Talk with Multidisciplinary Artist Gregory Sale —-Oct 14, 4:30–6:00pm—–In Partnership with Queens Museum’s Open A.I.R. Artist Services Program

Time: Oct 14, 4:30–6:00pm

Location: Queens College, Klapper Hall, Fine Arts Department Room 672 on the 6th floor.

Campus map:http://www.qc.cuny.edu/about/directions/2d/Pages/default.aspx

QC shuttle bus: http://www.qc.cuny.edu/about/directions/Pages/Shuttle.aspx

 

And a link to directions to the QC campus:http://www.qc.cuny.edu/about/directions/Pages/default.aspx

The Queens Museum’s Open A.I.R. Artist Services Program and the Social Practice Queens MFA Concentration at Queens College invite you to join multidisciplinary artist Gregory Sale for a presentation and discussion of his work.

About Gregory Sale

Gregory Sale is a multidisciplinary artist with a socially engaged art practice. Currently he is producing two bodies of work. One gives voice to the multiple constituencies of incarceration and criminal justice systems through engendering civility and discourse around complex issues without easy answers. The other, quieter initiative takes on love and language by flirting with the fluid parameters of public and private, prose and poem.

It’s not just black and white, 2011, at ASU Art Museum in Tempe, AZ unfolded during a three-month residency exhibition. With support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, it considered the cultural, social and personal issues at stake in the day-to-day workings of the criminal justice system in Arizona. As a next multi-year investigation, Sleepover grapples with the challenges of individuals reentering society after periods of incarceration. Now in research and development, Sleepover (supported by a 2013 Creative Capital grant in Emerging Fields and a 2014 Art Matters grant) will bring together key stakeholder constituents for extended periods of time to reconsider their understandings of re-entry and their relationships to one another.

In summer 2012, as a resident artist at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY, and at VCCA in Amherst, VA, Sale initiated Love for Love, a socially engaged project created in collaboration with eight organizations and 120 community participants in Chapel Hill, NC. The project was commission for More Love: Art, Politics and Sharing since the 1990s at the Ackland Art Museum, UNC-Chapel Hill in 2013 and traveled to Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, TN in 2013-2014.

Sale is Assistant Professor of Intermedia and Public Practice at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. Before that he served as the Visual Arts Director for Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Curator of Education at ASU Art Museum, and as a public art project manager for the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture.

About Social Practice Queens

Social Practice Queens (SPQ) is a unique MFA concentration bringing together the resources of an academic research institution, Queens College (City University of New York: CUNY), with the long-standing community-based activism of the Queens Museum.

The new MFA concentration in social practice integrates studio work with social, tactical, interventionist and cooperative forms. SPQ’s goal is to initiate interdisciplinary projects with real world outcomes rooted in CUNY’s rigorous departmental offerings (e.g.: urban studies, environmental science, public policy, experimental pedagogy, social theory) in tandem with the Queens Museum’s ongoing community-based activities.

About Open A.I.R. Artist Services Program

The expanded Queens Museum features a new, expanded slate of artist services, including a brand new Studio Program, with professional development features and a networking Lecture Series that draws on human resources at the Queens Museum. Open A.I.R. programs will offer professional development topics targeted specifically to all interested emerging artists.

Open A.I.R. is made possible by a generous grant from The Scherman Foundation’s Katharine S. and Axel G. Rosin Fund. Additional support provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Questions? Email sjmo@queensmuseum.org

 

 

 

1963 March on Washington

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Scene involving some Queens College students from 1963 March on Washington. The march was documented by James Blue and restored by the US National Archives. The *entire film can be seen on the US National Archives Youtube Channel

SPQ MFA THESIS SHOW: MONEY TIME by Seth Aylmer

Money Time

The thesis exhibition commenced with a dinner party for the MFA class in the gallery. Then there was some time to discuss the work (topics included money symbology, community forms, the nature of social practice, etc.) Photographs by Steven Harris.

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Queens College Ranked Second (Nationally) In “Bang for Buck”

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From a recent New York Times article:

Looking out over the quadrangle before him as students dashed from one class to the next, James Muyskens was feeling proud one recent afternoon, and why not?

The college he had led for the past 11 years had just been awarded second place in a new ranking of American higher education — ahead of flagship state universities, ahead of elite liberal arts colleges, even ahead of all eight Ivy League universities.

