Community Arts Grant Recipients (for Organizations)
Aim Innovation Inc.
A community wide art exhibit, titled "Roots of my community:” The Cultural Mosaic of Jamaica, Queens. The program will be AIMI’s second major community-centered art exhibition. The exhibit program will feature six to eight artists prominent for work in a wide range of artistic mediums. These mediums include fabric, painting, sculpture, and handmade metal artworks.
Astoria Film Festival Inc.
2 free filmmaking workshops for local youth with films premiered at their Youth Film Festival at Kaufman Astoria Studios. We invite local schools and parents to come see our Filmmaking Workshop Films and to participate in an Awards Ceremony.
Bangladesh Institute of Performing Arts
BIPA plans to host 2 outdoor Jolshas, or musical “gatherings,” with emerging local Bangladeshi performers. The performances will feature live singing and dancing, and will be open to the public. We will highlight a variety of Bangladeshi traditional music accompanied by live Harmonium and Tabla. BIPA will partner with the Bangladeshi Ladies Club (BLC), an organization that is made up of many parents of BIPA students. BLC will host hands-on activities that represent different parts of Bangladeshi culture, including jewelry making, arts and crafts, and embroidery on fabrics.
CBA Culture & Arts Center
2 special concerts of traditional Guangdong Music , Bamboo Instruments of Jiangnan music, Nothern Chinese music, Drama , Peking opera, and Sichun opera.
Centro Cultural Barco de Papel, INC.
TRANS-ARTE aims to create positive connections and understanding between members of the Translatinx population and the residents of Queens through art and literature, to create a memory about their community's dreams of change. Outcomes from this project will allow Latin American audience in Jackson Heights to learn from members of the Trans-Latinx population such as: cultural idiosyncrasies, experiences of displacement, isolation, rejection and stigmatization due to physical appearance, allowing a human connection between the inhabitants of Queens and the Trans-Latinx population in disadvantaged and vulnerable conditions. It will highlight and bring together visual art pieces and literature; they will also document these stories, serving as a collective archive of the LGBT community that have fought in Queens for the decade, against exclusion.
Chinese Zhiqing Association USA, Inc.
In celebration of Chinese New Year and the 11th anniversary of CZA, we will hold a performance show in December 2023 in Flushing NY. Local artists and CZA members will perform the Chinese arts including music, dances, opera, and chorus. And we will also invite other local community groups to join them.
Culture Lab LIC
The Emergence Artist Residency is a developmental performing arts program geared toward the support and creation of new work. This residency program offers four artists/companies free rehearsal and performance space to develop and produce a new work. Work created will be showcased on one of Culture Lab's stages and presented and promoted as a part of the Culture Lab LIC 2023 Season. We accept proposals from all genres (theater, music, dance, performance art, puppetry, etc.), as long as the work is performed live.
DanceStream Projects fiscally sponsored by Queens Community House
Stories in the Moment: Our Portraits, is a dance project designed to amplify the voices of people living with dementia in Forest Hills. The project will bring together Queens and NYC based artists with people living with dementia and care partners in Forest Hills through dance and storytelling. Building on an established relationship with the Queens Community House Social Adult Day Services community in Forest Hills, they will co-create miniature dance on film portraits that highlight the stories of this community. The project will culminate in a public event showcasing these co-created cinematographic movement portraits.
Dinizulu Cultural Arts Institute
The Dinizulu Master Classes will encompass the music and dances from the professional dance company, Dinizulu African Dancers, Drummers and Singers, which was founded in the 1950's by the late Nana Yao Opare Dinizulu. Continuing his legacy and preserving the dance and music repertoire he created for this company is important for African dance history. The Master Classes will end with an outdoor performance by the participants at St. Albans Park on Merrick Blvd and Sayers.
En Construcción Reading Series fiscally sponsored by Jackson Heights Beautification Group
EN CONSTRUCCIÓN consists of four reading sessions during the calendar year (April, May, October, and December).
In each reading session, five Latin American writers present an unfinished and unpublished work for 15-20 min per person. Writers are encouraged to share the creative process behind their work (the origins of their ideas, challenges, and concerns) with the audience. Writers generate constructive conversations with attendees and fellow writers. Each panel will showcase writers from different backgrounds, nationalities, thematic interests, and literary genres. Each panel will celebrate the diversity of the work done by Latin American writers in NYC.
Readings are hosted in person at Centro Cultural Barco de Papel in Jackson Heights. Readings are free, open to the public, and conducted mainly in Spanish.
Friends of Gantry Plaza State Park d/b/a Hunters Point Parks Conservancy (HPPC)
4 Nature Journaling classes in Hunter's Point South Park and Gantry Plaza State Park in 2023, building on a pilot program in 2022. Nature Journaling focuses on the appreciation of nature through art, and encourages people to approach the world around them with intentional curiosity by learning about the environment while learning how to draw or paint plants, ecosystems, birds, trees, etc. The classes are divided between artistic instruction that discusses both the scientific background of plant or animal structures and how to approach capturing them in a sketchbook, and time for participants to walk through the park drawing or painting the environment around them.
Galore Urban Tech Inc.
This six part , 9 session interactive art workshops to create art using virtual reality. Participants will learn about the facts of virtual reality and its uses, then how to use an Oculus Quest 2 headset to paint in the VR space. Participants will also go on an virtuaal art museum tours. Our final act will be our art gallery created after every workshop. Each session will have its own metaverse art gallery created exclusively for the workshops, along with a Showcase gallery with all 80 participants work displayed for a closing event.
Glow Community Center
A free, 90-minute multicultural event, presented at the Glow Community Center, showcasing local AAPI talent as well as other global music and dance performances, both contemporary and traditional in style. Additionally, pre-recorded audio-visual performances, acrobats and martial artists may be featured. Performances will be complemented by informative presentations led by keynote speakers and the artists, with a focus on combating discrimination and violence against minority groups while celebrating diversity through arts and entertainment.
Guardians of Flushing Bay
GoFB will hire artist and educator Julia Norton to coordinate a four-month workshop series with Queens artists who leverage earth-based art practices for change-making. Each workshop will use art to reveal (i.e ‘culturally daylight’) Flushing Creek to Flushing Meadows Corona Park (FMCP) users and engage them in the future possibility of restoring underground portions of the creek into above ground habitats (i.e. ‘physical daylighting’), which has immense benefits for social and ecological health and resilience. Through an open call for artists, GoFB and Julia will select three Queens-based artists for the series, with Julia serving as the fourth artist. Each artist will lead one workshop, resulting in one workshop each month from March-June 2023. The Queens Museum will serve as the central hub of operations.
