—race, sex, money, and power included.
It’s a bold take on a bold painting. Let’s dig in together.
Know Your Rights: Legal Essentials for Artists with Eddie King
A workshop designed to delve into how to protect your art and the legal remedies available to artists in disputes. Topics will cover the basics of Copyright law, trade mark law, contract law, and what you can do if you feel like your art has been infringed upon.
Supermodel (Live Performance)
Supermodel
THE LIFE, DEATH, AND RE-BIRTH OF A POP ICON
NOVEMBER 21, 2025
WITH PERFORMANCES IN THE BICA GARAGE BY:
SUPERMODEL (WITH NEFTALI )
BEBE DELURE
HEADBUTT
SOYFRUIT
FOLLOWED BY A DJ SET BY IMISSEDMIMI
DOORS OPEN AT 6PM
NO COVER
BICA School Reading Group: Deluze on Painting
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required
Join us at BICA School for a casual, come‑as‑you‑are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.
Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.
What happens when painting isn’t just about “making something pretty” but becomes a zone of catastrophe, diagram, colour, and force?
In this session we’ll dive into the introduction and the first chapter of Deleuze’s 1981 seminar, where he explores the concepts of the “diagram” and the “catastrophe” in painting—from Turner to Cézanne, Klee to Van Gogh. It’s dense, imaginative work, but rich with ideas about how art does something to us rather than just shows something.
Bring your curiosity. Bring your “Huh?” moments. Bring your willingness to wonder.
Arts for Something, November
Hosted at BICA in collaboration with BICA School and Civic Arts (a project by teaching artist Robin Lee Jordan), Arts for Something! is an interdisciplinary program for young and emerging artists (ages 14–19) exploring the intersection of art and civic engagement.
Over the course of the series, participants will build creative skills—like screen-printing, zine-making, sewing, literary arts, and specialized visual arts—while learning how these tools can be used to support civic initiatives such as social justice, activism, and local community needs.
Young artists who commit to all eight sessions (with up to two excused absences) will have the opportunity to create and present a civic arts–inspired project in any medium. These projects will be featured in a collaborative zine and shared during a final exhibition and celebration in June.
Workshops take place the first Saturday of every month, October through May (skipping January), from 12–2 PM.
November Workshop:
divided loyalties: speculative narratives across space/time
Description:
This generative creative writing workshop will draw from the group’s collective experience to explore new connections between space/times and incongruities in what we think of as past, present, and future. Participants will leave with the start of a new speculative narrative or worldbuilding project. No creative writing or time travel experience necessary.
At this session, young artists/zine-makers Zeki and Michael will also be leading us in a zine-making warm-up!
About Kit:
Kit Xiong is a speculative fiction writer and critic broadly interested in placemaking and migration, post-industrial ecologies, and science fictions in techno-capitalist development. A 2025 AICA-USA Art Critic Fellow and a member of BICA School, their work has appeared in AICA-USA Magazine, Cornelia, and Sine Theta Magazine. They guest curated BICA's 2025 summer group show, Do not go out of the door.
BICA School Reading Group: Contemporary Art and the Plight of Its Public
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required
Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.
Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.
Why does new art so often make people uncomfortable? Why does it seem to provoke confusion, outrage—or silence?
In this sharp and often funny essay, Leo Steinberg considers the “plight” of the public in the face of contemporary art. He argues that great modern works don’t just expand our expectations—they rearrange them. With references ranging from Picasso to Rauschenberg, Steinberg makes the case that discomfort isn’t a failure of the work—or the viewer—but part of the process of seeing anew.
This one’s lively, opinionated, and surprisingly generous. Bring your reactions—we want to hear them.
BICA Gala 2025: I WANT TO BELIEVE
What do you want to believe in?
An apple a day. The power of art. The Bills. Climate change. Socialism. Capitalism. God. The moon landing. Bigfoot. Elvis is alive. Aliens are real. Acupuncture.
BICA’s annual gala is a celebration of belief — in art, in transformation, in the wild idea that gathering together can still mean something. On October 25, step into our transformed campus for a night of light, sound, food, drink, and the unexpected.
We’ve teamed up with GroupWork, Buffalo’s premiere party alchemists, to conjure music, movement, and atmosphere all night long.
Dress code: Costume or cocktail
Tickets start at $25
VIPs ($100) get in early (7–8 PM) for an open bar and first access to art, experiences, and a little magic
$$ BICA Bucks will be your currency for drinks, food, and anything weird you find along the way
Show us you want to believe.
BICA School Reading Group: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required
Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.
Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity. We’re sharing two versions of this text with different translators. Read either or read both!
→ Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt, translated by Harry Zohn, 217–251. New York: Schocken Books, 1968.
→Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version.” In The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, edited by Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin, translated by Edmund Jephcott and Harry Zohn, 19–55. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008.
What happens to art when it’s no longer one-of-a-kind? What do photography, film, and mass production do to the “aura” of a work?