The college is Queens College, a part of the City University of New York with an annual tuition of $5,730, and a view of the Long Island Expressway.

Catering to working-class students, more than half of whom were born in other countries, Queens does not typically find itself at the top of national rankings. Then again, this was not a typical ranking. It was a list of colleges that offer the “best bang for the buck.”

Continue reading on nytimes.com: Lists That Rank Colleges’ Value Are on the Rise.

 

SPQ Open Studio – Queens Museum Re-Opening Weekend, November 9-11

 

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The SPQ studio will be open to the public on the weekend of November 9-11, coinciding with the grand re-opening celebrations of the Queens Museum.

The SPQ Studio will feature the current SPQ Projects, and will be open along with with the studios of the inaugural artists in the Queens Museum’s studio program:  JUAN BETANCURTH, ONYEDIKA CHUKE, SHAHAB FOTOUHI, CAITLIN KEOGH, MIKE KENNEY, FILIP OLZEWSKI AND BUNNY ROGERS, JEWYO RHII, AND CAROLINE WOOLARD.

The  exhibitions opening that weekend at the Queens Museum.

Peter Schumann: The Shatterer
Pedro Reyes’ The People’s United Nations (pUN)
Queens International 2013 
New York City Building Time Lapse, 2009 – 2013: Photographs by Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao
Citizens of the World: Cuba in Queens

 

 

OPENING: PROJECT LUZ: the classroom, Art for all.

 

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PROJECT LUZ: the classroom, Art for all.

by Sol Aramendi

 

October 7th – 18th 10am-7pm

 

Opening; October 15th 5-8 pm

Klapper Hall Gallery, Queen College

(see directions below)

 

Sol Aramendi presents for her MFA Social Practice Thesis show, Project Luz: The Classroom Art for All. A series of classes and workshops for the College’s members of the cleaning and custodian teams. All classes are free and open for the whole duration of the exhibition and have been designed to fit Queens College’s staff members’ schedules, their breaks, and changing shifts.

Ms. Aramendi will lead photography classes for all levels and her fellow MFA classmates will teach Studio Art to collaborate with the project during the show. The exhibition consists of a series of spaces that present the processes, actions, together with their results, at the free temporary art school for the custodians of the College. Also on display is an installation including a selection of Ms. Aramendi’s recent works developed outside (but intrinsic to) Project Luz.

Project Luz started at the artist’s studio as a response to the need for change in her most immediate community. As Ms. Aramendi realized the lack of opportunities that both immigrant men and women (and even their families) had to access culture and the urban system, she organized workshops and classes for them. These events took place mostly in the evenings and weekends. Project Luz then started offering these classes at several cultural institutions, hospitals, and public libraries, among other places.

Ms. Aramendi is in constant search for opportunities to create an open space in which to discuss the role of the artist not only as an educator but also as a catalyst for social cooperation and change for the disempowered. The key is how artists and educators can provide anyone and everyone with access to information, culture and training in different disciplines, and make a difference. Based in Long Island City, Queens, Ms. Aramendi is the first Masters graduate of Fine Arts in Social Practice exclusively developed as a collaboration between the Queens Museum and Queens College.

Special Events:

Decolonization at Birth

Fridays, October 11 and 18 : In collaboration with Yaocihuatzin, who holds a PhD in Education focused in the opportunity of freedom and independency from the moment of birth. Both Fridays will include a session of free portraits for pregnant and breastfeeding women and women circles talking about education.

Students and teachers are invited to participate in every way and be part of or hold classes in the gallery and make collaborative projects.

 

Shannon Jackson Visits SPQ

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Photo by Tom Finkelpearl

Worker Memorial Day Publication – Barrie Cline and Sol Aramendi

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SPQ graduate students Barrie Cline and Sol Aramendi, founder of Project Luz, and their collaborators, are observing Workers Memorial Day this coming Sunday by launching a publication at Corona Plaza as part of a larger community health fair coordinated by the Queens Museum.  

The publication was the result of a series of dialogues that brought together union construction workers (enrolled in the Harry Van Arsdale Center for Labor Studies at SUNY) and day laborers (who are members of Corona-based immigrant advocacy organization New Immigrant Community Empowerment-NICE). In these encounters members from both groups shared with each other their feelings about safety and the conditions of their labor. The publication reflects the images and texts of what they hope is the beginning of a conversation towards safer conditions for all workers as well as different ways to look at their labor.

