Movement Research Spring Festival and iLAND (interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance) present fallow time with the 2013 iLAB Residents “Through Earth, Through Body, Through Speech” with Fantastic Futures (Julio Hernandez, Huong Ngo, Phuong Nguyen, Solgil Oh, Sable Elyse, Or Zubalsky) & Jason Munshi-South  as part of the annual iLAND Symposium

ALL EVENTS ARE FREE AND WILL HAPPEN RAIN OR SHINE.

A LIGHT, INFORMAL LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED.

Fantastic Futures and Munshi-South spent the summer of 2013 in residence at Queens Flushing Meadows"€Corona Park and Willets Point exploring the history and current social meanings of the park. This site, of both the 1939 and 1964-65 World's Fair as well as the temporary site of the U.N., was undergoing a contested series of developments supported by Mayor Bloomberg (including a mall and tennis stadium) that evoked questions around diversity, visions of the future, and entitlement of space. Munshi-South and Fantastic Futures used a cross-pollination of artistic practices and scientific methods to begin engaging the local community in a conversation around personal and family histories of the park and their visions for the future of the park.

The collaborative activities they designed furthered their inquiries into the way that the park’s past still influences its identity today, and how a recognition of these failed utopian projects might shed some light on our present moment of hurried and highly problematic economic development in the area.

The iLAB residency investigated questions around difference, biodiversity, proximity, and intervention. This was explored with understandings around diversity of humans, plants, and animals. In this respect, they questioned: How and why do we measure difference? What do we consider "€œnatural"€ and how are urban systems around us "€œnaturalized?"€ When is a change in our environment deemed worthy of intervention? Who has the power to intervene? When should one exert or not exert that power? How does this relate to geopolitical policy, national identity, or interpersonal relationships?

Schedule of Events

11:00 a.m. "€“ 1:00 p. m. Meet at the North End of the Unisphere at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens.

The collaborators will share their research from the iLAB Residency from Summer 2013 through listening, walking and mapping in Flushing Meadows Park. Activities are appropriate for all ages.

1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Picnic Lunch provided in the Park or in the Queens Museum. (Dependent on the weather)

2:30 p.m."€“ 4:00 p.m. Discussion, mapping and drawing, Werwaiss Gallery, 2nd Floor Queens Museum

4:00 p.m. "€“ 6:00 p.m. Performance by Fantastic Futures and Jason Munshi-South, Triangle Gallery, Queens Museum

PERFORMANCE: An interactive, multi-channel soundscape that explores problematics and poetics of public space through the research and processes of Through Body, Through Earth, Through Speech.

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The 2014 iLAND Symposium is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by generous individuals like you. Special thanks to the Queens Museum for hosting this event.