THE MINA PROJECT at ArtWRKD

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Are you looking to be a part of a creative collective, and have an immersive experience of theatre, film, poetry, or costume design? Poet and filmmaker Vasiliki Katsarou is developing a multimedia poetry-film project exploring the life and legacy of 20th century artist-poet Mina Loy. This winter and spring 2026, ArtWRKD will host this work-in-progress through a series of immersive workshops. These workshops will enable participants to hone their skills and gain experience in writing, performance, and video; and to work in creative collaboration and make creative connections that may spark their own future creative projects.

Workshop #1: Experimental Writing, Jan. 24-25, 2026
This will be a poetry/text-focused- Mina Loy reading group & writing workshop led by Vasiliki. Open to writers and others with a particular interest in modernism, feminism, and creative expression. Prior to the weekend workshop, participants in this workshop will have read Lost Writings by Mina Loy ed. Karla Kelsey (Yale Univ. Press). The weekend-long discussion group will culminate in generating poems, and other forms of experimental writing.

Workshop #2: Bringing Writing to the Stage: March 7-8, 2026
Led by Vasiliki Katsarou together with ArtWRKD founder and artist Ashara Shapiro, this performance-based workshop will focus on adaptation and performance basics. It will begin with a read-through of selected writings of Mina Loy, together with original writing developed by participants in Workshop #1. The short scripts developed will inspire movement, and lead to performance experiments.

 

Workshop #3: Mask-work, Set & Costume Design Mar. 21-22, 2026
This performance-based workshops will also be led by Vasiliki Katsarou together with ArtWRKD founder and artist Ashara Shapiro. It will delve even further into performance/choreography, costume & set design.

Videography: May 2-3, 2026
Participants in Workshops 1, 2, and 3 will be invited to attend and assist (depending on interest and experience) the filming of experimental scenes drawn from the generated writing and performance experiments. These will be captured on video by Brooklyn-based filmmaker Tommy Gonzalez, under the direction of Vasiliki Katsarou. Those who take up crew positions for this shoot will be acknowledged in the final film’s credits for their work. A video-screening of the rough-cut of the poetry-film will be held at ArtWRKD at a later date TBD. The goal of this session is to create a work-in-progress, which will be refined

and taken to the next stage (editing and installation).

Registration for these workshops is open to the public: especially to emerging and experienced poets, writers, filmmakers, and creatives of all kinds, ages 21+. All workshops provide a unique opportunity to participate in the vibrant, creative unfolding of a new multimedia artwork. A brief questionnaire confirming interest and experience level will be required to complete registration.

More details: Weekend workshops are both Saturday and Sunday 10am-5pm. Lunch will be provided. The Jan. 24/25 workshop may be hybrid: one day in person; the other via Zoom, depending on weather.

Workshop registration:
Workshop #1 –$275
Workshop #2 –$375
Workshop #3 –$375

Choose the workshops which most speak to your interests. It is very much welcomed, but not required, to participate in all workshops.

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Bios

Mina Loy was born in 1882 in the UK, and was living in Colorado in 1966 with her daughters when she passed away. Mina Loy’s life in art included all the modernist art movements of the 20th century: Dadaism, Futurism, and Surrealism, as well as assemblage/collage art using recycled materials. In Florence and Paris and New York, Loy wrote avant-garde poetry, wrote published and unpublished novels; acted in the theater with poet William Carlos Williams, and found the love of her life--a poet and boxer, who was also the nephew of Oscar Wilde. Then she lost him in a tragic boat accident. Her son-in-law was the gallerist Julien Levy, whose gallery featured the most prominent works of modernism. Loy’s life is the stuff of legend; but her ground-breaking poetry was virtually lost to history, then found again through the work of devotees, who have assembled a body of significant scholarship on her art. There could be many films of Mina Loy, and The Mina Project proposes to create one of them: a poetry-film that in the 21st century, will reflect on Mina Loy, and reflect us back to ourselves.

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Vasiliki Katsarou is a poet, filmmaker, curator, and publisher, with an MFA in filmmaking from Boston University, and an undergraduate degree in Literature from Harvard College. Her experience includes film production in France and Greece, and as writer-director: 16mm short films, as well as an award-winning 35mm film.  She has published several poetry collections, and was honored with an invitation to read at the Dodge Poetry Festival and serve as a Geraldine R. Dodge Poet in New Jersey. She has worked on the writing and art of Mina Loy for over two decades.

Ashara Shapiro is a multidisciplinary creative, arts educator, and entrepreneur. A magna cum laude graduate of Emerson College (BFA in acting and theater education) she brings a rich performance background to this project. Ashara is the founder of ArtWRKD in Newtown PA, a dynamic space featuring a gallery, artists’ studios, and workshops. From her ArtWRKD studio, she also produces her own wearable art.