Suzanne Fiol

"[4] A fixture of the downtown experimental performing art scene for twenty years, she was an early supporter of composer Rhys Chatham,[5] experimental musicians like Alan Licht and Tony Conrad,[6] Sonic Youth, the reclusive Texas musician Jandek,[6] drummer Ikue Mori,[5] and "new-music regulars like Marc Ribot, Anthony Coleman and Elliott Sharp",[1] [7] numbers of teenage and obscure bands, (for instance "Nautical Almanac, the hyper-obscure Baltimore noise duo "[2] as well as established groups like Moby, which provided a fundraiser appearance for ISSUE Project Room.

Married to Joaquin Fiol, whom she met at the Mudd Club, in 1991 she chose for several years to be a stay-at-home mother[9] and pursued a career as a multi-media painter-photographer "cultivating a style that superimposed layers of paint over her original photos in an attempt to capture the 'ecstatic moment' of her subject material.

[8] Fiol's new venue quickly established a place in the small circuit of downtown clubs and makeshift theaters that specialize in the fringes of contemporary music[1] As the reviewer for 'The New Yorker' magazine put it, "Cagean conceptualists rubbed shoulders with free-jazz virtuosos, indie-rock sound terrorists, and diehard modernists.

Duck through the inset door (be careful not to slam it) and make your way through the dirt and grass lot, weaving through the bare winter trees and past the covered-up boat that lies plowed into the ground, as if deposited there by a flood.

Scale the slippery iron steps and look through the glass door: You might see a troupe of matronly women and gray men banging gamelans or bowing zithers; you might see a white man from Harlem with a long beard, a pink bandana, and a black hat hiding his eyes, on his knees, screaming; or you might see, because it's there to see most every night, a marginally well-heeled crowd of men and women, glasses predominate, eyes closed, often cross-legged on the carpet, slowly nodding in empathy at the spectacle before them.

[2]Performers at ISSUE Project Room range across the musical spectrum, from high-profile Moby to "Peter Walker—the 1960s Village legend who once served as Timothy Leary's music director …like a long-vanished magician …Other forgotten artists—like Gamelan Son of Lion, a Folkways recording troupe from the '70s—and relatively new ones—such as the Locust hypno-quintet Function (have performed at ISSUE Project Room, as have)…legendary downtown composer Rhys Chatham (reunited) with alumni from his storied '70s and early '80s downtown guitar trios, including Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, and Lee Ranaldo, of Sonic Youth; vaunted New York artist Robert Longo; fellow Table of the Elements recording artists Jonathan Kane and David Daniell; Sir Richard Bishop of the Sun City Girls and Harlem's No-Neck Blues Band" and Sunburned Hand of the Man."

At the time of her death in October 2009, she was only slightly short of that goal, largely due to the contribution of a $1.1 million grant from the discretionary funds of Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn borough president[1] and a fundraising art auction at Phillips de Pury gallery in Chelsea, to which over a hundred well-known artists donated works, raising $350,000.

[7] The Board of Trustees of ISSUE Project Room, which includes actor/director Steve Buscemi, musicians Tony Conrad and R. Luke DuBois, and visual artist Robert Longo, is continuing with fundraising.