Hellenic Film Society USA, Inc.
A monthly Greek film series screening different Greek films one Sunday every month at the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) in Astoria, followed by panel discussions with filmmakers to engage the audience. Jackson Heights Beautification Group www.jhbg.org Summer Sundays in the Park is a performance series of 8-9 free outdoor concerts feature musical groups that reflect the incredible range of ethnicity and musical styles prevalent in Jackson Heights— a true crossroads of the world in Western Queens.
JH Art Talks fiscally sponsored by Jackson Heights Beautifcation Group
Six in-person artist talks (with projected slideshows) at Espresso 77 café on the third Wednesday of April, May, June, September, October, and November. Each event will also be broadcast as a Facebook livestream. Each evening will feature two artists. The first will be an alum of JHAT, who will present a 10-15 minute update on their work. The second artist will give a more in-depth 30-40 minute presentation of their work, followed by a Q&A. The two artists’ work will be curated to compliment each other.
Laru Beya Collective
Staying Afloat' is a workshop series inviting community members of Far Rockaway to collaborate with Buena Onda and Laru Beya Collective to ponder ocean life in the age of consumerism and explore sustainable creative expression. Together, participants will reframe how humans relate to the ocean - and how we must act as stewards for it - by using the collected trash from our organized monthly beach cleanup to create recycled surfboard sculptures and other small flotation devices. Two full-day workshops will take place in which the public can sign up and join in the process of making the sculptural boards. The works will be presented at a community art show to highlight Laru Beya's youth programs.
LGBT Network
"Visible Histories" is a series of in-person events - three film screenings and a public street photo exhibition - that celebrates and shares the stories of LGBTQ+ people from Queens. Scheduled for May / June as a lead up to the Queens Pride Parade (June 4, 2023), the program has three components: 1) Exhibition of large-scale photographs of the Parade (1993 - 1999) on the P.S. 69 fence in Jackson Heights the day of the Queens Pride Parade. The location is key: Julio Rivera was violently murdered in a gay bashing attack in the schoolyard in 1990, and the Parade always stops for a moment of silence to remember him and other LGBTQ+ people taken by violence. 2) Three screenings of short films about Queens LGBTQ+ history: new work and already existing pieces, including sections of the feature length film "Julio of Jackson Heights." The screenings will be held at publicly accesible spaces throughout Queens. 3) On-line promotion of the screenings and exhibition through Facebook and Instagram, which will also in effect be short online films.
Long Island City Artists
A group exhibition in May-June 2023 at The Factory, LICA's brand new longterm venue. The exhibition will showcase the work of Queens artists, across a variety of disciplines. The exhibition will include including panel discussion, performance events, and other time-based elements. Artists are selected through an open call with the theme Personal Stories, in which artists share their heritage and personal histories with the public.
Mithila Center, USA (AKA Mithila Art & Cultural Center) fiscally sponsored by the Nepalese American Foundation
A community art exhibition to celebrate cultural festival but also to preserve and promote Mithila heritage by raising community awareness towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each year participating artists create folk Mithila Art to showcase a United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This year’s art exhibition entitled “Art for SDGs: The Mithila Heritage” will focus on exhibiting Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender equality through Mithila Art. This exhibition is with support of Nepal Consulate in New York and Nepalese American Foundation (NAF), Mithila Center, USA.
Multicultural Sonic Evolution
This is a concert series of different Japanese music from traditional to the contemporary. 1) Lecture concert by a Shimauta artist Marin Naruse (recipient of Asian Cultural Council 2022 awards who will be in NYC from July to Dec 2023) 2) Yosakoi Dance and Traditional Japanese festival dance music by 10tecomai and Rino Aise 3) A reading of a new opera "A Daughter of the Samurai" written by Yui Kitamura and Lee Douglass.
New Music Horizons fiscally sponsored by Sunnyside Community Services, Inc.
New Music Horizons will present 2 concerts at Sunnyside Community Services in the fall of 2023. This concert series will help give people a greater appreciation for new jazz and classical composition and build followings for the composers. Each concert will feature the music of two different jazz and/or classical composers. Each composer will present a set of music and explain the general concepts, inspirations, and motivations behind their work. After the concert there will be an informal audience Q&A session where people can talk with the artists about what they experienced. Tickets will be free to the public. Concerts will also be live streamed by Sunnyside Community Services on their Facebook page.
No, YOU Tell It! fiscally sponsored by Greater Astoria Historical Society
Partnering with the Greater Astoria Historical Society (GAHS), we will produce two 2023 NYTI shows. For each show, four curated storytellers will develop and trade true tales inspired by the rich and, at times, unknown history of the borough. 1. NYTI “Here & Gone”: Queens storytellers will trade modern-day stories inspired by historical information from GAHS about Queens “items of note.” Such as the co-founder of Xerox, Chester Carlson, who made the world’s first photocopy in Queens, which read: “10.-22.-38 ASTORIA.” 2. NYTI “Bookend Event”: Established authors will be paired with Queens residents from non-traditional literary backgrounds for this Queens-based Brooklyn Book Festival event. The show theme will be the story of a historical figure from GAHS's “Legends of Long Island City” series. For both shows, the participating storytellers will have access to the historical resources from GAHS to inspire and, if desired, incorporate into their true-life tales. Weaving personal stories with historical facts creates a “poetics of information,” providing deeper engagement with the shared history of the Queens community for storytellers and audience members.
Oratorio Society of Queens
The 2023 Annual Spring Concert will be the farewell concert for Maestro David Close, who is retiring after an amazing and highly successful 50 year tenure as Conductor and Artistic Director. The program will feature the deeply moving Haydn Mass in C Major (Mass in a Time of War), Vivaldi's popular Gloria, and musical selections performed by participants in OSQ's Young Artists Program.
Project Attica
The "Art Play: Activating Connections" project builds on Project Attica's work from this past year strengthening low-income communities of color in Queens through artivism workshops and mural-making creations that provide recreation and promote unity. The artivism workshops will consist of painting tote bags and t-shirts with positive, life-affirming messages. Mural designs will be based on surveys of community groups like Creando Algo Especial and Where Do We Go From Here which we will work with in Jamaica, Corona, and Jackson Heights to solicit input about the content and symbols they want to see displayed.
Titan Productions, Incorporated
The Future Classics Festival is a new works festival dedicated to ushering forth a new “classical” canon by centering on the voices of BIPOC playwrights, actors, and directors. The Future Classics Festival is a developmental platform for playwrights and theatre makers under the guidance of Titan Theatre Company's artistic leadership team.
