Thatcher Keats is an artist who has worked mostly as a photographer, exhibiting at Fashion Moda as well as The Bronx Museum of the Arts under the direction of Holly Block. He has also made numerous incarnations of his radio show RANCHO THATCHMO on WGSB, WOZQ, WFMU and WGXC. Currently he makes a podcast of the same name. He has also acted and performed on stage as well as on screen off and on since he was a child.
Thatcher’s father was born in The Bronx and his grandfather had a camera shoppe on Westchester Square during the 20th century. He moved to Mosholu Parkway in 1984 and then to a (NYC Department of Cultural Affairs/NYC sanctioned artist housing) loft on the Grand Concourse in 1989. As a young man he made graffiti under the tag DSM III (g.a.e.t.) and became involved in the early days of Bronx Harm Reduction, handing out needles, bleach kits and condoms to (distressed/in need) populations throughout the South Bronx.
Synn Stern, RN, MPH, has worked in the field of public health, harm reduction and addiction for more than 30 years. Coming out of the New York City therapeutic community world, she then worked at the psychiatric day program at the Franklin Men’s Shelter in the Bronx at the time when Crack was King during the Reagan/Bush homeless crisis. During the AIDS crisis she handed out condoms and bleach kits in Hunt’s Point, then helped start the first legal Bronx needle exchange program in the Tremont section. She then moved to Rotterdam, Netherlands where she worked with some of the leading people in the field in a progressive nation that practiced drug normalization.
After returning to the states, she received additional medical degrees, and began working at The CORNER Project, which recently became the first legal Safe Injection Site in New York.
