Social Practice Queens (SPQ) – has just completed its first interdisciplinary seminar Transforming Corona Plaza. This experiment brought together a group of graduate and undergraduate students in studio art and in urban studies and successfully merged research work involving the demographics, local politics, and concerned stake-holders of this mostly Latino region of Queens, with interventionist theory and practical design concepts drawn from case studies of socially-engaged visual art. The educational team was drawn from Queens College: Professor Maureen Connor and Gregory Sholette from Studio Art Dept., Professor Tarry Hum from Urban Studies Dept.; plus additional instructors from the Queens Museum of Art including its Director Tom Finkelpearl, and Manager of Programs Prerana Reddy.

Two dozen students met off-campus at the Immigrant Movement International space where they developed in-depth knowledge of one nearby urban site known as Corona Plaza (103 St. and Roosevelt Ave). In the process they were introduced to local community activists, business people, computer modeling experts, borough politicians, and the planning team of the Department of Transportation (DOT) . Four final proposals were generated by student teams and presented to the community for critical feedback from a range of individuals including Tania Bruguera (artist), Arturo Sanchez (Professor of Urban Planning, Cornell) and Ricardi Calixte (a Neighborhood Development Director). Documentation of these projects can be seen here: http://www.socialpracticequeens.org/projects/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other exciting news is that investigation into Corona Plaza will continue over this summer and into fall as independent study with a team of ten students working under the guidance of our newly invited Corona Studio Artists Qullian Riano and Aurash Khawarazad.