VIVARTA ARTS INC.
A public celebration of the Indian festival of Navratri (a nine day festival in praise of Goddess Durga and the divine feminine powers) through the interactive folk dances of garba and dandiya. The event will offer free lessons for the public to learn how to dance along for the main segment of the performance by Queens based Vivarta Arts Performing Troupe featuring high energy, folk inspired dances.
Women in Comics Collective International
WinC x Queens Comic Book Festival is an event that would showcase comic book creators across the borough. It would be a one day show that will include, workshops on comic book writing and drawing, panel discussions featuring prominent comic book creators in the industry discussing their careers and the creation process. The event will also include a live drawing hour and an artist market.
Woodside on the Move
Presented during WOTM’s Spring Street Fair, Queens Culture on the Move features performance art groups touching on five different Korean, Filipino, Ecuadorian, Irish, and Bengali cultures. Each group will exhibit a dance or demonstration showcasing the uniqueness and beauty of their respective cultures.
Artist In Queens Grant Recipients (for Individual Artists)
Annalisa Iadicicco
Bottle to Bottle is a public sculpture created from metal rebars and 700 recycled plastic bottles that transforms trash into shelter. It will act as an ever changing symbol of self awareness that investigates the concepts of recycling and climate change as it relates to how we think about what we hold dear, what we really need, and what is the excess that bogs us down. The bottles act as a symbol of the waste we generate and a call to action for climate change as the refuse will be used to change the space into a community “home base”.
Ashley King
A King McCarty will collaborate with the community in and around Astoria Park to create a large-scale, abstract collage. The artist will set up a table in Astoria Park 3-5 times throughout the spring and summer of 2023 and invite the community to add pieces to the project using paper and glue. Upon completion, the project will be photographed and hung as a banner outside Astoria Park, pending the approval of the NYC Parks department.
Carla Lobmier
Six women artists working in Queens look at "What Now?". Each artist would consider what we are moving towards in this changed pandemic, post-loss-of-reproductive rights, more women in government world way of being.The 2022 Women's History theme, "Providing Healing, Promoting Hope" is the open-ended thread that we are asking participants to reflect on, as they create new work for this installation. Specifically, each would make a paper piece measuring 22”x28” to slide into one side of a two-sided sandwich board. The other side would contain a printed poster with information about the group/theme. The art boards would be partnered with a shop owner on 37th Avenue, Jackson Heights, and placed on the sidewalk for public viewing. Multiple walking/talking tour(s) with the organizers would be calendared with registration for participants for a group public interactive component. The artists would be encouraged to join these walks/talks, as would the shopkeepers. Social media posts would spread the word.
Cecilia Lim
“From Queens to Our Motherlands” will bring together Queens-based BIPOC women and femme artists and cultural workers ages 35-49 of multiple disciplines (visual arts, dance, writers, etc.) to produce a zine. This team of artist collaborators will continue the work of the Remember Y(our) Connection (RYC) project. RYC is a public participatory art project that uplifts the wisdom of humans most impacted by the social issues which caused the current state of extreme climate instability on Earth. This team will: review work from the RYC's first two phases, completed in 2019 and 2020; discuss goals and lessons learned from each; share story about what's happening in Queens and our respective motherlands; and generate proposals for how to invite our local communities to care more for this place Queens, and for our transnational communities. Stories and proposals will be compiled into a zine that may include poems, essays, drawings, photographs, and links to short video works. The zine will be distributed via postings to the project's and artists' individual social media (Instagram, Facebook).
Honglei Li
"Life of the Invisibles" is a large-scale oil painting series inspired by real-life stories and the cultural heritage of Asian immigrant communities in Queens, NY.
Through the artists' lived experience as a Chinese immigrant and interviews with immigrant family members, friends, and other members of the Flushing Chinatown community, Honglei will interweave realities with Eastern visual traditions, the painting series aims at amplifying the voice of Asian immigrants and fighting against anti-Asian sentiment in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2023, collaborating with Korea Art Forum, they will present the project as public art installation consisting of large banners and animations at multiple public parks in Queens, including Kissena Corridor Park in Flushing. Scanning QR codes on banners with their smartphones, park visitors can watch the painting images printed on the banners becoming animations that unfold Asian immigrant stories.
Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow
"Build Your Own Junkanoo Character" explores the different characters of the Jamaican Junkanoo through a series of performances and workshops. Audience members are invited to create their own Junkanoo-inspired character as a way to educate and revive this tradition. Public workshops (in-person or online) will feature a historical overview of each character along with costume building using ready-made materials. Shredded clothing and ‘junk’ will be used to create Junkanoo costumes and props that are meant to be activated not only during the traditionally held Christmas Holidays but during other times of the year as participants see fit.
Kathleen Capdesuner
“Fefu y Sus Amigas”, is an original theatrical presentation inspired by the play’s themes of womanhood and female friendship by collaborating with the Latina/e elder community members from the Sunnyside and Astoria neighborhoods.
The project is comprised of a series of workshops culminating in a public presentation at Thalia Spanish Theatre in Sunnyside, Queens. the artist will partner with the Sunnyside Community Services, and Spanish Speaking Elderly Council RAICES Astoria locations to engage with their older adults. Through these partnerships, she will work with a group of 10 elders to share stories in response to the play’s content, and rehearse a public theatrical presentation featuring their talents, stories and selected scenes from the play in Spanish.
Keisha Damali Abrams
"The Future of Southeast Queens" will include a 4’ x 8’ mixed media collage inspired by Black history in Southeast Queens. The artist will research Black history in Southeast Queens, including the experience of enslaved Africans in the area and free Black people before, during and after slavery. They will stain reproductions of historical documents and images using natural dyes to make them look aged and cut them up in order to create a collage.
The public presentation will include a free workshop at Seed Capital CafeIn exhibiting the collage for the duration of the workshop and share the artist's research with participants.
Participants will contribute their own oral histories and artworks about how their families arrived in this area and how they envision the future of Queens.
Rejin Leys
“Reading the River” is a sculptural installation that explores our relationship with NYC’s waterways by incorporating shredded copies of five poems and one essay written from the 19th through the 21st centuries. Assembled out of cast paper objects and collected materials, the sculpture will be installed in the front window of the main building of the Queens Public Library.