This project was initiated in association with The Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies, New Immigrant Community Empowerment, and assistance from the Social Practice Queens (SPQ) component of  Queens College and The Queens Museum of Art.

This project is funded in part by the Student Activity Fee of the State University of New York and the Spirit of Boz, founded by Julien Friedler, Belgium.

Shared Spaces: CUNY Queens College MFA Exhibition 2013

Shared Spaces

CUNY Queens College

MFA Exhibition 2013

Opening Saturday March 23, 6–9pm

March 23 – April 3, 2012

Hours: Tue – Sat, 11:30am – 6pm, or by appointment

 

 

Pablo Alvarez

Sol Aramendi

Seth Aylmer

Barrie Cline

Annemarie Coffey

Chris Esposito

Christie Farriella

Kristie Hirten

Marthe Keller

Henry Kielmanowicz

Thea Lanzisero

Lauren Nickou

Liz Pasqualo

Jose Serrano-McClain

Amanda Shea

Kara Szemelynec

Joanna Sztencel

 

Curated by Liz Park

 

Exhibition catalogue available for free at the gallery

 

ONE ART SPACE, TRIBECA

23 Warren Street – Street Level

TriBeCa New York, NY 10007

646.559.0535

www.oneartspace.com

Panel: Art and Labor

Barrie Cline, SPQ MFA student, organized this panel discussion on a topic that has recently captured the attention of the artists and art institutions: Art and Labor.

When: 7-8:30pm Thursday, January 31

Where: No Longer Empty /  Long Island City Clocktower

29-27 41st Avenue, Queens

Subway:  Queens Plaza M, E, and R.  Queensboro Plaza N, Q, and 7

Website / Facebook  

The question “How Much Do I Owe You?” implies an equal exchange of money for services or labor.  In an unsteady job market and an economy that arguably favors a small percentage of workers, this common question takes on new weight and needs re-evaluation.

Panelists Mike Merrill, Valeria Treves and Barrie Cline discuss how art, public action, and other community initiatives can play a role in advocating for workers rights, and in shaping more fair systems of compensation and exchange. Former community organizer at the Queens Museum, Alexandra García, will moderate.

Panelists:

Mike Merrill, the Dean from The Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies will speak about the effects of the neoliberal economy on workers and what he feels is necessary in rebuilding a strong labor movement, including the role art might play.

Valeria Treves from New Immigrant Community Empowerment in Queens will present the struggles of the immigrant workers she represents and her organizations efforts to achieve fair labor practices for them. Among their initiatives, NICE is using the medium of  the graphic novel, full scale theater production and shorter educational theater pieces produced out in the community to aid in organizing and to encourage dialogue.

Barrie Cline shall give an overview of the social justice themed public arts class she teaches to union electricians and plumbers and present student work that seeks to recreate the images of their labor and themselves and further build on the mutualism among workers—both within and outside their respective unions. Cline will introduce the multifaceted work of the OWS Arts and Labor group in their critical attention and action concerning artistic production and labor-and the structures and institutions that frame it.

Alexandra García will moderate the panel. García is an organizer and cultural programmer with experience in community development and coalition building focusing on social justice and cultural empowerment. She’s currently the programs coordinator at Corona Plaza with the Queens Museum of Art. She also worked as a community organizer at the Queens Museum of Art with the public programs department and the Heart of Corona coalition that creates programs for the betterment of the neighborhood.

 

Made possible by support from

Panel: Does It Need to Be Called Art?

Maureen Connor, SPQ faculty member, is part of a panel that looks to answer, maybe, a very interesting question:

Does It Need to Be Called Art?

Tuesday, January 29, 2013 @ 7pm
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd Street

Free and open to the public.

When art is made or used as a tool of social or political activism, is it still best described as “art”? Critic and curator Saul Ostrow moderates a discussion on the topic with artist Maureen Connor, academic and activist Stephen Duncombe, curator and Percent for Art Director Sara Reisman and artist and urban designer Damon Rich. Presented by the BFA Visual & Critical Studies Department.

