This event is part of Queens Museum, ArtBuilt and NYC Parks, Studio in the Park – Residency #4. This six-week residency opportunity provides artists the chance to work in a 150 square foot purpose-built mobile studio situated on the lawn in front of the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, and near a gateway park entrance with maximum public accessibility.

Queens Creative Solidarity (QCS)’s six-week-long Studio In The Park residency project is titled “Flushing Meadows Corona Park: What it’s Worth.”  QCS aims to build and cultivate an equitable network of artists and creative people in Queens that acknowledges and respects the cultural richness already present in our neighborhoods, learning together how to be involved in community where art, art making, dignified living, learning, parenting and working conditions are an equal right for all.

The public is invited to participate in two drop-in artmaking projects and a  public performance led by members of QCS:

 3 – 7 pm – Open Studio – Drop-in Video Collaboration 
This video collaboration explores issues of public and private land use, and the value Flushing Meadows Corona Park holds for the people who use it. We will ask park visitors to use their own smart phones to record 2-5 minutes of footage that answers the question: “What is a day in the park worth to you?” The culmination will be an edited video made up entirely of footage shot by participants.

3 – 6 pm PoeTREE
PoeTREE. Park-goers are invited to walk around and choose a tree that has some significance to you and make a piece of art about it, while contemplating questions like, “Why is this tree valuable to me?” The artwork could be a poem (written in your own language) and/or a drawing or painting. The art will reflect the various experiences, perspectives and backgrounds of participants – as well as the importance of the park’s trees, nature conservation and public access to Flushing Meadows Corona Park. We will collect the poems and art and in the end to be displayed; some to be included in the QCS What it’s Worth zine (presentation at the 11/13 closing event).

4 – 6pm: Capoeira Demonstration with Ilê De Palmares
Capoeira roda and demos by group, Ilê De Palmares. Capoeira (cap·o·ei·ra) is an Afro-Brazilian martial art disguised as a dance. It was created in the 16th century by enslaved Africans in Brazil who used it to liberate themselves. Played as a game (jogo) between two practitioners inside a circle (roda), capoeira is a dialogue using the body, each movement is like a word forming a dynamic conversation that can be beautiful, tough, slow or fast and sometime everything at once. The game of capoeira is commanded by the berimbau (musical instrument), the traditions are carried on through the rich history of liberation and the artform is kept alive by the vibrant growing community of practitioners throughout the world: iledepalmares.com.

More Info on Mobile Studio in the Park Residency #4: Queens Creative Solidarity

Led by QCS’s steering committee that includes: Lorie Caval, Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, Juanita Lara, Silvia Juliana Mantilla Ortiz, Zahida Pirani, Sami Abu Shumays, Priscilla Stadler, and Roshani Thakore, the QCS residency will take place from October 1st to November 15, 2016. Using the mobile studio space as a platform to ask, “FMCP: What’s it worth?” QCS will encourage dialogue in a public environment that reflects our values of free and equal access across multiple dimensions. As a shared community resource which has been vulnerable to private interests in recent years, an important landmark, and the largest public gathering space in Queens, Flushing Meadows Corona Park is a living example of a space that can be protected only if varied communities come together and, recognizing its value, organize to keep it public and fully available for all to enjoy.

The Studio in the Park residency is a partnership between The Queens Museum, ArtBuilt, and NYC Parks, and takes place in a 150 square foot  mobile studio situated adjacent to the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The activities of Queens Creative Solidarity will offer a variety of art projects, zine-making, music activities, poetry writing, video collaboration, opportunities for learning and dialogue, storytelling, and many more, culminating in a final event on November 13 to showcase the product of these various activities to be showcased at the Queens Museum of Art in November.