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—bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→ Wallace, David Foster. "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction." Review of Contemporary Fiction 13, no. 2 (1993): 151–194.

→ Glissant, Édouard. "For Opacity." In Poetics of Relation, translated by Betsy Wing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.

Two short, very different essays this week—pair them how you like.

What does it mean to grow up fluent in irony?
Wallace's essay argues that television trained a generation of American writers and readers to be endlessly self-aware, endlessly knowing, allergic to sincerity. He's writing as a novelist worried about his own toolkit—if irony is the only mode television has taught us to value, what happens to fiction that wants to mean something? Long and funny in places, sharp and a little anxious throughout, it's an early and still-relevant diagnosis of a problem many people now just call "being online."

Why should we have to fully understand someone to respect them?
Glissant pushes back on the idea that real connection requires total transparency—that we must fully grasp another person or culture in order to value them. He argues for a right to opacity instead: people and cultures can remain partly illegible to each other and still relate, still build solidarity, without one side having to dissolve into something fully knowable by the other. Short, poetic, and quietly radical—a useful counterpoint to Wallace, and to any framework that treats "understanding" as the only path to respect.

BROOM, External Line Return, 4d.s, & Sailing Stones

BICA SCHOOL invites you to a night of progressive and activated sonic liberation on Tuesday, August 18th.

External Line Return is an experimental/ambient performer based in Rochester, NY.

They will be deploying a Quadraphonic layout for their live set.

Returning to the BICA garage, 4d.s is an electronic producer based out of Buffalo whose music is comprised of dream-like vocals and aural textures from their live improvisations.

Sailing Stones is a 5-piece progressive rock band based out of Buffalo whose music could be considered akin to a magical spell. They will be performing sans their vocalist for the evening.

BROOM is an ambient collective visiting us from NYC that has described themselves as an “experimental street cleaning service”. They float within the space of raw, improvisation and sonic ritualistic expression. They invite the listener to immerse themselves fully and become a part of a world that feels both strange and beautiful.

Doors at 7

Music at 8 (ish)

$15 PWYC

NOTADTLOF

Herr God, Dogs in Stereo, People I Love, & Shep Treasure

BICA Garage | Doors 7pm & Music 8pm

Rochester’s underground legend Shep Treasure returns to the garage with Portland-based touring act Herr God, and locals People I Love and Dogs In Stereo.

A night of acoustic pleasantries and dulcet tones to start your week off right.

BICA School Garage | $10 Admission | Garage Sale Before

Come on down to the BICA Garage for a good ol’ night of music!

The ambient duo Dekalb Works will kick the night off, followed by Buffalo locals Dev & Co, Rattlesnake Jake, and Spud.

Music will begin at 5 pm, but show up early for a limited-supply garage sale beforehand. Who knows what treasures you might find!

Enjoy one of the last weekends of the summer with some cozy Buffalo folk.

BICA School Closed Mic

Kicking off Dog Days right with a night of music BICA Schoolers performing. During dog days planning, wavy realized there has never been a night of only BICA Schooler performances. We constantly open and share our space to other acts and touring artists, but we’ve yet to get together and play in our own space. Come enjoy performances from BICA Schoolers: Chango, Sage, Aneris, Silas, Nick Mass, and wavy.

During dog days, we encourage you to draw a dog picture in the lab and we’ll be slinging hot dogs to enjoy during the show.

doors at 6, music at 7

like $10 to support us

hot dogs for sale and dog drawings in the lab

BICA School is an alternative school for artists, curators, writers, and generally creative people looking to learn and grow together. We meet weekly on Thursdays for reading groups or critiques. We also run the project space in BICA’s gallery, host experimental music shows, hold workshops, host artist talks, plan fieldtrips to see art together, and more. It’s all the best parts of an MFA or MA program, but run communally and without hierarchy. BICA School is open to artists of all ages (although we have another program better geared towards teens).

On August 13, we invite you to come to BICA School to meet us, learn more about what we do, and see if it might be a good fit for you!

2026 Generator Fund Virtual Info Session

Register Here

Wednesday, August 12, 2026 @ 5:30pm

Last year’s Virtual Info Session

Matt Wellins + Martin Freeman, Sheet, & Lala Buckstar

Matt Wellins (New Haven) has taken tinkering to the extreme level of designing and constructing his own tape music system from scratch. Picture not a walkman, but instead an exploded factory floor with magnetic tape conveyor belts zipping around frantically.

Duo with MF. Sheet (Rochester) is the rarest r.nuuja (Pengo, Tuurd, Arthur Doyle Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, etc.) project started in 1996. Please join us in celebrating 30 years of Sheet.

Lala Buckstar makes evocative and mesmerizing anti-New Age music.

Music at 8 $10 30D Essex Street

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—bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity. Note: Chapter 1 only — the link goes to the full book.

→ Kristeva, Julia. "Approaching Abjection." In Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, translated by Leon S. Roudiez, pp. 1–31. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.