In this landmark essay, Walter Benjamin argues that technologies of reproduction—starting with photography—don’t just change how art is distributed; they change what art is. From politics to perception, authenticity to accessibility, Benjamin’s provocative ideas continue to shape conversations about art, media, and culture nearly a century later.
Expect big ideas, bold claims, and plenty to discuss.
Hell Yeah Release Party & Community Science Fair
“it’s like if a book release party were also a science fair but you get to make art, eat cake, and straight up hang out
ft. poems, music, science projects, interactive art stations, cake, zines, friends, and more
biggest thank yous to some of my favorite buffalo writers, artists, and musicians @welcome2littlecake, @aidanlyaeus, @avye, @snackmustard, @diego___espiritu, @greyfloral, @joel.brenden, @wtjshua, @lauramarris, @noahfalck, @fannybergenstorm, and @taliaryan.art for being down to make this happen! and to @bica.buffalo for continuing to let me plan weird parties in your space
get in touch if you want to make a science project—this lineup is just the beginning, and everybody’s welcome! word on the street is blue ribbons may be awarded…”
-Rachelle Toarmino
'Angelic Eyes Are Watching!' Opening
CBCM Presents:
ANGELIC EYES ARE WATCHING! 👀👼
BICA Project Space
Opening Oct 10 5-7pm
Big Brother Might Actually Be The Good Guy 💭
Is the “surveillance state” truly all that bad? You may have heard this term used in a negative light, but this largely stems from misconceptions and propaganda. Constant surveillance is actually a great thing for society, keeping civilians safe, secure, and never alone. Here’s a few reasons why Big Brother is really the good guy:
1. Your Own Guardian Angel 👼
Living in a state of surveillance means having your own guardian angel 24/7. When cameras watch your every move, cell phones constantly track your data, and AI algorithms analyze your daily patterns, you know a higher power is watching over you. Like an angel over your shoulder, someone has always got your back.
2. Protect Against Camouflaged Dangers 💀
In today’s world, so many risks hide behind every corner. Some of the most dangerous threats camouflage themselves, lurking just outside our view. Surveillance technologies help us to recognize disguised dangers, letting us spot and stop them before they cause harm.
3. Bringing Love to the World 💞
When people know they are being watched, they tend to act nicer to one another. In a world where our actions are always being observed, recorded, and stored for anyone to access, good deeds are incentivized. Surveillance does not promote fear but instead promotes kindness, bringing love to the world.
As you can see, there is no reason to fear the surveillance state. When you are constantly being watched, monitored, or recorded, it is like having your own personal guidance team there when you need them. As a society, we should praise surveillance technologies, as they lead to ethical conduct in accordance with the laws of our community. Angelic eyes are watching, so you better be on your best behavior! 👀👼
CBCM Presents:
ANGELIC EYES ARE WATCHING! 👀👼
BICA Project Space
Oct 10 - 31 2025
Berto Herrera, a Black-Hispanic artist and former U.S. military member now based in Germany, explores the intersections of identity, power, and technology through painting, photography and collage. Trained at Parsons and shaped by a decade as an art director at Adidas, his acclaimed work challenges systems of surveillance and inequality while resonating across cultures.
Jenson Leonard is an artist and professor based in Buffalo, NY. His work explores our shared revulsion and attraction to technology.
Lucas Cook (b. 1998) employs nonlinear methodologies to reason with the local and the automated present.
CBCM is a so-called ‘curatorial project’, hosting visual art and music events across various locations in Buffalo.
Arts for Something, October
About Arts for Something:
Hosted at BICA in collaboration with BICA School and Civic Arts (a project by teaching artist Robin Lee Jordan), Arts for Something! is an interdisciplinary program for young and emerging artists (ages 14–19) exploring the intersection of art and civic engagement.
Over the course of the series, participants will build creative skills—like screen-printing, zine-making, sewing, literary arts, and specialized visual arts—while learning how these tools can be used to support civic initiatives such as social justice, activism, and local community needs.
Young artists who commit to all eight sessions (with up to two excused absences) will have the opportunity to create and present a civic arts–inspired project in any medium. These projects will be featured in a collaborative zine and shared during a final exhibition and celebration in June.
Workshops take place the first Saturday of every month, October through May (skipping January), from 12–2 PM.
Session Details:
How can you turn "what is" into "what could be" when you combine collage techniques and found poetry? What lurks beneath the surface? What possiblities hover at the edges? (Found poetry is when you create poetic language using text you find from other sources.)
Led by:
Robin Lee Jordan is a teacher, poet, collage artist, and zine-maker. She has an MFA in poetry and has published multiple chapbooks and many zines. Along with her teaching artist work at Arts for Learning & WNY Book Arts Center, she is currently a co-organizer of an annual ZineFest, runs civic arts-themed programs for youth & adults at The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Arts & Burning Books, and works with aging artists at Delavan Grider Community Center.