ICP Family Art Hour: Communal Braiding (September 2026)

Explore ICP's exhibitions during this hands-on all ages family workshop. Discover new photographic techniques and how they connect with notions of family and community during an introductory tour of the current exhibitions, then join the hands-on activity.

All ages 4 and up are welcome.

Parents and guardians must remain with their children during the activity.  

About the Artist

Cassandra Mayela Allen is a Venezuelan artist based in New York City whose multidisciplinary practice—encompassing mixed media, textiles, installation, and socially engaged projects— examines memory, belonging, active meditation, and labor as tools for self-healing. Rooted in the migrating body and the objects it carries, her work treats personal belongings as living archives: woven, stitched, and suspended, they become material records inseparable from the communal practices that generate them. Allen foregrounds collaboration and encounter, inviting alternative social networks to participate in the making and meaning of each piece. Her work activates art as a relational process rather than a fixed object, centering acts of making as a means of reaching a state of “flow”, reflection, and connection.

Mayela Allen is an alumna of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2025) and has participated in residencies including Bolster Arts (2025), Modern Ancient Brown (2024), Pocoapoco (2024), and Campo Garzón (2024). In 2023, she received an Emergency Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She has presented solo exhibitions at Instituto Cervantes, LES Girls Club, Olympia, and JO-HS Gallery. Her work has been exhibited at MOCAD, UNAM, EFA Project Space, Eric Firestone Gallery, V1 Gallery, NADA Miami, and Mama Projects, among others. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, BOMB Magazine, Elephant, American Craft Council, and Vogue México.

 
Image credit: Aquel Amplex, Found fabrics and garments, braided collectively, 2024-2026