Why does a corpse, or spoiled milk, make us recoil before we even think about it?
Kristeva calls that reaction "the abject"—not quite an object you can name and hold at a distance, and not quite part of you either. It's what gets expelled to keep the boundary of the self intact: filth, waste, anything that blurs the line between inside and outside, self and other, life and death. She traces this further than disgust—into questions of language, religion, and art, suggesting that literature and art have long served as ways of approaching the abject safely, giving form to what otherwise threatens to undo us. Dense in places, but the opening pages are vivid and physical, grounded in concrete sensations before they get philosophical. A challenging, generative read for anyone interested in how art handles what culture would rather not look at directly.

Static Becomes Signal

in collaboration with EXIT/ENTER & Antenes

registration required at www.exit-enter.net

The Lavender Room Presents:

Tiberius & Sweet Petunia with Mimeo and Ian Mccuen

hi!!!! come join us for our first EVER show at the illustrious BICA Garage!

Joining us will be the return of our dear ol pals Sweet Petunia (@sweetpetuniaband), along with our new pal Tiberius (@tiberiuswright) on tour! Joining them will be the fantastic Mimeo (Jake King (@rockinjakeking) & Ronnie Mae Valentine (@dirt_swagg)) and lan Mccuen (@ianmccuen)

* it will be an evening of lofi nonbinary folk music, art, and splendor!

Friday July 24

BICA Garage

Doors 6pm Music 7pm

$15 // PWYC

Folk / Freak Folk / Anti-Folk / Indie / Singer-Songwriter

All Ages

Flyer by @sweetpetuniaband

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—bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→ Brecht, Bertolt. The Threepenny Opera. 1928.

What happens when you make crime as charming as it actually is?
Brecht's musical follows a gangster, a corrupt police chief, and a cast of thieves and sex workers through a version of Victorian London that looks suspiciously like Weimar Germany. The songs are catchy. The morals are nonexistent. That's the point. Brecht wanted audiences to enjoy the show and feel uneasy about enjoying it—a deliberate jolt meant to keep people thinking rather than just feeling. It's an early, vivid example of his theory of "epic theater," where the goal isn't to lose yourself in the story but to stay sharp enough to question it. A lively read for anyone curious about how art can entertain and unsettle at the same time, and what theater owes to the world outside the theater.

BICA School is planning a Field Trip to the Medina Triennial, and all are welcome!

Art is better experienced together — formulating an opinion and then testing it against a friend's is half the fun and how we develop our own tastes and thoughts. So we're heading to Medina on July 19th to see the Triennial, and anyone who wants to come is invited.

This isn't a tour, and there's no official program, though the Triennial is running its own tour that day at 1pm, open to anyone who wants to join.

Otherwise: wander, look, talk. Afterward, maybe we'll land at a bar or park or ice cream stand nearby to keep going — what we saw, what stuck, what we'd argue about.

We’ll start at the Triennial Hub at Noon.

Join us for the opening of New Formations, BICA's 2026 guest-curated exhibition, organized by Toronto-based curator Yasmin Nurming-Por. The show brings together Lucas Cook, Maggy Hamel-Metsos, Liza Lacroix, Scott Rogers, Silas Rubeck, Unconditional Design, and Haena Yoo — artists who take apart what's already in front of us: church organs, car parts, gua shas, the building itself.

Meet a few of the artists and the curator, and see the gallery transformed by five new bodies of work built from material most people would call finished.

New Formations is on view through September 5.

We’ll also celebrate the opening of Nicholas Christakis: Junk Drawer in the BICA School Project Space.

The experimental trio of Ryan Bell, Tim Georger, and James Pardue have put on multiple memorable sets in our garage and around the Buffalo area over the past few years. With James Pardue headed back to his home state of Louisiana to pursue a PhD, this will likely be their last performance as a unit for an unknown period of time.

With support from Regional Headbutting Techniques, Canticle Fade, and Lihuen Sirvent.

Doors: 7pm, Start: 7:30pm

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—bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→ Schiller, Friedrich. Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man. 1794.

Can beauty make us free?
Writing in the shadow of the French Revolution, Schiller watched a political project meant to liberate people collapse into violence, and went looking for an explanation. His answer: people weren't ready for freedom because they weren't whole—split between reason and feeling, duty and desire. Art, he argues, is what can heal that split. Aesthetic experience isn't decoration or escape; it's training ground, a way of practicing freedom in miniature before we're asked to live it for real. Written as a series of letters, the text is personal and persuasive rather than systematic. A foundational read for anyone wondering what art is actually for, and why a society that wants to change itself might need artists as much as it needs reformers.

LIVE in BICA’s Main Gallery OR LIVEstreamed.

Was our 12 hour telethon too long for you? This telethon is 6 hours.

A wide 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!

Contemporary Communications 1.5 will be working out the technical side of the Livestream Process, Incorporating live video and compositing. Tune in to see Musical Acts, Faux Ads, and Video works from Buffalo Creatives. Tune in for a band or marathon the whole thing, But be sure to watch the screen, and the scene.

