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 […]
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 […]
Aurash and Quillian will seek to activate Corona Plaza, as it enters its new pedestrianized phase this summer. A key element of their projects will be to go beyond design workshops and into citizen journalism, skill-sharing, and other elements that foster thoughtful public involvement, activism, and analysis. Furthermore, the installations and programs that result will […]
Social Practice Queens (SPQ) – has just completed its first interdisciplinary seminar Transforming Corona Plaza. This experiment brought together a group of graduate and undergraduate students in studio art and in urban studies and successfully merged research work involving the demographics, local politics, and concerned stake-holders of this mostly Latino region of Queens, with interventionist theory and practical […]
On April 16, Quilian Riano (DSGN AGNC) and Aurash Khawarazad (DoTank & Project for Public Spaces) visited the class.
On April 2, SPQ got a visit from Councilmember Julissa Ferreras, who is a strong advocate for public life in Corona, and has been active on the issue of Corona Plaza. Corona City Councilmember Julissa Ferreras On the same day, students were introduced to Visual Imaging Technology with a session by Cark Skelton
Visiting guest lecturer Professor Arturo Sanchez (Community Board 3, Professor of Urban Planning, Cornell University) speaks with the Corona Plaza class about the complexities of mapping and interpreting ethnic immigration into the neighborhood:
These images are fragments of documentation from a day ‘in the field’ by the four MFA students participating in the class called Corona Studio: Transforming Corona Plaza. Sol Aramendi, Barrie Cline, Seth Aylmer, and Jose Serrano-McClain ventured to Corona Plaza earlier this week to listen to what the people of Corona desire of their plaza. Our […]
Jose Luis Serrano-McClain discussing Corona Stakeholders Students Seth Pollack and Joanna Santana practice Interview methods with special guest Valeria Treves, Director of New Immigrant Community Empowerment.
These are some images from the first field trip of the class “Transforming Corona Plaza” that is taking place at Immigrant Movement International this semester.
Greg Sholette: Fifteen Islands for Robert Moses On view through May 20, 2012 at the Queens Museum of Art The other Saadiyat Island as imagined by Hana Shams Ahmed, One of fifteen islands fabricated by Greg Sholette based on ideas proposed by invited collaborators, Mixed media (paper, sand, plastic, wire, resin), 2012 Fifteen Islands […]
On January 30, the first SPQ seminar, “Corona Studio: Transforming Corona Plaza” convened at Queens College. It brought together students from both the Art Department and the Urban Studies Department. The students were introduced to their 5 faculty members and told they would be meeting in the Corona neighborhood of Queens from now!
Say hello to the four students that entered Queens College’s MFA program identifying their practice as social. Sol Aramendi is a New York based Argentinean artist working in photography and installation. Sol has merged her artistic work with Social Practice. She is the founder of the Project Luz Photography Program for New Immigrants. Using photography as […]