Moderator:

Saul Ostrow is an independent critic and curator and art editor at large for Bomb magazine. Since 1987, he has curated over 70 exhibitions in the United States and abroad. From 2002–12, he was chair of Visual Arts and Technologies at the Cleveland Institute of Art. He currently serves on the board of directors of the  College Art Association. http://www.collegeart.org/

Panelists: 

Maureen Connor combines installation, video, interior design, ethnography, human resources, feminism and social justice. Her exhibition venues include the Akbank Sanat, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, International Artists Studio Program (IASPIS), Momenta Art, Antoni Tàpies Foundation, Queens Museum of Art and Wyspa Art Institute. http://www.maureenconnor.nethttp://theiwt.com

Stephen Duncombe is an associate professor at the Gallatin School and the Department of Media, Culture and Communications of New York University, where he teaches the history and politics of media. A lifelong political activist, he co-founded a community-based advocacy group in the Lower East Side and works as an organizer for the New York City chapter of Reclaim the Streets, an international direct action group. http://www.stephenduncombe.com

Sara Reisman is the director of New York City’s Percent for Art program, which commissions permanent public artworks for newly constructed and renovated city-owned
spaces. She has curated more than 40 exhibitions and projects for institutions, nonprofits and art spaces including The Cooper Union, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Museum of Contemporary Art Republic of Srpska and Smack Mellon. She was the 2011 critic-in-residence at Art Omi, an international visual artist residency in upstate New York. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcla/html/panyc/panyc.shtml

Damon Rich is a designer, artist and the urban designer and waterfront planner for Newark, New Jersey. His work represented the United States at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale and has been exhibited at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, MoMA PS1, the Netherlands Architecture Institute and the Storefront for Art and Architecture. He founded the Center for Urban Pedagogy, a nonprofit that uses design and art to improve civic engagement, in 1997. http://damonrich.nethttp://welcometocup.org

It’s the Political Economy, Stupid!

SPQ faculty member Greg Sholette has shared with us excerpts of his just-published compilation of essays, co-edited with Oliver Ressler, It’s the Political Economy, Stupid: The Global Financial Crisis in Art and Theory. 

The publication is accompanied by an exhibition at the Pori Art Museum in Finland, opening February 1.

The title of the book and the exhibition is a rephrasing by Slavoj Žižek of the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid”, a widely circulated phrase used during Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign against incumbent President George Bush Senior.

As Pluto Press, publishers of this and other books by Greg, put it:

“It’s the Political Economy, Stupid brings together internationally acclaimed artists and thinkers, including Slavoj Žižek, David Graeber, Judith Butler and Brian Holmes, to focus on the current economic crisis in a sustained and critical manner. Following a unique format, images and text are integrated in a visually stunning bespoke production by activist designer Noel Douglas. What emerges is a powerful critique of the current capitalist crisis through an analytical and theoretical response and an aesthetic-cultural rejoinder. By combining artistic responses with the analysis of leading radical theorists, the book expands the boundaries of critique beyond the usual discourse.”

Greg has generously shared excerpts from Its The Political Economy Stupid.  You can also buy it with money, or as one of the writers in this book calls it, the queen of all commodities.   Go to www.plutobooks.com

Corona Plaza: Diagram and Research Action

Over the weekend of January 12 and 13, DSGN AGNC (led by Quillian Riano) took to Corona Plaza to carry out their ‘Diagram and Research Action’, which looks to identify issues and hidden urban conflicts affecting the community of Corona, and by extension, Corona Plaza.

Here are some lovely photos by Quillian of the action at Corona Plaza:

As the DSGN AGNC site puts it:

“Each of the signs has:

  • A specific issue that acts as a boundary, keeping Corona Plaza from being used fully by the community;
  • A diagram that looks at how permeable that boundary is;
  • A description of the boundary, the agents that may help change the boundary, and a key question for each boundary;
  • Finally, each sign has a translucent architectural diagram that looks at the boundary’s affect in the spatial experience of the plaza.

All the boundaries and questions arise from research conducted in Corona. The questions are meant to give us a deeper understanding of the community. Some of the questions, like number 3, are polemical in nature and meant only to challenge assumptions some make about the neighborhood of Corona — i.e. this New York Times article: Roosevelt Avenue, a Corridor of Vice. Our goal is to advocate for and design an open plaza that caters to the entire community.”

 Here is the link to the rest of the post.