Join us on Saturday, June 27 from 3–8PM for the fifth annual Open Essex — a free neighborhood carnival of contemporary art and creativity at the Essex Street Arts Complex. 

sponsors:

Rivalry Projects, Usonia Wine, 19 Ideas

food:

Extra Extra Pizza

participating artists:
Seth Brauchler, Koala, Major Glitch, Issa Mars, Laney Norton, Claudia D’Auria, Emily Constantin, E.L. Hohn, Nick Mass, Skenderton, Chango, LIBBY Projects + Editions, Silas Rubeck, Adelina Metz, Lucas Cook, Kit Xiong, Three of Cups (Lauren Jane, Alex Post and Grace Hoffman), & Nicole Galuszka

music:

organized by the Lavender Room

MX Piggy, Dgi-dgi, All Maine Points, Georgie, & Cool Party

Neptune is a band from Boston, Massachussetts that initially began as a sculpture project. The band played its first show in a basement in late December of '94. Currently Neptune consists of three members playing home-made instruments. The music is noisy and uncombed, a concoction of busted garage and incorrect math created with bike parts, saws, old metal chairs, hobo electronics, amplified springs, metal drums with contact mics inside and other debris found in the trash. With several different members over the years, the music has evolved with the instruments, blending the traditional sounds of rock music with what sounds like mistake-day at the ball bearing factory. Jason sculpts most of the instruments out of scrap metal. Mark has taken an interest in electronics, culminating in the assembly of a small army of nifty synthesizers. Dan has mastered the fine art of building debt and breaking stuff.

$10-20 suggested cover

BICA GARAGE

doors/dj @ 7:30

music @ 8.

done by 10pm

Generator Fund Project

Backyard Shenanigans presents Parallel Play Date!!  A day dedicated to nothing but Play. Let's go offline & be on DnD as we engage with the tangible again. Choose your own adventure from multiple Play areas, Zine-making & collaging, and a Beyblade Tournament! Art Exhibition by Echelon Graphic Novels and Visuals provided by Silas. Vendors, S'mores & so much more!!

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—bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→ Hauser, Arnold. "Prehistoric Times." In The Social History of Art, Volume 1. London: Routledge, 1951.

What did art do before there were museums, markets, or audiences?
Hauser opens his sweeping history of art and society at the very beginning—art's earliest known forms, made by hunting and gathering peoples with no concept of "art" as a separate category at all. He argues that art here wasn't decoration or self-expression; it was practical, even magical, tied directly to survival, ritual, and the rhythms of group life. A hunter painting an animal on a cave wall wasn't making a picture—he was trying to act on the world. This chapter sets up the question Hauser carries through the whole book: how does art's purpose, audience, and meaning shift as societies themselves change? A foundational read for anyone curious about why we think of art the way we do now—and how recent that thinking actually is.

ABRASH PRESENTS: BLIND DUOS VOL. 1

first time duos from:

Steve Baczkowski / Ryan Bell

Lihuen Sirvent / Safie Falto

with support from:

Auxcab

Saturday, June 13th

BICA Garage

8PM

$10 PWYC

it should be possible opening

a group exhibition featuring teen artists involved with 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.

Eliza Niemi with radiocalisthenics & Georgie

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 June (skipping January), from 12–3 PM. 

Open Studio Hours added April 18 & May 16th

Bring your work for the zine or exhibition to this workshop in our lab, or to the gallery during any of BICA’s gallery hours in starting May 1st, (W12-5, Th12-7, F12-5, S12-5).

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— bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→ Rancière, Jacques. "Mechanical Arts and the Promotion of the Anonymous." In The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, translated by Gabriel Rockhill, [pp.31-34]. London: Continuum, 2004.

Who gets to be seen — and what does art have to do with it?

This essay takes the form of an interview, which makes it one of the more approachable entry points into Rancière's thinking. He's working through a deceptively simple question: how did photography and film come to be recognized as arts? His answer turns the usual story on its head — it wasn't the technology that made them art. It was a prior shift in who and what was considered worthy of being seen at all. Anonymous people, ordinary objects, everyday life: once these became legitimate subjects, the camera could follow. A short, generative read for anyone thinking about what contemporary art is for and who it's made with in mind.

Process opening reception

3rd Annual Sketchbook Exhibition

Sunday, May 24th, 1-5pm

at The Crucible

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— bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→ Carson, Anne. Autobiography of Red. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.

A novel in verse about a red-winged monster who wants to be an artist.

Anne Carson retells the myth of Geryon — a winged red creature slain by Herakles — as a coming-of-age story set in the contemporary world. Geryon grows up, falls in love, takes photographs, and tries to figure out what he is. Carson moves between lyric poetry, essay, and narrative without announcing the transitions. The result is a book that feels like several things at once: a love story, a mythology, an autobiography, a meditation on color and memory and what it means to make something. Come having read as much or as little as you can.

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 June (skipping January), from 12–2 PM. 

Open Studio Hours added April 18 & May 16th

Bring your work for the zine or exhibition to this open studio in our lab, or to the gallery during any of BICA’s gallery hours in starting May 1st, (W12-5, Th12-7, F12-5, S12-5).