More Than a Repair Café: A Full Day of Participation, Art, and Community
Repair Café El Barrio’s Fourth Anniversary on Sunday, September 13, will bring together many different forms of repair: objects, stories, relationships, neighborhoods, and the systems we share.
The day will begin at 11 am with our symposium, The Infrastructure We Make for One Another, a collaborative conversation exploring how New Yorkers create the spaces, networks, and shared resources that allow communities to care for one another and thrive.
Our panelists bring together perspectives from technology, community environmental action, education, experimental art, cultural preservation, and access to creative space:
Rolinda Ramos, Director of Programs at El Barrio’s Artspace PS109
Mark Hurst, host of Techtonic on WFMU and founder and host of the Gel conference
Sebastián Martín, founder and CEO of Cambio Labs
Harley Spiller, Ken Dewey Director of Franklin Furnace Archive
Emily Coyne and Nicole De Santis, representing Clean Bushwick Initiative
Rocío Salceda, founder and Creative Director of Repair Café El Barrio, as host and moderator
Together, we will consider community infrastructure not only as something constructed by governments or large institutions, but also as something people make for one another every day through access, advocacy, education, environmental action, cultural preservation, technology, and shared resources. We will expand the discussion to include the audience, keeping the conversation participatory, lively, and open.
And expect the unexpected! The symposium will conclude with a surprising participatory artwork that will invite the audience to experience its ideas in an entirely different way.
The symposium is free, but seating is limited. Reserve your spot here.
The symposium will conclude between 1 and 1:30 pm. Refreshments will be served.
At 2 pm, the anniversary celebration will expand throughout El Barrio’s Artspace PS109 with a Community Activation Fair featuring workshops, art, storytelling, fashion, and participatory activities—including a very special Repair Café rooted in togetherness.
The building will be filled with activities and initiatives from organizations and artists including Big Reuse, NYC Fair Trade Coalition, Repurposeful Ancestry Lab, Community Climate Hub, Time’s Up, Trees New York, Matt Lopes-Jensen, Eivy T2T, and Juju Lee. The LES Ecology Center will collect textiles and e-waste outside, while participating organizations offer information, demonstrations, and hands-on activities throughout the building.
And this is where it gets really special for us. For the first time, Repair Café Brooklyn, Repair Café Queens, Repair Café NYC, and Repair Café El Barrio will work elbow to elbow under the same roof to serve the community. It will be a wonderful opportunity for repairers, organizers, and visitors from across the city to meet one another, exchange knowledge, and strengthen New York’s growing repair network.
Steps You Can Take Now
Reserve your place at the symposium here. Seating is limited.
If you would like to bring something to be repaired between 2 and 5 pm, contacting us in advance is recommended but not required. You are also welcome to stop by anytime from 2 to 5 pm to meet all these wonderful initiatives and enjoy the afternoon’s activities. No RSVP is needed for this part of the day.
When Life Asked for Cloth: Generational Repair at the Brooklyn Public Library
On Thursday, August 13, Repair Café El Barrio founder Rocío Salceda will participate in the first public session of the Repurposeful Ancestry Lab at the Flatbush Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.
The Repurposeful Ancestry Lab is a free, creative community space dedicated to exploring the traditions of repair, reuse, and resourcefulness passed down through families and communities. Through storytelling, hands-on workshops, a community materials library, and a digital map of Brooklyn’s repair practices, the project celebrates the often-unrecognized artists and caretakers who give objects—and traditions—a second life.
Rocío will present When Life Asked for Cloth: A Story of Generational Repair, tracing how four generations of women transformed abandonment and scarcity into resourcefulness, creativity, and care. Through family photographs, sewing, clothing, and her mother’s croquetas—which she will share with the community—Rocío explores inherited skills, the overlooked value of women’s labor, and the personal journey that ultimately led her to create Repair Café El Barrio.
