Exhibitions - Stepping into Our Courage: IMI Corona Exhibition

Stepping into Our Courage: IMI Corona Exhibition

09.13.17 – 10.21.17

Community Partnership Exhibition Program

A crowd of inter-generational Latinx community members stand outside for a community arts event. Focused in the foreground is three young girls. Two are playing a hand clapping game and one is cheering. Behind them is a papier-mâché sculpture of a hand and adults also cheering and clapping.

On View Sep 13-October 21

 

Opening Reception: Sep 17, 2-5pm featuring screenings and staged reading in the theater.

 

Immigrant Movement International (IMI) Corona is a volunteer-led community space for alternative education, a think tank for debate and action by people’s philosophers to re-imagine the role of (im)migrants in society and to change unjust situations, and a laboratory for the merging of arts and activism. IMI Corona is supported by the Queens Museum and is composed by and serves primarily the low income, latin@ and indigenous mixed-status migrant community from Corona, Elmhurst and Jackson Heights. Since 2014 IMI Corona has been led by the Community Council an inter-generational body that exists to help us break the doors that lock us in, so that our mind can fly more, so that we can connect our experiences and imagine new ways to live, to follow our dreams, and to fight and struggle together to make them a reality. We are a group that is sharpening skills to organize and be active in the social justice movement based on the needs of (im)migrant mothers, women, children, and young people that are the majority of participants of IMI Corona.

 

This is the 2nd annual exhibition of IMI Corona’s work at Queens Museum’s Partnership Gallery. Stepping into Our Courage showcases all of our work for the past year, which saw us partnering more with other immigrant rights organizations in Queens, and stepping up despite a climate of increasing xenophobia. For 2016 -2017, we began the year organizing around justice in schools, continuing to challenge sexism within our community, and fostering the leadership of women and girls. This culminated in a multi-generational Sex Education camp So Yo: Bodies without Fear in July of 2017. In collaboration with multiple guest artists and local and emerging artists, we have created community forums, art installations, large public events, marches and protests supporting the lives of (im)migrant mothers and children from our neighborhood.

 

In addition to the artistic and political work of the Community Council displayed in this exhibition, we are proud to present the work of two artists-in-residence that spent time documenting and articulating the collective work of the IMI Corona Community: Milton X. Trujillo made three video-poems capturing the process of developing actions around the justice in schools campaign involving public art and processions involving a large-scale Papier-mâché monster or “mostrita” created with support from artist Daniel Valle. Yessica Martinez, our writer-in-residence, conducted numerous writing workshops in a process of collective ethnography, that is presented here through a culminating zine as well as on the voice-overs for Trujillo’s videos.

 

We welcome you to interact with our art and continue to document our hxrstory by using the hashtag #UniendoLuchas #JoiningStruggles #IMICorona @IMICorona and we invite you to join the struggle by coming to IMI Corona meetings, events and workshops.

Participating Artists

— Monica Aviles

— Rosa Bao

— Joanna Guillen

— Dominique Hernandez

— Danny Yana Allpa Mendoza

— Hayley Mackenzie Bain

— Silvia Juliana Mantilla Ortiz

— Juana Pachar

— Veronica Ramirez

— Nathalie Rea

— Prerana Reddy

— Librada Valeria Reyes

— Stephanie Roman

— Bonnibel Rosario

— Evelyn Sanango

— Jose Benitez

— Brandon Castillo

— Roberta Chalini

— Ro Garrido

— Milton X. Trujillo

— Daniel Valle

— Yessica Martinez