“With two community organizers and three art therapists on staff, as well as twenty teaching artists who speak nine languages and an exhibition program that consistently brings in artists who work collaboratively with our community members, we are confident that QMA is one of the most socially engaged museums in the nation. With each phase of our community work, there is a growing sense of making real and lasting impact.” (Queens Museum of Art)

Credit: nycgo.com

• The Queens Museum of Art is quite unlike that of other museums in New York City; its focus is not on simply displaying art for aesthetic appreciation, but also for the good of the community in Jackson Heights and Corona, Queens.
• By allowing the concerns of the community help determine the focus of an art piece, the QMA directly engages the residents of Jackson Heights and Corona, giving them an active role in shaping solutions.

Professor Tarry Hum’s Macaulay Honors Seminar on a tour of the Queens Museum of Art
Credit: Melisa Tekin

Attention-grabbing signage that hangs in front of Immigrant Movement International

• Immigrant Movement International is a five-year initiative aimed at “…defin[ing] the immigrant as a unique, new global citizen in a post-national world…” (Queens Museum of Art)
• Artist Tania Bruguera, creator of Immigrant Movement International, comingles contemporary sociopolitical issues with art to create pieces that speak to the community in which it is created, while simultaneously transcending political and geographical boundaries.

Tania Bruguera, Creator of Immigrant Movement International

• For its first year, Immigrant Movement International is based on Roosevelt Avenue, the shared avenue between Corona and Jackson Heights.
• Tania Brugera, in partnership with and partially funded by the QMA and CreativeTime, has noticed  that immigrants worldwide face a common issue: lack of political recognition and representation
•  In some countries, creating a political party is relatively straightforward; however, in the U.S., the two-party system dominates.
• Consequently, other mechanisms of immigrant political representation must be forged—one such mechanism has been found in Immigrant Movement International.
• This initiative provides a safe and welcoming environment for the residents of Jackson Heights and Corona to congregate in—Immigrant Movement International offers services that are often inaccessible to immigrants, due to either monetary restraints or lack of documentation—such as free legal advice.

Guidelines for Tania Bruguera’s Arte Util, or Useful Art, that explain how art is to be used in a manner that is of service to a community

Participants in the Heart of Corona Initiative
Credit: Queens Museum of Art

• The Heart of Corona Initiative is a precursor to Immigrant Movement International.
• The Heart of Corona Initiative is comprised of artists and residents of Corona who converge to create a collection of small projects aimed to call attention to the issues that the community faces, as well as build ties within the community.
• An example of a community building project is Stephanie Diamond’s This Is What I Eat (2007); this is a cookbook filled with recipes for ethnic dishes that may be shared between the largely Hispanic immigrants of Corona. Projects like this allow the immigrant community to establish trust with one another. Once this sense of solidarity is established among peoples that quite often face issues such as discrimination, the art can take a more politicized form.
  

  Stephanie Diamond’s “This is What I Eat:” A Cookbook Created by the Community in Corona

• One such politicized form of art took hold in Hector Canonge’s Muros Distópicos / Dystopic Walls. Canonge worked with a team to build a wall dividing the Western Union in Corona Plaza; the wall symbolically represents the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Canonge brought the residents of Corona together making the wall interactive; the residents posted stories of their immigrant/immigration experience on one side of the wall, while the other side is filled with pictures of their experiences as “American.”
  

  Sketch for Hector Canonge’s “Dystopic Wall,” erected in Corona Plaza

Students of the New New Yorkers Program attending an Interactive Arts Lecture

• The New New Yorkers Program is a partnership between the Queens Library and the Queens Museum of Art.
• The focus of this program is to educate recent immigrants, using art as a mechanism to accomplish this.
• Classes offered:

1. Painting
2. Bookmaking
3. Crafts
4. Photography
5. Video editing
6. Graphic design
7. Computer literacy
8. Arts literacy
9. English for Speakers of Other Languages

• The classes are taught in numerous languages
• There is also a blog that is run by the students of the New New Yorkers Program; it serves as a medium for students to present their work and further build ties with one another. (www.newnewyorkers.org)