Strange/r Gallery Exhibition

Friday, October 31, 2025

8:03 PM

Arts & Culture

Strange/r Gallery Exhibition

Sprout Society

26 Scott Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11237, USA

Join The Neighborhood for an exhibition featuring artists Maegan Gindi, Alexandra Neuman, Susan Stainman, Daniel Toretsky, Alona Weiss, and Luis Mercedes Winter curated by Renana Neuman.

On October 29, we will open the show with an event featuring artist performances and a chance to speak with them about the work.

Following the Opening Event on October 29, the exhibition will be open at the following times:

October 31-November 9

Gallery Hours: Friday - Sunday, 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM

On November 8 at 4:00 PM, curator Renana Neuman will lead a guided walk-through of the exhibition (no RSVP needed.)

Drawing inspiration from the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, this exhibition explores the responsibility and reciprocity that come into play during a face-to-face encounter with the "other," or the "strange/r," creating a space for self-inquiry and a connection to the infinite through constant interaction. Levinas’ commitment to embracing the stranger and ethical responsibility stem from the Jewish biblical imperative to welcome the other.

Through video, photography, sculpture, textile, drawing, and performance, the work in this show reflects the artists' exploration of processes of estrangement from the natural world and the self. Many of the pieces invoke histories and customs that have been cast aside and labelled as “strange” or insignificant, encouraging us to embrace our senses as a way to develop practices of care and interconnectivity.

Strange/r features artists who participated at the 2025 Visual Arts Artist Working group of the Neighborhood. A project of Asylum Arts at The Neighborhood, Artist Working Groups bring together Jewish artists from across Brooklyn for professional development, collaboration, and creative feedback through a multidisciplinary retreat and discipline-specific cohorts.

Image credit: Alona Weiss, Self Portrait As Lily of the Valley, Sumi ink and watercolors on paper, 14"x17". Photo by Louise Stella Lauren

Featuring

Maegan Gindi

Maegan Gindi (they/she) is a queer photographer of Syrian-American and Jewish descent from, and based, in Brooklyn, NY. Described as "clean, but never sterile," their work centers on intimate portraiture with a focus on identity, culture, politics, fashion, and the ways in which those subjects are intertwined.

They attended the Rochester Institute of Technology, graduating in 2009 with a Bachelors of Fine Art in Advertising Photography. They have been studying photography in a professional form since age 15, taking courses while in high school at the International Center of Photography (ICP) and the New York State Summer School of the Arts.

Upon graduation, they worked at NYLON Magazine as a photo editor while assisting top fashion and celebrity photographers on set, and volunteering at ICP teaching photography to high school students. Additionally, they worked as a photo agent at Jed Root Agency, gaining experience on the business of the industry.

Their personal work featuring studio portraits shot on location at various political events, "Shots at the Rally," was featured on Buzzfeed News and exhibited at the Gulf + Western Gallery in NYU Tisch as part of a group political show alongside many esteemed artists. Most recently, they were the in-house photographer at world-renowned Society Model Management before leaving to freelance full-time.

Their work experience spans conceptualization of projects, collaboration with other artists, pre- and post-production, lighting, digital capture, creating high quality imagery, and executing on their client's vision. Their selected clients include Vanity Fair, Louis Vuitton, Teen Vogue, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Kinfolk, The Washington Post, and W Magazine.

With sincerity, Gindi honors their sitters by highlighting humanity. A palpable honesty and connection is often found in their photographs, and the merits of their work rest on their ability to capture a person's most genuine self.

Alexandra Neuman

Alexandra Neuman (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist, workshop facilitator, and ritual designer based in Brooklyn. Drawing on ideas from ecofeminism and postcolonial theory, her works reframe human beings as ecological processes rather than as individual bodies or selves. Through performances and group rituals, she creates speculative matriarchal mythologies that envision a world in which reproductive bodies and lands are free from patriarchal domination. In contrast to the long-standing image of a disembodied father-God moralizing human beings from the sky, her work summons a feminine terrestrial divinity that is simultaneously nurturing, erotic, and deadly.

Alexandra’s works have been presented internationally at institutions and festivals including Performance Space NY, 601 Artspace, Anthology Film Archives, Museum of the Moving Image, Museum of Sex, Fantasia Film Festival, Onomatopee Projects, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Culture Lab LIC, San Diego Art Institute, Miriam Gallery, Nitehawk Cinema, and PRAKSIS Oslo. She is a past participant of Arteles Residency in Finland, PRAKSIS Residency in Norway, Live-Art Ireland and the Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art in Berlin. She is a Webby Award Honoree, Russell Grant Awardee, and recipient of the Initiative for Digital Exploration of Arts and Sciences (IDEAS) grant at UC San Diego.

Alexandra’s artworks have been featured in Hyperallergic Magazine, VICE I-D Italy, Sex & Psychedelics Magazine, Precog Magazine, and Cyberfeminism Index by Inventory Press. In Spring 2021, she published her first book and interactive tarot deck with Onomatopee Projects, Netherlands. She regularly offers a tarot readings under the name Planet Womb at nightlife venues, mutual aid events, and festivals.

Alexandra received a BFA in Visual Arts and Anthropology from Sam Fox School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in Visual Arts and Speculative Design at UC San Diego. She is currently training to become a hospital chaplain at NYU Langone.