SPQ Students Participate in ‘Corona Cares for the Rockaways’ in Corona Plaza

This past weekend, SPQ MFA students participated in a QMA-led event at Corona Plaza with the objective of gathering donated materials for fellow New Yorkers in the Rockaways neighborhood of Queens. The event was a resounding success in terms of the amount of community partners that joined the cause and the contributions by community members. But it was also successful as a cultural event that got the cohort of SPQ students more deeply involved in the real life of Corona.  You can learn more about the event on the QMA events website here.

Here are some images of the event and the SPQ students at work in the Plaza:

 

 

 

Queens Chronicle: Cleaned Up Plaza Offers Cultural Programs

This article originally appeared in the Queens Chronicle website: link

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Esther and Alberto Olivera dance the bolero in Corona Plaza on Oct. 21.

 

Cleaned-up plaza offers cultural programs

by David Noriega, Chronicle Contributor

Sounds of bolero music filled Corona Plaza on Oct. 22 as members of nearby senior centers danced in the sun. Throughout the afternoon, crowds gathered along the edges of the plaza to watch, some stopping midway up the stairs to the elevated subway platform on Roosevelt Avenue.

˝he event, inspired by the traditional uses of plazas in Latin American cities, was part of a larger effort by the Queens Museum of Art to turn the spot into a center of community activity in Corona. In concert with various neighborhood groups, the museum is organizing an ambitious series of public programs in the recently opened pedestrian area.

Most of these events are geared towards Corona’s immigrant residents. Some are cultural, such as dance and music performances, while others will focus on civic and political issues affecting the community, museum organizers say.

The museum is planning a festival with music, dance and art workshops for Saturday, Nov. 10, during which it will also collect donations to help the Rockaways recover from Hurricane Sandy.

Corona Plaza used to be split by a service road connecting National and 104th streets just south of Roosevelt Avenue. The roadway was plagued by trash, parked trucks and traffic. But in late August, the city Department of Transportation closed it to cars, paved it with gravel and brought in chairs and tables. Meanwhile, Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-Corona) allocated $17,000 to the Queens Museum for public programming.

At the Oct. 22 event, some 50 seniors attended the afternoon of bolero dancing, which was followed by a potluck meal and evening screenings of short films narrating immigrant experiences.

“I’ve been in Corona since ‘62, and this is the first time I’ve seen something nice and decent happen here,” Cristobalina CÈspedes, one of the seniors, said in Spanish, while sitting at a table to take a break from dancing.

Pointing to a mauve sweater she wore under a black velvet blazer, CÈspedes said this was the first day she was wearing color out of the house since her son died in a car accident a year ago.

The scene reminded Alberto and Esther Olivera, a couple who married 46 years ago, of the plazas in their native Lima, Peru, where people gathered to play guitars and dance.

“It’s a moment of relaxation for working people,” Alberto Olivera, 73, said in Spanish.

The museum has been reaching out to multiple community groups throughout Corona and neighboring areas about planning their own events and activities, according to Jose Serrano-McClain, the museum’s full-time community organizer. These include New Immigrant Community Empowerment, the Corona Youth Music Project and Drogadictos An—nimos, an Elmhurst-based drug recovery center.

In addition to encouraging these groups to use the plaza, the museum is offering to help them navigate the city’s permitting process, which can be burdensome and costly, said Prerana Reddy, director of public events for the museum.

Serrano-McClain hopes the plaza will be a salve for some of Corona’s problems. For instance, in a neighborhood composed mostly of immigrants, many of whom are undocumented, integration into community life can be difficult.

“You’re just not sure what the trust networks are yet, especially if you’re recently arrived,” said Serrano-McClain. Public events can help create “the kinds of environments that signal that you’re a little bit closer to home than you think.”

The museum’s programming has been well-received by residents. Martha Gualotuna, an immigrant from Ecuador who lives in Corona, agreed that the museum could help the community at large. She said she wants to see more events for the neighborhood’s children, since many of their parents work long hours and have little time to spend with them. Perhaps a youth talent show, she suggested.

“I have a 15-year-old daughter, and she has a beautiful voice,” Gualotuna said.

For now, the museum is testing out the space and trying to make residents comfortable with using it for more than the occasional sit-down.

