2020 Shared Dialogue Shared Space
May 31, 2020
Margaret I. Carman Green, Weeping Beech Park
A Trilingual Public Art Event in Flushing, Queens
Margaret I. Carman Green
Weeping Beech Park
(corner of Bowne St. and 37th Ave. in Flushing, Queens)
May 31, 2020
12:00 to 2:30 p.m
*Rain Date/遇雨/우천시:
June 6, 2020
12:00 to 2:30 p.m.
Artist discussion immediately following event:
3:00 to 4:30 p.m
Queens Historical
143-35 37th Avenue, Flushing, NY, 11354
Livestream
A one-day livestream of art events in a public park and an artist discussion, all with translation services, to broaden channels of communication between the contemporary art world and immigrant communities in New York City.
New York, NY, April 6, 2020 — Korea Art Forum will live-stream Shared Dialogue, Shared Space, a one-day livestream of art events in a public park and an artist discussion, all with translation services, to broaden channels of communication between the contemporary art world and immigrant communities in New York City. Focused on the expansion of public access to art, the project will foster audience discourse, exploring a wide range of subject matters and the multidimensional role of art in the processes of cultural production and social change. The event has been adapted to meet the realities of New York City’s fight against COVID-19.
Five artists, whose works touch on the immigrant experience and life and legacy in Queens, will carry out their transdisciplinary projects for public participation. The event will take place at the Margaret I. Carman Green – Weeping Beech Park on the corner of Bowne St. and 37th Ave. in Flushing, Queens, from 12:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m on May 31, 2020 (with a rain date on June 6). An artist discussion will follow at the Queens Historical Society, (143-35 37th Avenue, Flushing, NY, 11354) from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. The live stream of the park activities and discussion will be shared on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kafny.org/
The artists’ projects range from art-making workshops, participatory installations, creative surveys, engagement with historical documents, and self-guided tours of the local urban waterway. The artists are emerging and mid-career contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds and disciplines; most are based in Queens, and all make work that is relevant to Flushing’s Asian immigrants concerning life in the borough as well as the community’s enduring global ties.
The purpose of bringing together these artworks is to create collective dialogue and ownership over our shared spaces through art. The project emphasizes translation both in text and speech from English to Chinese and Korean in order to connect communities that are often culturally isolated from one another. In these challenging times, online participation will be encouraged. A trilingual catalog will be made available on print and online at kafny.org following the event, along with video recordings with subtitled translations. The catalog will include curatorial statements, monographic texts of each artist, and visual documentation taken by David Younghwan Lee and other photographers.
The Margaret I. Carman Green – Weeping Beech Park and the Queens Historical Society are wheelchair accessible.
Schedule for May 31, 2020, 12:00 to 4:30 p.m.
12:00 p.m. Rejin Leys’s The Pulp Mobile is a paper-making studio on wheels that the artist rolls out to parks and plazas to help passersby make paper by using mostly recycled paper and other inexpensive supplies. In addition to recycled colored paper, they will use shredded paper made from texts printed in various languages represented in Queens. These will be used both as a decorative element in the paper and as a prompt to talk about how language can be a barrier between us but also a bridge, an immigrant background being something that many of us have in common.
12:30 p.m. Priscilla Stadler’s The PoeTREE is a collective interactive sculpture and reflection about a tree in our lives—whether present or past or near or far. Through conversation, the public co-creates the PoeTREE by writing or drawing about trees on the PoeTREE’s paper leaves or cardboard branches. In its previous iterations, the sculpture has led to meaningful dialogue about topics like the role of nature in the city, personal stories of migration, memories of home countries and loved ones, and concerns about climate change. The project relates to the Weeping Beech Park, which is a marker of Flushing’s historic tree nurseries.
1:00 p.m. Young Sun Han’s Memos of Migration is an outdoor installation which will take the form of a temporary community board, with a focus on movement/migration and matriarchs. Participants are encouraged to contribute objects that may recall mothers, grandmothers—women who were the head of households and survived to protect and support their families. The installation will be accessible for anyone to affix photos, letters, clothing, objects, food, mementos, etc, and become a collaborative and living shrine for the community in Queens.
1:30 p.m. Jamerry Kim’s To Translate is to Cross A Bridge: The Flushing Remonstrance (A Protest) examines language with a focus on translation as a strategy for deep listening to the voices of the Flushing residents. Participants will be invited to fill out a census-inspired survey asking various questions that weave the personal with the universal experience of immigration and diaspora. These questions will be a starting point for a dialogue on the notion of belonging while considering Flushing’s unique history of religious freedom vis a vis The Flushing Remonstrance (1657), exploring this history as a source of parallel relevance to Flushing residents in 2020.
2:00 p.m. Cody Herrmann’s High Rent, Low Tide will provide participants with a multilingual map to be used for a self-guided walking tour of the Flushing Creek waterfront. The project aims to bring public awareness to the development and rezoning around Flushing’s waterfront, drawing connections between public access and participation, environmental health, and public health.
3:00 to 4:30 p.m. Artist Discussion. The event will end with a conversation among all the artists to reflect on the day’s activities.
Founded in New York 2013, (KAF) is led by artists, scholars, and peacemakers committed to bridging the world through art. KAF aims to dismantle the sources of inequality and exclusivity present in the contemporary art field while building an aesthetic framework that enables the creation of a peaceful world of coexistence, cooperation, and co-prosperity. Operating at the intersection of the visual arts and humanities, KAF’s interrelated annual projects—Commissions, Exhibitions, Forums, and Publications—serve to bring together all people from the art world and beyond in a shared dialogue on building an interconnected and peaceful world, supporting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
