Artist Marisa Morán Jahn Presents Bibliobandido Bites Brooklyn
With guest curator Amy Rosenblum-Martín
BROOKLYN NY—Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) has named Marisa Morán Jahn as the Library’s 2022 Katowitz Radin Artist-in-Residence. Instituted in 2014, the annual residency supports emerging and established artists to meaningfully engage with BPL’s collections, programs, and services as a way to expand their artmaking practice.
Marisa Morán Jahn works across mediums including art, writing, and film. Her key works include Bibliobandido (Story Eater) whose fame in Honduras rivals Santa Claus’s; CareForce: two mobile studios (NannyVan, CareForce One) and Sundance-supported PBS film amplifying the voices of caregivers; and Carehaus, the U.S.’s first intergenerational care-based co-housing project designed with architect Rafi Segal.
As part of her artist residency, Jahn introduces Brooklyn readers throughout BPL’s 62 branches to Bibliobandido—a masked bandit who eats stories and playfully pesters little kids to nourish him with ones they’ve written. As an imaginative, radical vehicle for creative agency, Marisa will collaborate with librarians to adapt the legend for Brooklynites. In addition, Central Library will host an exhibition, opening June 9 at Central Library, titled Bibliobandido Bites Brooklyn. An accompanying multilingual progra, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. will take place outdoors on the Central Library plaza. Visitors will be invited to craft the juiciest of stories to lure Bibliobandido to BPL and kick off a summer of story crafting and story sharing.
Bibliobandido began more than 12 years ago as an art and literary collaboration between Jahn and the community of El Pital, in rural Honduras. Since that time, the story-eating bandit has sparked a literacy movement that has now inspired tens of thousands of believers across the Americas. An act of artistic and participatory world-building, the Bibliobandido project has proven durable and endlessly adaptable, providing a framework for multi-generational play and learning. Transforming the lives of its young believers, Bibliobandido promotes literacy across platforms from paper-based storycrafting to digital journalism, paper circuitry, and more. To capture the impact of this imaginative literacy movement, Jahn recently teamed up with award-winning filmmaker Benjamin Murray to direct and produce a documentary film supported by Sundance.
Co-creating with young people, immigrants and working families, Art Forum called Jahn an artist who “exemplifies the possibilities of art as social practice.” Her work has reached millions through presentations at the United Nations, Obama’s White House, Tribeca Film Festival, PBS, The New York Times, CNN, BBC, Univision Global, and the Venice Biennale of Architecture. She has taught at Teachers College at Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (her alma mater), and Parsons/The New School where she is the Director of Integrated Design. marisajahn.com, bibliobandido.org, @marisa_jahn
Collaborating on Jahn’s artist in residency is Amy Rosenblum-Martín, an independent curator working with institutions including MoMA PS1, Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MCA Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum, the National Portrait Gallery (London), and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), among others. She was formerly a staff curator at Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Bronx Museum.
About the Katowitz Radin Artist in Residence Program at Brooklyn Public Library
The program began in 2014 with renowned jazz vocalist Cilla Owens. Since then, children’s illustrator Pat Cummings, painter Steve Keene, visual artist Molly Crabapple, artist and educator Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and artist and environmental activist Mary Mattingly, and conceptual artist Chloë Bass have each been awarded the residency.
About Brooklyn Publc Library
Brooklyn Public Library is one of the nation’s largest library systems and among New York City’s most democratic institutions. As a leader in developing modern 21st century libraries, we provide resources to support personal advancement, foster civic literacy, and strengthen the fabric of community among the more than 2.7 million individuals who call Brooklyn home. We provide nearly 60,000 free programs a year with writers, thinkers, artists, and educators—from around the corner and around the world. And we give patrons millions of opportunities to enjoy one of life’s greatest satisfactions: the joy of a good book.