Workshop at Corona Plaza by Change Administration and DSGN AGNC

 

On On September 8, 2012, architect Quilian Riano (DSGN AGNC) and city planner Aurash Khawarzad (Change Administration) led a structured conversation that began at Immigrant Movement International and ended at Corona Plaza.  Almost twenty community members and a few SPQ students participated in the conversation, which had the goal of providing Quillian and Aurash a better understanding of what challenges and opportunities the people of Corona expect with the creation of this new public space.

Both Quillian and Aurash have been commissioned by QMA under the Corona Studio program to develop programming and temporary installations on the site.  They will use participatory processes to propose and take action on ideas that provide opportunities for recreation, education, commerce, and more.

Here are some images from the workshop:

 

Corona Plaza: A Community Place Rises (Video by Streetfilms)

Check out this really exciting video and blog excerpt on Corona Plaza by Streetfilms,  which have the mission of “documenting livable streets worldwide”.

Something special is happening in Corona, Queens.

Last week, Streetfilms visited Corona Plaza — the city’s newest car-free space, next to the 103rd Street stop on the 7 train — and found it already packed with families, children, and shoppers.

This plaza has been in the works for many years, and the local community has taken ownership of it immediately. Volunteers help in locking up the tables and chairs at night and assist in cleaning the space themselves.

The area previously had no public seating whatsoever, which is astonishing considering the dozens of restaurants nearby. Now it is a magnet for people, especially kids, who give the place a vibe that feels different than most other pedestrian plazas. To watch parents sit calmly while their kids play would have been unheard of before the street was reclaimed from traffic and parking.

 

Continue reading Streetfilms’ post here.

Celebrating the New Corona Plaza!

On August 26, QMA led a community festival to celebrate the opening of the newly pedestrianized Corona Plaza.  A number of local organizations came together with an afternoon of music, dance, science, and civic action.

Here are some images from the event:

Timelapse: Creating Corona Plaza (Video by NYC Dept of Transportation)

 

And here are some other photos, by Neshi Galindo of the construction process:

Making A New Model of Corona Plaza

Over the last few weeks, students have been developing an interactive model of Corona Plaza alongside Aurash and Quillian that we will be using to engage the community in workshops at Immigrant Movement International, and at the plaza itself.

Bronze Foundry at Queens College Gets Re-ignited

Last week we had a visit from the head of the Bedi-Makky Art Foundry in Brooklyn, to give us a consultation on the dormant kiln at Queens College.   The Bedi-Makky Art Foundry is famous for making the Charging Bull on Wall Street and the Iwo Jima memorial in DC.  They are heavyweights who know a thing or two about casting in bronze.

Seth Aylmer, SPQ MFA student, organized the visit by visiting the foundry several times and pleading with the Mr. Makky to come and help us re-ignite this amazing tool at QC .  Seth is a sculptor who is interested in re-integrating the notion of the hard object and the into this work we call ‘social practice’.  He has been working on an idea for a temporary bronze sculpture for Corona Plaza.

Here is a video of the re-ignition:

And here is some of the bronze work that this man has made that you might recognize:

                     

Aurash and Quillian Make Summer Plans with SPQ Students

 

REBLOG: Social Practice Queens: Re-imagining and Re-invigorating Corona Plaza

This article was originally published by The City Atlas: New York.

Poised at the fore­front of impor­tant con­tem­po­rary social move­ments, com­mu­nity activism, tac­ti­cal urban­ism, and par­tic­i­pa­tory art pro­duc­tion, a nascent col­lab­o­ra­tion devel­ops between a cul­tural insti­tu­tion, a pub­lic uni­ver­sity, local artists, urban plan­ners, and Queens res­i­dents, to cre­atively solve local urban issues.

This past spring City Atlas met with Pre­rana Reddy, the Direc­tor of Pro­gram­ming at The Queens Museum of Art, to talk about Social Prac­tice Queens (SPQ) – a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the museum and Queens Col­lege – and the future of Corona Plaza.

The team up between two of the borough’s highly regarded insti­tu­tions began with the ques­tion of how to bring visual art stu­dents together with local res­i­dents, in order to tackle social issues par­tic­u­lar to Queens. A part­ner­ship of this nature has never before been attempted between a museum and an aca­d­e­mic insti­tu­tion. Only in its early devel­op­men­tal stages, SPQ is the only edu­ca­tional pro­gram of its kind on the east coast with sim­i­lar pro­grams emerg­ing across the coun­try at insti­tu­tions like Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts and Port­land State University.