This project began as a public, interactive event on the East River in LIC, in which participants were able to choose one of the texts (including “Recuerdo” by Edna St. Vincent Millay and “A Trip on the Staten Island Ferry” by Audre Lorde,) and make paper with it at my mobile papermaking studio. I used the remaining shredded poems and paper pulp to make cast paper disks that I have been assembling into hanging sculptures.
There will be two workshops during which visitors can contribute to the project: by making paper, and by writing poems about the waterways (in any language), which will be shared on a tablet kiosk in the library lobby.
Sandra Vucicevic
"POSTCARDS FROM THE ABSTRACT(ED) UNIVERSE" is a multi-dimensional project which will involve:
1) the creation of a group of abstract paintings and animations (by me) based on the images of the specific landmarks in Queens taken by the members of the Queens community who respond to an open call, and
2) a public exhibition of community photos and created paintings/animations in physical space – Studio 34 Gallery, and virtual space - on the viewers’ smartphones, by using Augmented Reality (AR) technology. AR technology overlays digital content onto real-life environments and objects and simulates how digital image would look like in real space, for example how a virtual sofa would fit in a real room. In this exhibition, the audience will be offered to scan a QR code with their smartphones to see how the animations of created abstract paintings of Queens landmarks would look like in real space.
Springboard Collective (Sarah Dahlinger)
“Trivial Pursuits Dinner Party” is an interactive, collaborative art series using food and performance to bring people together in a unique shared experience. Serving six courses of homemade pie to dinner guests, the performance progresses through absurd activities culminating in a surprise finale. The four previous "Editions" in this series took place in Denmark, Queens and Governors Island and surprise finales included a food fight, a DIY fashion show, Medieval LARPing and a water fight.
Everything within the installation and dinner performance is artist-made from the props, costumes, sets, and script to the menus, food and ceramic tableware. Part social practice, part performance art, and part dinner theater, the experience asks the audience to join in the fun, creating a natural and improvisational flow as if we are all in it together. In this project the artists regard the concept of triviality, akin to play and humor, as a powerful means to build community, find new perspectives and create lasting impact.
Shauna Sorensen
"Gossamer 3.0" is a free collaborative performance between dancer, Shauna Sorensen, and painter, Annabelle Popa, that explores how movement of the dancer can influence brush strokes of the painter, and how movement of the painter can influence choreography of the dancer. "Gossamer 3.0" is taking place on the weekend in the public school yard at PS 99 in Kew Gardens and includes a dance presentation, creation of a mural on a concrete wall, and audience participation.
Sherwin Banfield
‘We appreciate you Ralph!” is a celebration of VJ Ralph McDaniels and his contributions to Queens Hip-Hop Culture. Ralph McDaniels, currently the Hip-Hop Coordinator for Queens Public Library, is the legendary co-founder and host of Video Music Box which documented the early stages of Hip-Hop in NYC parks and clubs along with the early careers of many artists of the 1980s and 90s.
Through research and community interviews, the project will manifest in the form of a public sculpture, a life-sized portrait bust of Ralph placed on an Illustrative base showcasing Video Music Box and other cultural achievements. This bust and base will sit atop a wooden stand with integrated lighting, audio and video showcasing Ralph’s interviews with Queens Artist and their music videos.
Tyrel Hunt
"The Sound of Southside" is a new feature film that was filmed in landmark locations such as Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, VP Records, Rufus King Park .
The Sound of Southside World Premiere is a film screening, followed by a Q&A with the cast and crew of the project. The film's themes (Gentrification, Arts and Culture, Urban Crime, Black Love) will serve as talking points to create relevant and impactful dialogue.
Yu-Wei Hsiao
“Islanders” is a three-part live art experience created by a group of young Taiwanese artists to express their cultural identities through music, dance, audiovisual installation, and Taiwanese street food.
By combining western culture with Taiwanese traditional music and folk dance, they hope to increase the visibility of their home country. This show was created by Taiwanese duo Chieh Hsiung and Yu-Wei Hsiao, in collaboration with other Taiwanese artists to merge their unique cultural elements, this dream.
The show begins with an immersive experience. Modeled after the Taiwanese Night Market with a sound installation, this sets the pace of mystery and anticipation. What follows is an intense and intimate film screening. A musical-dance performance follows with improvised jazz music reminiscent of the days of the Cotton Club. Throughout the show there is interactive narration with the feel of a live tv game show atmosphere. Along with this, they will host three musical-dance workshops at three Taiwanese communities in New York City.
Aim Innovation Inc.
A community wide art exhibit, titled "Roots of my community:” The Cultural Mosaic of Jamaica, Queens. The program will be AIMI’s second major community-centered art exhibition. The exhibit program will feature six to eight artists prominent for work in a wide range of artistic mediums. These mediums include fabric, painting, sculpture, and handmade metal artworks.
Astoria Film Festival Inc.
2 free filmmaking workshops for local youth with films premiered at their Youth Film Festival at Kaufman Astoria Studios. We invite local schools and parents to come see our Filmmaking Workshop Films and to participate in an Awards Ceremony.
Bangladesh Institute of Performing Arts
BIPA plans to host 2 outdoor Jolshas, or musical “gatherings,” with emerging local Bangladeshi performers. The performances will feature live singing and dancing, and will be open to the public. We will highlight a variety of Bangladeshi traditional music accompanied by live Harmonium and Tabla. BIPA will partner with the Bangladeshi Ladies Club (BLC), an organization that is made up of many parents of BIPA students. BLC will host hands-on activities that represent different parts of Bangladeshi culture, including jewelry making, arts and crafts, and embroidery on fabrics.
CBA Culture & Arts Center
2 special concerts of traditional Guangdong Music , Bamboo Instruments of Jiangnan music, Nothern Chinese music, Drama , Peking opera
Centro Cultural Barco de Papel, INC.
TRANS-ARTE aims to create positive connections and understanding between members of the Translatinx population and the residents of Queens through art and literature, to create a memory about their community's dreams of change. Outcomes from this project will allow Latin American audience in Jackson Heights to learn from members of the Trans-Latinx population such as: cultural idiosyncrasies, experiences of displacement, isolation, rejection and stigmatization due to physical appearance, allowing a human connection between the inhabitants of Queens and the Trans-Latinx population in disadvantaged and vulnerable conditions. It will highlight and bring together visual art pieces and literature; they will also document these stories, serving as a collective archive of the LGBT community that have fought in Queens for the decade, against exclusion.
Chinese Zhiqing Association USA, Inc.
In celebration of Chinese New Year and the 11th anniversary of CZA, we will hold a performance show in December 2023 in Flushing NY. Local artists and CZA members will perform the Chinese arts including music, dances, opera, and chorus. And we will also invite other local community groups to join them.
