Artist to Artist Workshops
Rats, Pigeons & Cockroaches
Ages 18 and up
October 16–November 6, 2025
6–8pm, Thursdays
Theater artist Jonothon Lyons performing as Buddy the Rat in the New York City subway. (photo courtesy of Jonothon Lyons, @jonothonlyons)
Instructor
Kyle Barnes & Olivia Tai
Pricing
Tiered Pricing: $45, $120, $220, or $320 + $30 registration fee
Dates
16 October - 5 November
What is New York City without its beloved–and reviled–creatures? In this course, learners will attend to the lives of rats, pigeons, and cockroaches, and reconsider their relationship with NYC’s wildlife through embodied attention practices of disgust, emulation, and fascination.
Each session focuses on the cultural history and ecological role of different vermin: rats, pigeons, cockroaches, culminating in learner made rituals for our urban neighbors.
For a longer course description, please visit The School of Making Thinking’s page.
About Kyle Barnes & Olivia Tai
Hi! We’re Olivia & Kyle, from the Chimeras Collective. Chimeras Collective builds community and orchestrates interspecies gatherings: immersive events and classes designed to explore what human-nonhuman relations are and could be. We prioritize the fascinating, the disgusting, the whimsical. Our chimeric spaces ask: Can science be embodied? Can wonder be a practice? Can creatures be collaborators?
About
Rats, Pigeons & Cockroaches is presented as part of Artist to Artist: a class series by Abrons Arts Center and The School of Making Thinking.