Restricted visibility and geographic isolation are widespread hurdles for a lot of artists residing within the New York Metropolis borough of Queens, partly as a result of prevalence of transit deserts — areas with inadequate public transportation — which hinders inter-community engagement. It’s one of many principal challenges recognized by the Queens Cultural Mapping Initiative, a year-long analysis mission exploring the strengths, wants, and obstacles affecting the realm’s arts and tradition panorama.
Led by the humanities companies staff at Flushing City Corridor (FTH) in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), the initiative concerned city corridor conferences, a neighborhood survey, and greater than 150 one-on-one interviews with particular person artists and organizations throughout the borough — a lot of whom are spotlighted in a brand new borough-wide digital map launched final week.
Created by map designers Nolen Phya and Oussama Ouadani, the platform pinpoints a plethora of multidisciplinary artist studios, galleries, neighborhood gardens, museums, and different cultural areas, from the SculptureCenter in Lengthy Island Metropolis to the Rockaway Artists Alliance, in an effort to foster cross-borough connections.
Phya instructed Hyperallergic that his personal expertise rising up within the southwestern Queens neighborhood of Ozone Park had an enormous affect on his understanding of the borough’s transit inequities.
“To even come to a place like Flushing Town Hall, there is no direct train line. You have to take multiple buses to even make it here,” Phya mentioned. “So just thinking about that commute alone, my accessibility to the arts is quite limited.”
“Day of the Dead” altar on the Queens Museum
Except for connecting teams geographically, the map was additionally created in response to the necessity for a centralized arts and tradition useful resource, sorely missing because the Queens Council on the Arts took a year-long hiatus to “restructure and rebuild” in 2022, solely to then merge with the Selection Boys and Women Membership of Queens in Astoria in 2024.
“[It’s] left a big gap in advocacy, strategic planning, and resource coordination, and having a unified voice,” mentioned Natalie Bedon, the initiative’s mission supervisor, throughout FTH’s month-to-month artist meet-up final week.
“ The grants that the council previously administered are now handled by Flushing Town Hall and the New York Foundation for the Arts in Manhattan, which has also caused some confusion about where to apply,” Bedon mentioned, emphasizing the necessity for devoted hubs like the brand new digital map.
Along with the map, which customers can add areas to utilizing a web based utility type, FTH is slated to launch a complete report on its findings from the cultural mapping initiative subsequent month.
For the mission, Bedon instructed Hyperallergic that she labored with collaborator Amara Thomas to prioritize areas that haven’t obtained the identical consideration for his or her arts and cultural choices, in contrast to Lengthy Island Metropolis and Jackson Heights, which have change into hotspots for galleries and artist studios.
“People often forget about places like the Rockaways and Southeast Queens, and that’s something we really wanted to bring attention to,” Bedon mentioned.
Among the many map’s highlighted websites are the eco-centric artwork middle Buena Onda Collective in Rockaway; the World’s Borough Bookshop in Jackson Heights; neighborhood cultural organizations like Centro Corona and Un Colectivo Recuerda, which function out of the identical house in Corona; and Attract Artwork Academy, a brand new arts training hub in St. Albans based by artist Amy Simon that’s slated to open in mid-October.
Simon instructed Hyperallergic that she hopes the map initiative will assist broaden job alternatives for artists within the borough.
“I would love to see a section for people looking for work, looking for volunteer opportunities, looking for spaces,” Simon mentioned. “It could be like an interchangeable thing where it’s not just you seeking out the venues, but venues also being able to seek out help.”
General, Simon mentioned she’s largely trying ahead to studying extra in regards to the work taking place in her neighborhood. “I hope to just connect with artists who do different forms of art,” Simon mentioned.