Culture Lab LIC
The Emergence Artist Residency is a developmental performing arts program geared toward the support and creation of new work. This residency program offers four artists/companies free rehearsal and performance space to develop and produce a new work. Work created will be showcased on one of Culture Lab's stages and presented and promoted as a part of the Culture Lab LIC 2023 Season. We accept proposals from all genres (theater, music, dance, performance art, puppetry, etc.), as long as the work is performed live.
DanceStream Projects fiscally sponsored by Queens Community House
Stories in the Moment: Our Portraits, is a dance project designed to amplify the voices of people living with dementia in Forest Hills. The project will bring together Queens and NYC based artists with people living with dementia and care partners in Forest Hills through dance and storytelling. Building on an established relationship with the Queens Community House Social Adult Day Services community in Forest Hills, they will co-create miniature dance on film portraits that highlight the stories of this community. The project will culminate in a public event showcasing these co-created cinematographic movement portraits.
Dinizulu Cultural Arts Institute
The Dinizulu Master Classes will encompass the music and dances from the professional dance company, Dinizulu African Dancers, Drummers and Singers, which was founded in the 1950's by the late Nana Yao Opare Dinizulu. Continuing his legacy and preserving the dance and music repertoire he created for this company is important for African dance history. The Master Classes will end with an outdoor performance by the participants at St. Albans Park on Merrick Blvd and Sayers.
En Construcción Reading Series fiscally sponsored by Jackson Heights Beautification Group
EN CONSTRUCCIÓN consists of four reading sessions during the calendar year (April, May, October, and December).
In each reading session, five Latin American writers present an unfinished and unpublished work for 15-20 min per person. Writers are encouraged to share the creative process behind their work (the origins of their ideas, challenges, and concerns) with the audience. Writers generate constructive conversations with attendees and fellow writers. Each panel will showcase writers from different backgrounds, nationalities, thematic interests, and literary genres. Each panel will celebrate the diversity of the work done by Latin American writers in NYC.
Readings are hosted in person at Centro Cultural Barco de Papel in Jackson Heights. Readings are free, open to the public, and conducted mainly in Spanish.
Friends of Gantry Plaza State Park d/b/a Hunters Point Parks Conservancy (HPPC)
4 Nature Journaling classes in Hunter's Point South Park and Gantry Plaza State Park in 2023, building on a pilot program in 2022. Nature Journaling focuses on the appreciation of nature through art, and encourages people to approach the world around them with intentional curiosity by learning about the environment while learning how to draw or paint plants, ecosystems, birds, trees, etc. The classes are divided between artistic instruction that discusses both the scientific background of plant or animal structures and how to approach capturing them in a sketchbook, and time for participants to walk through the park drawing or painting the environment around them.
Galore Urban Tech Inc.
This six part , 9 session interactive art workshops to create art using virtual reality. Participants will learn about the facts of virtual reality and its uses, then how to use an Oculus Quest 2 headset to paint in the VR space. Participants will also go on an virtuaal art museum tours. Our final act will be our art gallery created after every workshop. Each session will have its own metaverse art gallery created exclusively for the workshops, along with a Showcase gallery with all 80 participants work displayed for a closing event.
Glow Community Center
A free, 90-minute multicultural event, presented at the Glow Community Center, showcasing local AAPI talent as well as other global music and dance performances, both contemporary and traditional in style. Additionally, pre-recorded audio-visual performances, acrobats and martial artists may be featured. Performances will be complemented by informative presentations led by keynote speakers and the artists, with a focus on combating discrimination and violence against minority groups while celebrating diversity through arts and entertainment.
Guardians of Flushing Bay
GoFB will hire artist and educator Julia Norton to coordinate a four-month workshop series with Queens artists who leverage earth-based art practices for change-making. Each workshop will use art to reveal (i.e ‘culturally daylight’) Flushing Creek to Flushing Meadows Corona Park (FMCP) users and engage them in the future possibility of restoring underground portions of the creek into above ground habitats (i.e. ‘physical daylighting’), which has immense benefits for social and ecological health and resilience. Through an open call for artists, GoFB and Julia will select three Queens-based artists for the series, with Julia serving as the fourth artist. Each artist will lead one workshop, resulting in one workshop each month from March-June 2023. The Queens Museum will serve as the central hub of operations.
Hellenic Film Society USA, Inc.
A monthly Greek film series screening different Greek films one Sunday every month at the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) in Astoria, followed by panel discussions with filmmakers to engage the audience. Jackson Heights Beautification Group www.jhbg.org Summer Sundays in the Park is a performance series of 8-9 free outdoor concerts feature musical groups that reflect the incredible range of ethnicity and musical styles prevalent in Jackson Heights— a true crossroads of the world in Western Queens.
JH Art Talks fiscally sponsored by Jackson Heights Beautifcation Group
Six in-person artist talks (with projected slideshows) at Espresso 77 café on the third Wednesday of April, May, June, September, October, and November. Each event will also be broadcast as a Facebook livestream. Each evening will feature two artists. The first will be an alum of JHAT, who will present a 10-15 minute update on their work. The second artist will give a more in-depth 30-40 minute presentation of their work, followed by a Q&A. The two artists’ work will be curated to compliment each other.
Laru Beya Collective
Staying Afloat' is a workshop series inviting community members of Far Rockaway to collaborate with Buena Onda and Laru Beya Collective to ponder ocean life in the age of consumerism and explore sustainable creative expression. Together, participants will reframe how humans relate to the ocean - and how we must act as stewards for it - by using the collected trash from our organized monthly beach cleanup to create recycled surfboard sculptures and other small flotation devices. Two full-day workshops will take place in which the public can sign up and join in the process of making the sculptural boards. The works will be presented at a community art show to highlight Laru Beya's youth programs.
LGBT Network
"Visible Histories" is a series of in-person events - three film screenings and a public street photo exhibition - that celebrates and shares the stories of LGBTQ+ people from Queens. Scheduled for May / June as a lead up to the Queens Pride Parade (June 4, 2023), the program has three components: 1) Exhibition of large-scale photographs of the Parade (1993 - 1999) on the P.S. 69 fence in Jackson Heights the day of the Queens Pride Parade. The location is key: Julio Rivera was violently murdered in a gay bashing attack in the schoolyard in 1990, and the Parade always stops for a moment of silence to remember him and other LGBTQ+ people taken by violence. 2) Three screenings of short films about Queens LGBTQ+ history: new work and already existing pieces, including sections of the feature length film "Julio of Jackson Heights." The screenings will be held at publicly accesible spaces throughout Queens. 3) On-line promotion of the screenings and exhibition through Facebook and Instagram, which will also in effect be short online films.