Susan Stainman

Susan Stainman is a Brooklyn based interdisciplinary artist, focusing in sculpture, installation, and performance. Her practice centers on embodied moments of intimacy, connection, and interdependence (our interconnectedness). Her ideas stem from her mindfulness practice: noticing the world as it is around her. She is specifically interested in the small gestures and sensorial moments of life: holding someone’s hand, a touch on the arm, a hug, a conversation, or the minute daily tasks of raising a baby. Her soft sculptures, photography, installations, and events make physical these often overlooked or forgotten moments.

Stainman is a graduate of Brown University with a degree in American Studies and the Slade School of Fine Art in London for Sculpture. She has had solo exhibitions at AIR, University of Syracuse, Lock Haven University and Black and Graze in New York City. Her group exhibition history ranges from Smack Mellon in Brooklyn to SUNY Potsdam and local 30 in Warsaw, Poland. She received a fellowship from A.I.R. Gallery in 2013 and has been a New York Artist with the gallery since 2014. She has attended residencies at Atlantic Center for the Arts, Jentel Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, CAC at Woodside, and Vermont Studio Center. Her work is held in public and private collections nationally and internationally, including the National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo. Stainman has a forthcoming exhibition at mhPROJECTnyc in 2025.

Daniel Toretsky

Since graduating from Cornell University’s architecture program in 2016, Daniel Toretsky has lived in Brooklyn and worked as a design educator, architect, and exhibit designer. He is currently an MFA student at The New School, focusing on interactive media. Daniel’s art practice is centered around ecological pondering, community participation, and the Jewish diaspora.

Raised in the Yiddish revival scene, Daniel considers spatial rituals in Judaism, many of which are portable and ephemeral. He expands upon these to create physical follies for gathering and reflecting on shared heritage, global injustices, and imaginative futures. This contributes to Daniel’s vision of Judeo-futurism, inspired by Afrofuturism, critically engaging with the past to imagine new Jewish practices which embrace diaspora.

Daniel insists that a sustainable diasporic future is dependent on fighting climate change and habitat destruction. In ongoing work, Daniel explores pre-capitalist notions of ecology in Judaism, anti-colonial frameworks of identity, transience in Yiddish culture, and speculative futures beyond the resource extraction and labor exploitation that define our current society.

Daniel has shown work at the Fentster Gallery in Toronto, Klezkanada Laurentian Retreat, the Jewish Museum of Maryland, Affirmation Arts Gallery, and The Margulies Collection. Daniel was proudly a YoungArts Silver Medalist in 2011, and a recipient of the Eidlitz Travel Fellowship from Cornell University in 2022. His work has been featured in Alma, CityLab, The Forward, and Architect Magazine.

Daniel performs in assorted klezmer and brass bands. On weekends, he likes to go for a dip at Brighton Beach.

Alona Weiss

Alona Weiss is a multidisciplinary artist working with a variety of mediums, including ink drawing, painting, video, movement, performance, writing, printmaking, installation, and graphic design. She was born in Haifa, Israel, grew up near Tel Aviv, immigrated to Brooklyn, and is currently based in the Hudson Valley, New York.

Her work examines the transient nature of belief systems, the interplay between matter and meaning, and the human desire to be remembered in the face of mortality. Over the past decade, she has focused on exploring movement and stillness through personal and collective lenses. This exploration spans the movement of time, the stillness of public monuments, the embodiment of ideologies, and the shifting emotional landscapes of the psyche. In recent years, ink drawing has become her primary medium, through which she shapes deeper connections between art and healing.

She holds an MFA from Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York, and a BDES from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem.
Her work has been exhibited and screened internationally at prominent museums, galleries, and venues including the Hall of Fame for Great Americans (Bronx); 601 Artspace (NYC); Lesley Heller Workspace (NYC); Verse/Work (NY); GlenLily Grounds (NY); the Haifa Museum of Art (Israel); the Beijing Film Triennial (China); Arad Contemporary Art Center (Israel); El Museo de Los Sures (Brooklyn); The Kitchen (NYC); Genia Schreiber Gallery (TLV); Local Projects (Queens); the Fikra Biennial (UAE); and Lincoln Center (NYC).

She has participated in public programs at Bronx Community College Archives & Special Collections, Columbia University Teachers College, and Columbia University School of the Arts in New York. Her work has been featured in publications including Wall Street International, Haaretz Art & Culture, Droste Effect Magazine, HuffPost, Erev Rav, Blouin Artinfo, Unbag Magazine, and Artis’ Voices From the Studio.

Luis Mercedes Winter

Luis Mercedes Winter is a Black, Queer, Jewish, Neurodiverse Earthling based on Lenape Land, colonially known as New York City. Born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and raised between three boroughs, Luis lived in Los Angeles from 2013 to 2018. He learned how to question at Phillips Exeter Academy and how not to question, but rather Art: to Be, at Bard College. His photography is often based in literature while his writing is visual and sensory. In 2022, NY Jewish Week named him one of the "36 to Watch." That same year, he debuted his first photobook, Moses of the City, which received a stellar review from The Forward. In 2023 and 2024, he was a fellow with The Workshop, which is Art Directed by Rabbi Kendell Pinkney and in partnership with Reboot.

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