“The goal is to allow access to this type of socially rel­e­vant stu­dio art edu­ca­tion at a large diverse and afford­able urban uni­ver­sity set­ting such as CUNY (City Uni­ver­sity of New York.)”… “It gives stu­dents a space to inves­ti­gate crit­i­cal pub­lic art prac­tices, within one of the coun­tries most diverse pop­u­la­tions and immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties.” – Pre­rana Reddy

For those new to the term – “social prac­tice” is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary dis­course that links artis­tic activ­ity and pro­duc­tion with press­ing social issues related to com­mu­ni­ties, groups, or soci­eties. Typ­i­cally this type of art prac­tice is highly col­lab­o­ra­tive (often work­ing with non-artist groups) and empha­sizes process based trans­for­ma­tions (in addi­tion to) the cre­ation of an art object, arti­fact or expe­ri­ence. “Within the art mak­ing process, the prac­tice empha­sizes peo­ple in rela­tion­ships to each other and their sur­round­ings, “focus­ing on engage­ment and account­abil­ity between the audi­ence and the artist” – Jules Rochielle

SPQ stu­dents are afforded the immense resources of each of the involved insti­tu­tions, in addi­tion to con­nec­tions with out­side col­lab­o­rat­ing groups.

Cur­rently the project also involves Immi­grant Move­ment Inter­na­tional and design groups DSGNAGNC and Change Admin­is­tra­tion. Stu­dents work across dis­ci­plines and depart­ments of art and urban stud­ies at Queens Col­lege – to come up with rich strate­gies of cre­atively work­ing on social issues.

Their recent work “Corona Stu­dio: Trans­form­ing Corona Plaza” involves the research and plan­ning of future artis­tic inter­ven­tions, pub­lic instal­la­tions, and com­mu­nity pro­gram­ming for the upcom­ing rede­vel­op­ment of Corona Plaza, in Queens, New York – into a pedes­tri­an­ized area in the Sum­mer of 2012, as part of the NYCDOT pub­lic plaza pro­gram. This is in hopes of bring­ing the plaza from its cur­rent state of dis­may and dis­use into a place for recre­ation, as well a venue for the exchange of ideas, cul­ture, and commerce.

This past spring, stu­dent of the class “Trans­form­ing Corona Plaza,” suc­cess­fully com­bined urban research involv­ing the demo­graph­ics, local pol­i­tics, and con­cerns of local stake­hold­ers, with the­ory from inter­ven­tion­ist art prac­tice and prac­ti­cal design con­cepts drawn from case stud­ies of socially-engaged art. Through­out the semes­ter, stu­dents met off-campus at the Immi­grant Move­ment Inter­na­tional space where they researched and became famil­iar with the nearby Corona Plaza (103 St. and Roo­sevelt Ave.) In the process they were intro­duced to local activists, busi­ness peo­ple, local politi­cians, and the plan­ning team of the Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion. Four design pro­pos­als were cre­ated by stu­dent teams and pre­sented to the com­mu­nity and a range of pro­fes­sion­als for crit­i­cal feedback.

“We wanted to envi­sion Corona as a cen­ter for for­mu­lat­ing a pro­duc­tive rather than a reduc­tive notion of glob­al­iza­tion and diversity…the heart of our project is look­ing at Corona as a lab­o­ra­tory for address­ing cer­tain dilem­mas inher­ent within the social frame­work of this net­worked era of mar­ket cap­i­tal­ism: who and what is a com­mu­nity?”- Pre­rana Reddy

Recently, The Queens Museum of Art has called upon the exper­tise of archi­tect Quil­ian Riano ofDSGN AGNC and city plan­ner Aurash Khawarzad of Change Admin­is­tra­tion to lead the process in col­lab­o­ra­tively devel­op­ing pro­gram­ming and pub­lic instal­la­tions that will cre­ate a new space for

the entire com­mu­nity – titled Corona’S Plaza.

In our dis­cus­sion with Pre­rana, she stressed how their work was more than revi­tal­iz­ing the area so it can attract tourists to the neighborhood’s already rich and diverse cul­tural col­lec­tion, but devis­ing strate­gies to ben­e­fit the exist­ing community.

