Night of Ideas: Cultivating Rituals and Finding Common Ground

This immersive event at Express Newark will explore the themes of cultivating ritual and finding common ground through a variety of creative and participatory experiences. The event is designed to foster a sense of community, personal reflection, and creative engagement, offering participants a multifaceted exploration of these themes through art, music, and mindfulness practices.

Night of Ideas: Cultivating Rituals and Finding Common Ground event offers a unique opportunity to explore how rituals—both personal and communal—shape our sense of identity, resilience, and strength. Through art, mindfulness, and music, participants will leave the evening feeling more connected to themselves, their community, and the empowering potential of creative expression. In collaboration with Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education, and their message for finding common ground this evening is a space where we can gather, create together, and explore our common good.

Ritual is a series of exhibitions and events that explore the relationship between Islamic spiritual practices, rituals, and art—featuring experimentations in photography, film, sound art, and textiles. Ritual features work by artists, curators, students, and community members who’ve immersed themselves in nonsecular expressions of spirituality and Islamic traditions across the Muslim world. These works span Newark, which has long been home to one of our nation’s largest African American Muslim communities, while also branching out beyond the domestic borders of the United States to unite members of the global community.

• Powers of the Unseen - Paul Robeson Galleries, 3rd Floor
• Nzingah Oyo: Woven Prayers - Lobby, 2nd Floor
• Dahlia Elsayed & Andrew Demirjian: Subtle Centers - Box Gallery, 3rd Floor
• Sacred Rugs: Contemplation, Hope, Resilience - Windows Gallery, 3rd Floor
• Younes Baba-Ali: Carroussa Sonore - Lobby, 2nd Floor

Throughout the evening, attendees will have the opportunity to meet and connect with the various studios at Express Newark via an open studios format. Informative and interactive, the open studios will allow participants to connect with diverse art-making processes firsthand, ask questions, and engage with faculty and staff. Select studios will opportunities for attendees to experiment with different techniques, encouraging exploration and self-expression.

• Form Design Studio - 2nd Floor

Adhering to their mission of accessibility, Form Design Studio helps to capture the vision of designers, educators, researchers, manufacturers, amateur inventors, and the overall curious through the use of 3D modeling, scanning, and printing technology.

• Community Media Center - 4th Floor

The Community Media Center at Express Newark is a digital storytelling hub for local creators In the Greater Newark area who want to tell community-centered stories through filmmaking and other forms of digital media. Recognizing that some filmmakers may not have access to equipment and space, CMC offers year-long residencies to help local creatives overcome these obstacles by providing hi-tech gear, editing systems, and advance software applications needed to produce high-quality content.

• New Arts Justice - 4th Floor

Guided by the question, “What is the relationship between art, activism, and social change?,” New Arts Justice is a public art studio supports emerging to mid-career fine artists who actively practice socially-engaged art. A public art studio for intersectional approaches to art and activism, New Arts convenes thinkers and doers; collaborates with community, university, and municipal partners; and creates public projects powered by art’s relationship to place, social justice, and civic engagement in Newark and beyond.

• Paul Robeson Galleries - 3rd Floor

Named for esteemed political activist and Rutgers University alumni, the Paul Robeson Galleries began in 1979 in the Campus Center as a student collaboration and have grown to be a network of galleries across the Rutgers University-Newark. The PRG mission and programming embody Robeson’s life-long commitment to unfettered artistic freedom, cultural democracy, and transnationalism. This mission is carried out in the presentation of visual arts exhibitions, gallery education and other public programs, and in partnerships with community organizations.

• SHINE Portrait Studio - 3rd Floor

SHINE reimagines the early 20th-century ‘Main Street’ community photography studio as a sacred place that guides us to see ourselves and each other in new ways. Through artist residencies and commissions, exhibitions, publishing, and public programs—including classes, lectures, and conferences—we foster a space for the public and campus.

• The Harmony Lab - 4th Floor

The Harmony Lab brings the joyful vibrancy of music to the multidisciplinary makers-space that is Express Newark. Through its transparent walls, students and community members can be seen and heard deeply engaged in the process of exploring their creativity through music.

• Design Consortium (DC) - 2nd Floor

The Design Consortium (DC) is a student/faculty creative studio rooted in a collaboratively engaged design process. This framework has been integrated into the Arts, Culture & Media Graphic Design curriculum housed at Express Newark, in which designers and community residents, organizations, educational institutions and/or local activists partner to achieve a common goal.

Newark First Fridays is an independent all-inclusive platform for emerging artists, makers, artisan vendors, musicians and uniquely talented performers. Seeking to empower our communities to come together and expose Newark, NJ as an equitable destination to meet and connect.

Producer: Zay Little

Featured Artists: Jhette, DJ Honest D, The IZM,

Designed as a reflective space that will transform Dahlia Elsayed and Andrew Demirjian’s box gallery installation Subtle Centers in to a meditation room that will offer the participants a chance to disconnect and reconnect, coming together every 30min through the evening for 10 minute guided meditation sessions. These sessions will focus on mindfulness and empowerment, encouraging participants to embrace inner calm, communal awareness, and personal strength.

Led by: Victoria Fontana, MSc, MA, PCC Mindfulness & Compassion Teacher & Consultant, Executive & Leadership Coach, PCC

A dedicated space for children and families will provide an open, welcoming environment for kids to engage in age-appropriate art-making activities. These sessions will focus on creating empowering visual symbols and objects that reflect personal and cultural rituals. Guided by local teaching artists, this station encourages creativity, self-confidence, and fun through artistic exploration.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Express Newark Programs, 54 Halsey Street, Newark, United States