On Valentine’s Day we gathered for an evening of live music, tasty snacks, and letter writing with messages of love, solidarity and empowerment. We wrote letters with Black & Pink NYC, an abolitionist organization that facilitates letter writing to incarcerated LGBTQIA2S+ individuals as a harm reduction strategy. Opera singer and sound artist Ashley Grier presented music, and our space was open for intimate reading and reflection.

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The NYC Chapter of Black & Pink formed its current iteration in February 2018. We work toward prison abolition through pen pal matching, mail processing/letter-writing, reentry support, sending solidarity packages and commissary to our inside members, and organizing with community partners in advocacy campaigns such as the opposition of 4 new jails in the boroughs.

Ashley Grier (She/Her) is an artist working across performance, video, and musical composition. Her work is often inspired by opera, theater, and film, drawing upon their histories and structures to investigate the possibilities of sound and movement for worldbuilding within and around the human voice and body. Improvisation is essential. Playfulness is care. Ashley has worked with many artists across disciplines and genres including Hiatus Kaiyote and choreographer Dianne McIntyre. She has performed in places such as Time Square with Time Square Arts, Performance Space New York, Roulette Intermedium, The Drawing Center, SummerStage in Central Park, Fridman Gallery, and Le Poisson Rouge, among others. Grier holds a BM from Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Vocal Performance and an MFA in Sound Art from Columbia University.