THE PIECE
On May 1st 2024, the NYPD raided CUNY's City College Campus and arrested 173 student protesters as part of an operation to crack down on pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses citywide. This was one of many violent police raids of student protest encampments throughout the United States. As community insiders, student journalists played an unprecedented role in documenting the events where many mainstream and legacy media outlets were otherwise barred or restricted from reporting on the story. 2024, SPRING is a documentary play drawn from interviews, video, and media from the Gaza solidarity encampment at City College of New York (CUNY).
THE ARTIST
Ash Marinaccio is a multidisciplinary documentarian and visual storyteller working in theatre, photography, and film. She is dedicated to storytelling that highlights the socio-political issues defining our times. For her work, Ash has received the Lucille Lortel Visionary Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women, a Drama League Residency, fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, NY Public Humanities, Social Practice CUNY, and National Endowment for the Humanities, been listed as one of Culture Trip’s “50 Women in Theatre You Should Know”, and is a two time TEDx Speaker. Ash is the founding artistic director of the United Nations-recognized NGO Girl Be Heard and founder of Docbloc (docbloc.org), committed to bringing artists and journalists across nonfiction genres together for live performance collaborations. She holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance from The Graduate Center, CUNY, and an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Connect: ashmarinaccio.com and @ashmarinaccio (Instagram).