Ethan Shoshan: For Those Without A Tribe

November 17, 2026 – January 3, 2027
Flux IV, 56-21 2nd Street
Long Island City, NY 11101

Opening Reception
November 17, 6:00 – 9:00 pm with remarks at 7:00 pm

Gallery Hours
Weekends, 2:00 – 6:00 pm
Mondays, 4:00 – 8:00 pm (except Dec 7 & 28)
or by appointment

Flux Factory is pleased to present For Those Without a Tribe, an exhibition by New York-based artist, activist, and social ecologist Ethan Shoshan. The exhibition centers on a series of large-scale hooked rugs depicting the rooms and objects of the historic Lower Manhattan building on Greenwich Street where Shoshan lived alongside the artist Geoffrey Hendricks and archivist Sur Rodney (Sur) for almost two decades. The building, an 1813 Federal-style seaman’s boarding house, became a pivotal site in Shoshan’s artistic development. A social experiment for intergenerational living, the Greenwich Street home became a place where art, friendship, history, and everyday life were deeply intertwined.

Geoffrey Hendricks, a.k.a. “Cloudsmith,” was an early and pivotal figure in the Fluxus movement and created seminal queer works that challenged the relationship between art, life, and performance. He worked alongside Allan Kaprow and Robert Watts, helping to transform Rutgers University into a hub for avant-garde art and performance, and was Shoshan’s mentor. Sur Rodney (Sur) was an early champion of East Village artists in the 1980s, co-directing Gracie Mansion Gallery, and has been an important force in preserving artists’ legacies through his writing and cultural work. He is also a longstanding member of the seminal Black queer writers’ group, Other Countries. 

Having lost numerous friends and lovers to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and ’90s, they both are witness bearers to a generation of artists, which made living on Greenwich Street more joyous and significant for Shoshan. These formative years at the Greenwich Street home were a period of learning from immensely talented queer elders. The home was a living archive, studio, library, and museum—a place where Shoshan was surrounded by a wealth of knowledge and possibilities, activated through gatherings and performances by an extended community of artists and organizers. For Those Without a Tribe considers home and domestic space beyond the nuclear family as a radical site for artistic practice, activism, mutual aid, and skill sharing. Through a series of large-scale hooked rugs, the work reveals interior spaces and totemic objects using repurposed fabrics and the traditional nineteenth-century technique of rug hooking. The rugs preserve a model of chosen family and communal urban life increasingly threatened by displacement and capitalism.

Visitors are invited to walk across the works and move through vignettes of rooms, encountering the rugs as touchstones to the past and reminders that art can be felt, expressed, lived in, and used as a tool for empathy and shared connection. For Those Without a Tribe asks how we preserve the spaces, relationships, and alternative forms of family that have shaped our lives. It offers space for conversations, collective breathing, and a reminder that we are cared for when we are part of a community.

The exhibition of rugs is only the first part of this project. If you or someone you know has spent time in a collective living situation and would like to share your thoughts and experiences, Shoshan would love to talk with you in hopes of a future publication exploring these themes.

Events

• Monday, November 23, 7:00 pm | Proximity Ritual
  Composed by Catherine Noa Ashley and sound designed by Felix Ambach, Proximity Ritual is a micro songbook developed in response to the exhibition, featuring vocalists Mercedes Ferreira-Dias and Michael Delaurier.
  
• Monday evenings, November 30, December 14 & 21, 6:00 – 8:00 pm | How to Be a Hooker
  Join Ethan Shoshan and special guests for a series of rug-hooking workshops, exploring the social and communal dimensions of making and living together.
  
• Friday, December 4, 7:00 pm | Shared Frequencies
  Experimental musical performance with Johnson Huynh, Madison Hilligoss, and friends incorporating movement, vocals, wind and the body as electrical conductors.
  
• Sunday, December 13, 6:00 – 9:00 pm | Your Kunst is Your Waffle
  A waffle night featuring performances by NYC favorite kitchen band NYOBS. Bring your own favorite toppings; waffles will be made on the spot, with contests and special prizes throughout the evening.
  
• Sunday, December 20, 4:00 – 6:00 pm | Analogue STAT (Sculpture/Text/Assemblage/Tactility)
  Yasmeen Abdallah will facilitate a workshop that prompts folks to step away from digital devices in favor of an analog form.  The workshop will take form as literary excavation, where concrete poetry, sculptural text, malleable essays, and tangible speech are created, all while keeping cognitive decline at bay.

This project is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Further support comes from Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Allied Productions Inc., and Olde Hope Antiques. Special thanks to Patrick Bell, Sur Rodney Sur, NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project, Jan Drojarski, Žilvinas Jonušas, Jack Waters, Peter Cramer, Molly Caldwell, Maureen Catbagan, Gail Thacker, Alice O’Malley, Judith Leinen, Alexandria Deters, Carlo Quispe, Johnson Huynh, Catherine Noa Ashley, Michael Cacciatore, John Michael Swartz, Phillip Ward, Alexander Zev, Stephen Street Gallery, Sally Beauti Twin, Sarah Dahlinger, Danny Crump, all my Flux family, Nat Roe, Susan Katz, and Meghana Karnik.

About the Artist

Ethan Shoshan is an artist, activist, curator, writer, and social ecologist based in New York City. Living independently from an early age taught him care, resilience, and the importance of community. These values continue to shape his art. Working across media, his practice bridges creativity and social engagement, shedding light on inequity and belonging. Behind the scenes, he supports activist and cultural communities as a technical consultant, seeing no separation between sustaining art and sustaining people. Shoshan has exhibited widely and led programs for queer and unhoused communities. His work transforms personal and collective histories into acts of connection and possibility.

Media & Visitor Contact

Meghana Karnik, Curator & Exhibitions Director
meghana@fluxfactory.org

Accessibility

Flux IV is located on the ground floor of 56-21 2nd Street, Long Island City, NY 11101 between the Queens Landing Boathouse & Environmental Center and Gotham Point apartments. The closest bus stop is 2 St/55 Ave on the Q101. The closest subway station is Vernon Blvd-Jackson Ave on the 7 line (purple) and 21st st G line (green). The closest ferry pier is Hunter’s Point South Ferry Landing. A Citibike station is located at Center Blvd & Hunters Point South Ferry Landing. iPark (paid parking) is available on 1-20 56th Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101. There is a public restroom left of our front door.