Casita has created two, year-long Artist Residency programs at NYCHA’s Claremont Village Neighborhood Center with artists TATTFOO TAN and BARON AMBROSIA as part of the South Bronx Healthy and Livable Neighborhoods Initiative. In partnership with Bronx Lebanon and NYCHA’s Claremont Village, these artists’ projects focus on building healthy, active lifestyles and vibrant communities.
TATTFOO TAN has been working with Claremont youth with his New Earth Resiliency Training Module (NERTM) that teaches basic survival skills in urban environments around food, shelter, clothing: such as gardening, cooking, sewing and carpentry / building. Drawing upon its surrounding resources, the NERTM program treats the city as a catalyst for building relations within neighborhoods and communities by activating young people to be involved and equipping them with skills, knowledge, and an adaptive worldview.
Tan also empowers youth by treating them as authorities of their own environment encouraging intergenerational engagement and knowledge sharing.