Event Details
Repurposeful Ancestry Lab: First Public Session
Thursday, August 13, 2026
Flatbush Library, Brooklyn Public Library
Free and open to the public
Participants are invited to bring a broken or repaired object with a meaningful story. To learn more, contact repurposefulancestry@gmail.com or follow @repurposefulancestry on Instagram.
Repair Café El Barrio Is Heading to Randall’s Island!
We are thrilled to partner with the Randall’s Island Park Alliance for Cocktails on the Farm on August 1—an evening celebrating community, creativity, and sustainability at the Urban Farm.
Repair Café El Barrio will be there sharing our passion for repair and reuse. Stop by our booth to meet the team, learn more about what we do, explore simple ways to extend the life of the things you own, and pick up some special RCEB goodies!
Before then, we have a full day of repairs and creativity planned at El Barrio Artspace. Our upcoming repair event is fully booked, but a few spaces are still available for the Wear the Repair screen-printing workshop at 11 a.m. Bring a garment and give it a new life with one of our Repair Café El Barrio designs.
You can also register now for our next community repair event on August 16 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Join us at Cocktails on the Farm and come celebrate repair, reuse, food, and community with us on Randall’s Island.
Repair Café El Barrio at Cooper Union
We’re super happy to share that Repair Café El Barrio has been invited to participate in the circularity trade fair organized by The Architectural League of New York and The Cooper Union as part of Current Work: Toward Circular Construction with Felix Heisel.
A beautiful opportunity to bring repair culture, community knowledge, and circular thinking into conversations around architecture, reuse, and the future of cities.
We can’t wait to meet you!
Join us this Thursday, May 14th from 5:30 to 8 pm.
We’ll be at the lobby outside the Rose Auditorium at Cooper Union. Many other amazing initiatives will be there as well, including Materials for the Arts, RECLAIM NYC, CO Adaptive, Tri-Lox, and Vitra Circle, among others.
A New Year, A New Chapter at Repair Café El Barrio
It All Begins Here
As we step into a new year, Repair Café El Barrio continues to grow — not just in numbers, but in depth, intention, and care. What began as a free community repair space has become a living ecosystem of learning, collaboration, and collective imagination.
2026 marks the beginning of a new chapter for RCEB. Alongside our monthly Repair Cafés, we are expanding a new educational program that will continue to unfold throughout the year. This program grows directly from what our community has been asking for: more opportunities to learn, to make together, and to explore repair as both a practical and human practice.
This expansion is supported in part by the NYC Connect grant, which allows us to deepen our educational offerings while keeping them accessible and rooted in community care. More details about specific workshops, classes, and learning experiences will be shared soon.
Over the past year, Repair Café El Barrio has also received generous attention from local and international media. We’re deeply grateful for the thoughtful coverage that has helped amplify our work and values — especially the feature in The New York Times, which brought wider visibility to our approach to repair, sustainability, and collective care.
At the heart of this growth is our team.
We’re excited to formally welcome Ari Tabei into a prominent role within RCEB as Director of Educational Programming. Ari has been part of the café from the very beginning — sewing, repairing, documenting, and supporting each session with care and clarity. Her practice spans visual art, performance, textiles, reuse, and collaborative making, and her leadership is shaping the future of our educational programming.
We’re also honored to share that Dr. Amber Proctor-Reyes will be joining Repair Café El Barrio in a very special capacity. As a therapist, Dr. Proctor-Reyes brings a deep understanding of healing, embodiment, and emotional care. Her presence reflects our belief that repair doesn’t stop with objects — it extends to people, stories, and shared experiences. More on this collaboration will be announced soon.
The year begins with a first glimpse of what’s ahead: Ari’s Experimental Weaving workshop, taking place during our next Repair Café on Jan 11th. This free workshop marks the start of our expanded educational programming and sets the tone for what’s to come.
We’re grateful to our volunteers, collaborators, partners, and neighbors who continue to make this space possible. Repair Café El Barrio exists because of collective effort — and 2026 is already shaping up to be a year of meaningful growth, shared learning, and deeper connection.
More soon.