Long Island City Artists
A group exhibition in May-June 2023 at The Factory, LICA's brand new longterm venue. The exhibition will showcase the work of Queens artists, across a variety of disciplines. The exhibition will include including panel discussion, performance events, and other time-based elements. Artists are selected through an open call with the theme Personal Stories, in which artists share their heritage and personal histories with the public.
Mithila Center, USA (AKA Mithila Art & Cultural Center) fiscally sponsored by the Nepalese American Foundation
A community art exhibition to celebrate cultural festival but also to preserve and promote Mithila heritage by raising community awareness towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each year participating artists create folk Mithila Art to showcase a United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This year’s art exhibition entitled “Art for SDGs: The Mithila Heritage” will focus on exhibiting Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender equality through Mithila Art. This exhibition is with support of Nepal Consulate in New York and Nepalese American Foundation (NAF), Mithila Center, USA.
Multicultural Sonic Evolution
This is a concert series of different Japanese music from traditional to the contemporary. 1) Lecture concert by a Shimauta artist Marin Naruse (recipient of Asian Cultural Council 2022 awards who will be in NYC from July to Dec 2023) 2) Yosakoi Dance and Traditional Japanese festival dance music by 10tecomai and Rino Aise 3) A reading of a new opera "A Daughter of the Samurai" written by Yui Kitamura and Lee Douglass.
New Music Horizons fiscally sponsored by Sunnyside Community Services, Inc.
New Music Horizons will present 2 concerts at Sunnyside Community Services in the fall of 2023. This concert series will help give people a greater appreciation for new jazz and classical composition and build followings for the composers. Each concert will feature the music of two different jazz and/or classical composers. Each composer will present a set of music and explain the general concepts, inspirations, and motivations behind their work. After the concert there will be an informal audience Q&A session where people can talk with the artists about what they experienced. Tickets will be free to the public. Concerts will also be live streamed by Sunnyside Community Services on their Facebook page.
No, YOU Tell It! fiscally sponsored by Greater Astoria Historical Society
Partnering with the Greater Astoria Historical Society (GAHS), we will produce two 2023 NYTI shows. For each show, four curated storytellers will develop and trade true tales inspired by the rich and, at times, unknown history of the borough. 1. NYTI “Here & Gone”: Queens storytellers will trade modern-day stories inspired by historical information from GAHS about Queens “items of note.” Such as the co-founder of Xerox, Chester Carlson, who made the world’s first photocopy in Queens, which read: “10.-22.-38 ASTORIA.” 2. NYTI “Bookend Event”: Established authors will be paired with Queens residents from non-traditional literary backgrounds for this Queens-based Brooklyn Book Festival event. The show theme will be the story of a historical figure from GAHS's “Legends of Long Island City” series. For both shows, the participating storytellers will have access to the historical resources from GAHS to inspire and, if desired, incorporate into their true-life tales. Weaving personal stories with historical facts creates a “poetics of information,” providing deeper engagement with the shared history of the Queens community for storytellers and audience members.
Oratorio Society of Queens
The 2023 Annual Spring Concert will be the farewell concert for Maestro David Close, who is retiring after an amazing and highly successful 50 year tenure as Conductor and Artistic Director. The program will feature the deeply moving Haydn Mass in C Major (Mass in a Time of War), Vivaldi's popular Gloria, and musical selections performed by participants in OSQ's Young Artists Program.
Project Attica
The "Art Play: Activating Connections" project builds on Project Attica's work from this past year strengthening low-income communities of color in Queens through artivism workshops and mural-making creations that provide recreation and promote unity. The artivism workshops will consist of painting tote bags and t-shirts with positive, life-affirming messages. Mural designs will be based on surveys of community groups like Creando Algo Especial and Where Do We Go From Here which we will work with in Jamaica, Corona, and Jackson Heights to solicit input about the content and symbols they want to see displayed.
| Queens World Film Initiative, Inc. Listening Tour is a program that video tapes community members sharing their thoughts about Hope and Resilience. The taped interviews are screened publicly, virtually on their website and preserved through the Queens Memory Project. Queens World partners with schools, community centers, cultural organizations and social service agencies so that all have the opportunity to contribute their story and witness the stories of others. QUEENSBOUND fiscally sponsored by Chaaya Community Development Corporation The publication of 16 new poems by Queens-based poets that correspond to station stops along the 7 Train, with a longterm goal having a poem for every station stop in the borough. Poems will be digitized to showcase the work, as well as a celebratory reading in-person on the 7 Train. Red Canary Song fiscally sponsored by Minkwon Center for Community Action In commemoration of the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, Red Canary Song will host a memorial vigil for the eight lives lost at the shooting and a screening of Fly in Power, a documentary tracing the history of three organizers of RCS. The documentary screening, followed by Q&A and conversation with directors, will invite residents of Flushing and Queens into a moment of political education that connects the audience to the global advocacy of migrant women’s rights to work and thrive. The memorial vigil will consist of speakers, music performances, an art memorial created by Flushing-based migrant body workers, and a participatory bulletin board with a theme of “bridge” and “hand,” two recurring themes they've come across often with victims’ surviving families, friends, and allying organizations. |
| Rochdale Village Community Center fiscally sponsored by Rochdale Village Social Services “Unfiltered Teen Talk” is part of the RVCC Teen Club and Digital Minds pilot program. Originated and produced by TC members who explore storytelling via digital video production, learn “STEAM” driven methodologies, basic 3-point lighting systems, camera framing and composition angles, script development and hosting technique. The program is a place where worldly trending topics of concern, meets the digital minds of teens ages 13-19, who then present and offer solutions from a candidly intellectual point of view. Selfhelp Community Services, Inc. Chinese Calligraphy, Paper Cutting and Craft Workshops for Celebrating Lunar Year of the Rabbit, will be offered as onsite teaching for Seniors at Queens Selfhelp Benjamin Rosenthal -Prince Street Innovative Older Adult Center during the fall of 2023. In four class series, Artist MingLiang Lu will give a brief introduction to the history and evolution of Chinese calligraphy. Participants will be able to learn basic techniques of calligraphy structure and layout. Master Lu will demonstrate paper cutting, an ancient Chinese art form dated back to the Han Dynasty. In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn the basic shape of flowers, animals, and lucky word signs by using paper and scissors. Sharlene Chou will lead craft making workshop in themes of lunar year Rabbit using mixed media. Combining the skills learned from the 3 workshops, participants will be able to use the mixed media to make a final project for the final presentation on the last day of the workshops and open to the public for view. Son Jarocho NY fiscally sponsored by The Garage Art Center The New York Son Jarocho Festival (NYSJF) is a week-long annual gathering where practitioners and audiences share, learn, and celebrate their love for the music, dance, and culture of Veracruz, Mexico. |
