Last night LVHRD hosted BIFOLD: CNFLCT at the TriBeCa Gallery in Manhattan. Guests outside were greeted by a red carpet and a step-and-repeat where photographers snapped photos of them before they entered the gallery.

While attendees waited to take their seats they mingled to music by Turntable Lab DJs Telekinetic Kat and Lefty, checking out the posters mounted on the wall in the Veer Poster Competition, and enjoying drinks mixed by staff from the TriBeCa Cinemas.

Host Anthony Lappé, Executive Editor of the Guerrilla News Network, welcomed guests and started the dialogue on conflict by speaking about the conflict between his upbringing in liberal California and experience working as a journalist in some of the angriest places on earth, including the West Bank and Baghdad.

Following Anthony’s introduction, Sambo martial arts expert Stephen Koepfer and co-founder of the American Sambo Association took the stage and told the audience the story of his journey through the martial arts world and how his experience with human psychology on the mat has taught him how to disarm conflict in real life situations. As Stephen put it, you study martial arts so you never have to fight.

Koepfer captivated the audience with videos of Sambo competition for the former Soviet Union, as well as a live Sambo demonstration that probably sounded a lot worse than it was. Kudos to his assistant.

After a break for cocktails Anthony Lappé returned to introduce VBS.tv correspondent Ryan Duffy who presented his spellbinding video series Colombian Devil’s Breath about his trip to Bogota to experience first-hand the ravages of the drug Scopolamine, used widely by Colombia’s underworld to deprive people of their free will.

Ryan discussed how difficult it was to be thrust into the center of global conflict in a place like Bogota where there are so many injustices he felt compelled to remedy, while at the same time trying to remain objective in order to tell the story.

Though not on the official bill, Ryan’s colleague at VBS.tv, Derrick Beckles, took the stage to talk about the insane methods of coal mining in West Virginia that creates coal slurry runoff which mining companies pump back into the mountains leaving local residents with drinking water that’s blacker than black with toxins.

As dismaying as Derrick’s report was, the theme to emerge from both Ryan and Derrick’s presentation was that the first step towards constructive action in the world must be raising awareness that conflict exists, and that’s exactly what BIFOLD: CNFLCT set out to do.

Thank you to Anthony, Stephen, Ryan and Derrick for lending their voices to last night’s event. Thanks to Telekinetic Kat and Lefty for the great music and Fred Water, the local guy, for generously supplying those ergonomic flasks of water.

We hope you had a great time. Thank you all for your continued support and collaboration with LVHRD.