“Im con­cerned for peo­ple like the con­struc­tion work­ers who have nowhere to rest on their breaks. They can’t stand on the street cor­ner or in front of busi­nesses because they would be loi­ter­ing and the children’s park is no place for them either….the pedes­trian park is a per­fect solu­tion to issues such as this. We are work­ing to have activ­i­ties such as pub­lic art pro­gram­ming and health fairs for these peo­ple who have been neglected and nor­mally don’t read­ily have access to these type of resources.”

The devel­op­ment of Corona’S Plaza will include work­shops that are designed to empower locals to design the space, encour­ag­ing max­i­mized cre­ative use of the plaza. This process involves diverse com­mu­nity mem­bers – includ­ing immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties – who are usu­ally unin­volved in the urban plan­ning process.

At the end of the day, work like SPQ pro­motes the ques­tion of what respon­si­bil­i­ties local insti­tu­tions such as muse­ums have to urban issues. As cities become an impor­tant topic of con­ver­sa­tion among more peo­ple, it appears that cul­tural insti­tu­tions are lead­ing more dia­logues about urban

stud­ies in accom­pa­ni­ment to con­tem­po­rary art and his­tory (think BMW Guggen­heim Lab and The New Museum’s Fes­ti­val of Ideas for the New City.) There is no doubt the amount of pos­i­tive change col­lab­o­ra­tions such as SPQ can accom­plish, and this project what­ever the out­come, is an amaz­ing exam­ple for future com­mu­nity and socially engaged visual art and plan­ning endeavors.

The project will be con­tin­u­ing through­out the sum­mer where 10 stu­dents will work inde­pen­dently with SPQ Res­i­dent Artists Qul­lian Riano and Aurash Khawarazad.

 

Corona Plaza: Public Input Workshop by DOT

On June 7, at the headquarters of Immigrant Movement International, the NYC Department of Transportation conducted its first public workshop surrounding the proposed pedestrianization of Corona Plaza.

The event was attended by nearly 50 community members, and a host of familiar faces in the ongoing narrative to transform Corona Plaza, including city councilwoman Julissa Ferreras, Seth Bornstein and Ricardi Calixte of Queens Economic Development Corporation, and the four SPQ MFA students.

The evening began with a short presentation by Vaidila Kungys, NYC Plaza Program Director, who contextualized the opportunity with Corona Plaza by highlighting its centrality and access to public transportation, its great retail, and the relatively low vehicle traffic of the small street which is proposed to be pedestrianized.

You can see Vaidila’s short presentation below.

Aftter Vaidila’s presentation, participants were broken out into 5 groups; each group was given a large diagram of Corona Plaza and instructed to imagine what their ideal plaza would be. There was a DOT facilitator at each table whose goal was to encourage participation and make sure everyone’s opinion was voiced. The goal of each group was not necessarily to create consensus among the group’s participants in terms of the vision for Corona Plaza, but rather to allow each individual to have a say and a chance to record their ideas on the large diagram. It is clear that DOT uses these diagrams as official records of their public workshops.

These are some snapshots of the evening that give you a sense of how the groups engaged with the activity:

The third part of the evening was a presentation by a representative from each group summing up the ideas raised in the group activity. The most important themes were: green space, lighting, waste management, children’s activities, seating, event staging, and community art.

Here is a short video showing a selection of the presentations by workshop participants, including Seth Aylmer, SPQ MFA student:

To conclude the evening, Vaidila suggested following the Corona Plaza Facebook page to see their distillation of the workshop and for other updates regarding the Plaza’s timeline.

You can find the updates here: facebook.com/coronaplaza

Update: DOT presented a proposal to make a pedestrian plaza at Corona Plaza to Queens Community Board 4, which supports the plan. To view the presentation, feel free to download the PDF directly from this link:http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-06-07-corona-plaza.pdf

Visiting Local Businesses at Corona Plaza with Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras

On May 19, Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras, joined by Corona Studio artist/architect Quillian Riano and SPQ MFA student and QMA community organizer Jose Serrano-McClain, visited each of the 20+ local businesses directly surrounding Corona Plaza. The goal was to invite the merchants into the conversation surrounding Corona Plaza, with an official invitation to the June 7 workshop to be conducted by the NYC Department of Transportation.

Here are some images from that day: