For our 2022 Analog Bodies and Virtual Activations program, EMERGENYC partnered with The Interior Beauty Salon, conceived by one of Emerge’s inaugural guest teaching artists, Nicolás (A.K.A. Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo). Created in 2017 in The Bronx, NY, the Salon serves as a space where that which is not necessarily seen or manifested in tangible ways is seeded, nurtured, and given room to grow safely. This includes processes melding art, ritual, ceremony, rites of passage, and healing. Some of the channels deployed include writing, listening, talking, moving, drawing, journaling, contemplating, meditating, breathing and performing. The Interior Beauty Salon was born out of the urgency to re-shift the focus from the external and the extraneous in contemporary society and instead to place attention on the very depths of who we might ultimately be.