| Spark Movement Collective Spark Movement Collective will complete two one-hour dance workshops for Queens-based youth ages 6-12 at the Joffrey studios in Long Island City in the spring of 2023. The theme of the workshops will revolve around Spark’s spring 2023 children’s show, The Princess and the Pea, a modern-day adaptation of the well-known fairytale. Children will be told Spark’s version of the story and asked to share their thoughts about it. Workshops will be free for all participants and will take place in April 2023. Suromurchhana Inc. A half-day festival of Hindustani (North Indian - Pakistani - Bangladeshi) classical music with Queens-based artists as well as world class visiting artists to be held in Queens. The festival will feature a Queens Hindustani Youth Orchestra made up of accomplished musicians ages 12-22 who will open the festival with a 15-minute performance. Following the youth orchestra performance, the festival will feature performances by up-and-coming, Queens-based professional artists and conclude with a performance by a major exponent of Hindustani music and their accompanists visiting from India. The Blue Bus Project The Blue Bus Project (TBBP) will facilitate four Hands-on science based family art activities about Solar Energy in the Queens neighborhoods of Jackson Heights, Far Rockaway, Woodhaven, and Long Island City. Led by TBBP’s teaching artists, each participant will learn about the importance of solar energy through a live demonstration of how the sun’s energy is transformed into electricity through the panel, battery, and inverter installed on the bus. Participants will build a solar powered art piece, “Spinning Flowers,” by using a small geared motor attached to a mini solar panel and a breadboard to light up LED. Each creation will be installed as a final collaborative art piece powered by the buses’ solar panels. |
Titan Productions, Incorporated
The Future Classics Festival is a new works festival dedicated to ushering forth a new “classical” canon by centering on the voices of BIPOC playwrights, actors, and directors. The Future Classics Festival is a developmental platform for playwrights and theatre makers under the guidance of Titan Theatre Company's artistic leadership team.
VIVARTA ARTS INC.
A public celebration of the Indian festival of Navratri (a nine day festival in praise of Goddess Durga and the divine feminine powers) through the interactive folk dances of garba and dandiya. The event will offer free lessons for the public to learn how to dance along for the main segment of the performance by Queens based Vivarta Arts Performing Troupe featuring high energy, folk inspired dances.
Women in Comics Collective International
WinC x Queens Comic Book Festival is an event that would showcase comic book creators across the borough. It would be a one day show that will include, workshops on comic book writing and drawing, panel discussions featuring prominent comic book creators in the industry discussing their careers and the creation process. The event will also include a live drawing hour and an artist market.
Woodside on the Move
Presented during WOTM’s Spring Street Fair, Queens Culture on the Move features performance art groups touching on five different Korean, Filipino, Ecuadorian, Irish, and Bengali cultures. Each group will exhibit a dance or demonstration showcasing the uniqueness and beauty of their respective cultures.
Artist In Queens Grant Recipients (for Individual Artists)
Annalisa Iadicicco
Bottle to Bottle is a public sculpture created from metal rebars and 700 recycled plastic bottles that transforms trash into shelter. It will act as an ever changing symbol of self awareness that investigates the concepts of recycling and climate change as it relates to how we think about what we hold dear, what we really need, and what is the excess that bogs us down. The bottles act as a symbol of the waste we generate and a call to action for climate change as the refuse will be used to change the space into a community “home base”.
Ashley King
A King McCarty will collaborate with the community in and around Astoria Park to create a large-scale, abstract collage. The artist will set up a table in Astoria Park 3-5 times throughout the spring and summer of 2023 and invite the community to add pieces to the project using paper and glue. Upon completion, the project will be photographed and hung as a banner outside Astoria Park, pending the approval of the NYC Parks department.
Carla Lobmier
Six women artists working in Queens look at "What Now?". Each artist would consider what we are moving towards in this changed pandemic, post-loss-of-reproductive rights, more women in government world way of being.The 2022 Women's History theme, "Providing Healing, Promoting Hope" is the open-ended thread that we are asking participants to reflect on, as they create new work for this installation. Specifically, each would make a paper piece measuring 22”x28” to slide into one side of a two-sided sandwich board. The other side would contain a printed poster with information about the group/theme. The art boards would be partnered with a shop owner on 37th Avenue, Jackson Heights, and placed on the sidewalk for public viewing. Multiple walking/talking tour(s) with the organizers would be calendared with registration for participants for a group public interactive component. The artists would be encouraged to join these walks/talks, as would the shopkeepers. Social media posts would spread the word.
Cecilia Lim
“From Queens to Our Motherlands” will bring together Queens-based BIPOC women and femme artists and cultural workers ages 35-49 of multiple disciplines (visual arts, dance, writers, etc.) to produce a zine. This team of artist collaborators will continue the work of the Remember Y(our) Connection (RYC) project. RYC is a public participatory art project that uplifts the wisdom of humans most impacted by the social issues which caused the current state of extreme climate instability on Earth. This team will: review work from the RYC's first two phases, completed in 2019 and 2020; discuss goals and lessons learned from each; share story about what's happening in Queens and our respective motherlands; and generate proposals for how to invite our local communities to care more for this place Queens, and for our transnational communities. Stories and proposals will be compiled into a zine that may include poems, essays, drawings, photographs, and links to short video works. The zine will be distributed via postings to the project's and artists' individual social media (Instagram, Facebook).
Honglei Li
"Life of the Invisibles" is a large-scale oil painting series inspired by real-life stories and the cultural heritage of Asian immigrant communities in Queens, NY.
Through the artists' lived experience as a Chinese immigrant and interviews with immigrant family members, friends, and other members of the Flushing Chinatown community, Honglei will interweave realities with Eastern visual traditions, the painting series aims at amplifying the voice of Asian immigrants and fighting against anti-Asian sentiment in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2023, collaborating with Korea Art Forum, they will present the project as public art installation consisting of large banners and animations at multiple public parks in Queens, including Kissena Corridor Park in Flushing. Scanning QR codes on banners with their smartphones, park visitors can watch the painting images printed on the banners becoming animations that unfold Asian immigrant stories.
Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow
"Build Your Own Junkanoo Character" explores the different characters of the Jamaican Junkanoo through a series of performances and workshops. Audience members are invited to create their own Junkanoo-inspired character as a way to educate and revive this tradition. Public workshops (in-person or online) will feature a historical overview of each character along with costume building using ready-made materials. Shredded clothing and ‘junk’ will be used to create Junkanoo costumes and props that are meant to be activated not only during the traditionally held Christmas Holidays but during other times of the year as participants see fit.
Kathleen Capdesuner
“Fefu y Sus Amigas”, is an original theatrical presentation inspired by the play’s themes of womanhood and female friendship by collaborating with the Latina/e elder community members from the Sunnyside and Astoria neighborhoods.
The project is comprised of a series of workshops culminating in a public presentation at Thalia Spanish Theatre in Sunnyside, Queens. the artist will partner with the Sunnyside Community Services, and Spanish Speaking Elderly Council RAICES Astoria locations to engage with their older adults. Through these partnerships, she will work with a group of 10 elders to share stories in response to the play’s content, and rehearse a public theatrical presentation featuring their talents, stories and selected scenes from the play in Spanish.
Keisha Damali Abrams
"The Future of Southeast Queens" will include a 4’ x 8’ mixed media collage inspired by Black history in Southeast Queens. The artist will research Black history in Southeast Queens, including the experience of enslaved Africans in the area and free Black people before, during and after slavery. They will stain reproductions of historical documents and images using natural dyes to make them look aged and cut them up in order to create a collage.
The public presentation will include a free workshop at Seed Capital CafeIn exhibiting the collage for the duration of the workshop and share the artist's research with participants.
Participants will contribute their own oral histories and artworks about how their families arrived in this area and how they envision the future of Queens.
Rejin Leys
“Reading the River” is a sculptural installation that explores our relationship with NYC’s waterways by incorporating shredded copies of five poems and one essay written from the 19th through the 21st centuries. Assembled out of cast paper objects and collected materials, the sculpture will be installed in the front window of the main building of the Queens Public Library.
This project began as a public, interactive event on the East River in LIC, in which participants were able to choose one of the texts (including “Recuerdo” by Edna St. Vincent Millay and “A Trip on the Staten Island Ferry” by Audre Lorde,) and make paper with it at my mobile papermaking studio. I used the remaining shredded poems and paper pulp to make cast paper disks that I have been assembling into hanging sculptures.
There will be two workshops during which visitors can contribute to the project: by making paper, and by writing poems about the waterways (in any language), which will be shared on a tablet kiosk in the library lobby.
Sandra Vucicevic
"POSTCARDS FROM THE ABSTRACT(ED) UNIVERSE" is a multi-dimensional project which will involve:
1) the creation of a group of abstract paintings and animations (by me) based on the images of the specific landmarks in Queens taken by the members of the Queens community who respond to an open call, and
2) a public exhibition of community photos and created paintings/animations in physical space – Studio 34 Gallery, and virtual space - on the viewers’ smartphones, by using Augmented Reality (AR) technology. AR technology overlays digital content onto real-life environments and objects and simulates how digital image would look like in real space, for example how a virtual sofa would fit in a real room. In this exhibition, the audience will be offered to scan a QR code with their smartphones to see how the animations of created abstract paintings of Queens landmarks would look like in real space.
Springboard Collective (Sarah Dahlinger)
“Trivial Pursuits Dinner Party” is an interactive, collaborative art series using food and performance to bring people together in a unique shared experience. Serving six courses of homemade pie to dinner guests, the performance progresses through absurd activities culminating in a surprise finale. The four previous "Editions" in this series took place in Denmark, Queens and Governors Island and surprise finales included a food fight, a DIY fashion show, Medieval LARPing and a water fight.
Everything within the installation and dinner performance is artist-made from the props, costumes, sets, and script to the menus, food and ceramic tableware. Part social practice, part performance art, and part dinner theater, the experience asks the audience to join in the fun, creating a natural and improvisational flow as if we are all in it together. In this project the artists regard the concept of triviality, akin to play and humor, as a powerful means to build community, find new perspectives and create lasting impact.
Shauna Sorensen
"Gossamer 3.0" is a free collaborative performance between dancer, Shauna Sorensen, and painter, Annabelle Popa, that explores how movement of the dancer can influence brush strokes of the painter, and how movement of the painter can influence choreography of the dancer. "Gossamer 3.0" is taking place on the weekend in the public school yard at PS 99 in Kew Gardens and includes a dance presentation, creation of a mural on a concrete wall, and audience participation.
Sherwin Banfield
‘We appreciate you Ralph!” is a celebration of VJ Ralph McDaniels and his contributions to Queens Hip-Hop Culture. Ralph McDaniels, currently the Hip-Hop Coordinator for Queens Public Library, is the legendary co-founder and host of Video Music Box which documented the early stages of Hip-Hop in NYC parks and clubs along with the early careers of many artists of the 1980s and 90s.
Through research and community interviews, the project will manifest in the form of a public sculpture, a life-sized portrait bust of Ralph placed on an Illustrative base showcasing Video Music Box and other cultural achievements. This bust and base will sit atop a wooden stand with integrated lighting, audio and video showcasing Ralph’s interviews with Queens Artist and their music videos.
Tyrel Hunt
"The Sound of Southside" is a new feature film that was filmed in landmark locations such as Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, VP Records, Rufus King Park .
The Sound of Southside World Premiere is a film screening, followed by a Q&A with the cast and crew of the project. The film's themes (Gentrification, Arts and Culture, Urban Crime, Black Love) will serve as talking points to create relevant and impactful dialogue.
Yu-Wei Hsiao
“Islanders” is a three-part live art experience created by a group of young Taiwanese artists to express their cultural identities through music, dance, audiovisual installation, and Taiwanese street food.
By combining western culture with Taiwanese traditional music and folk dance, they hope to increase the visibility of their home country. This show was created by Taiwanese duo Chieh Hsiung and Yu-Wei Hsiao, in collaboration with other Taiwanese artists to merge their unique cultural elements, this dream.
The show begins with an immersive experience. Modeled after the Taiwanese Night Market with a sound installation, this sets the pace of mystery and anticipation. What follows is an intense and intimate film screening. A musical-dance performance follows with improvised jazz music reminiscent of the days of the Cotton Club. Throughout the show there is interactive narration with the feel of a live tv game show atmosphere. Along with this, they will host three musical-dance workshops at three Taiwanese communities in New York City.