Categories

Author Immigrant Movement

A Frame Apart 2: Short Films on Queens

Open Call for Submissions
Postmark Deadline: March 31, 2012

Queens Museum of Art once again showcases Queens short films, as a complement to the closing celebration on May 19. 2012 of the Queens Museum’s biennale of Queens-based artists, Queens International 2012: Three Points Make a Triangle. Works should have been made 2009 or later with a maximum running time of 30 mins. All styles and genres welcome.

To submit please include:
1) DVD or miniDV (NTSC only) preview copy OR link to website where the media can be viewed (vimeo, youtube, etc)
2) Director(s) Name, Title, Synopsis, Running Time, Year, Country and Languages of Production (if in language other than English, English Subtitles required)
3) Director(s) bio, cast/crew list
4) Screening History, Awards
5) All possible screening formats available
6) Contact email, phone #, website if available
7) If above info provided on CD, please also include film stills at 300 dpi as tiff or jpeg as part of the EPK

MAIL TO:
Queens Shorts Submissions
Prerana Reddy
Director of Public Events
Queens Museum of Art
NYC Bldg., Flushing Meadows Park
Corona, NY 11368
tel: 718-592-9700 x222. preddy@queensmuseum.org

LEGAL CLINIC FOR ARTISTS & IMMIGRANTS

Monday April 9, 2012
6 – 9 PM

Immigrant Movement International will be hosting a free immigration clinic sponsored by the New York City Immigrant Advocacy Initiative (NYCIAI) on Monday April 9th. NYCIAI is a collaboration between the City Bar Justice Center and the New York Chapter of AILA’s Pro Bono Committee. Speak privately about your legal concerns with an immigration attorney including issues surrounding artists visas, Cuban immigration and family reunification.  Lawyers will be available in English, Spanish and Mandarin.  This workshops is an opportunity for community members to seek objective legal advice at no cost.  Attorneys will not be taking on cases.

RESERVE YOUR APPOINTMENT TODAY (718) 424 6502
March 30th is the last day to sign up!

**Participants must arrive 30 minutes prior to appointment**

City Bar Justice Center
         
CONSULTAS LEGALES PARA ARTISTAS E INMIGRANTES
Lunes 9 de Abril 2012
6 – 9PM
.
El Movimiento Internacional llevará a cabo una clínica sobre inmigración gratis patrocinada por el City Bar Justice Center y el American Immigration Lawyers Association el día Lunes 9 de Abril. Hable en privado con un abogado de inmigración sobre sus inquietudes legales que incluyen temas tales como visas para artistas, inmigración cubana y reunificaciones familiares. habrá abogados disponibles en Ingles, Español y Mandarín. Este taller es la oportunidad para que los miembros de la comunidad busquen ayuda legal sin costo alguno. Los abogados NO tomaran casos particulares.
.
RESERVE UNA CITA HOY 718-424-6502
.
**Los participantes deben llegar 30 minutos antes de su consulta**

Artist Alejandro Cesarco presents “The Same But Different”

SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

LOCATION: Immigrant Movement International, 108-59 Roosevelt Avenue, Corona, NY 11368 (7 train to 111th St) Click here for Directions.

For his participation in Queens International 2012: Three Points Make a Triangle, artist Alejandro Cesarco will be conducting a a workshop focusing on an expanded definition of translation conceived as a creative and generative process. As a starting point, a scene from Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Chinoise (1967) and a short film by Claire Denis, Vers Nancy (2002) will be screened and analyzed. These two works will be used as a lens to discuss cultural and aesthetic politics behind the impulse to adapt, translate, and appropriate.

With QMA Director of Public Events, Prerana Reddy

About the Artist

Alejandro Cesarco was born in 1975 in Montevideo, Uruguay. His most recent solo exhibitions include “Alejandro Cesarco,” Art Pace, San Antonio, Texas, “Two Films,” Murray Guy, New York (2009), “Three Works,” Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin (2009), “Now & Then,” Charles H Scott Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2009), “Retrospective,” in collaboration with John Baldessari, Murray Guy, New York (2007), and “Margeurite Duras’ India Song,” Art in General, New York (2006). These exhibitions addressed, through different formats and strategies, his recurrent interests in repetition, narrative, and the practices of reading and translating. He has curated exhibitions in the U.S., Uruguay, Argentina and a project for the 6th Mercosur Biennial (2007), in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He is director of Art Resources Transfer where he initiated and edits Between Artists, an ongoing series of conversation based books. He lives and works in New York.

About the Films

.
Still from “La Chinoise” by Jean-Luc Godard, 1967
.

La Chinoise (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1967, 96mins)
In an apartment painted brilliant shades of red and blue, five young people-including Véronique (Anne Wiazemsky), a philosophy student, and the actor Guillaume (an ardent Léaud)-attempt to live according to the precepts of Chairman Mao, their shortwave tuned to Radio Peking. In an assemblage of skits that bridges Pop and agitprop, Godard portrays the progress of these “petit Maoists” from playing at revolution to making it. It remained for the events of May 1968 to prove La Chinoise prophetic, and the film’s fascination only grows in retrospect

Still from "Vers Nancy" by Claire Denis, 2002
.
Still from “Vers Nancy” by Claire Denis, 2002

.
Vers Nancy 
(Claire Denis, France, 2002, 10mins, part of the portmanteau feature 10 Minutes Older: The Cello)

.
A train conversation between an immigrant French woman and novelist Jean-Luc Nancy centering on the idea of intrusion within every foreigner (a more philosophical precursor to L’Intrus). Denis’s social commentary on the inherent fallacy – particularly in nations with a strong national identity like the U.S. and France – of the social notion that assimilation and integration embrace cultural differences; rather, it erases them. The idea of intrusion is also present in the creation of the Schengen Zone which allows for free movement of people from European countries within the agreement signatory countries, creating a buffer between Old Europe and the “other” Europe that flouts the idea of globalism and a unified Europe, essentially establishing a segregated European “homogenous zone” where populations from outside the zone become “intruders” within it.

IM International: Year One

Wednesday March 14, 2012, 6:30 PM
The Cooper Union School of Art, Rose Auditorium

On Wednesday, March 14, join artist Tania Bruguera in conversation with Creative Time’s Chief Curator Nato Thompson and Tom Finkelpearl and Larissa Harris from the Queens Museum of Art as they review the first year of Bruguera’s ongoing Immigrant Movement International project in Corona, Queens. After the discussion, there will be a short question-and-answer session in which audience members are encouraged to participate.
Immigrant Movement International: Year One will take place from 6:30 to 7:45PM in the Rose Auditorium at The Cooper Union School of Art, located at 41 Cooper Square on the corner of 3rd Avenue and East 7th Street. No RSVP is needed; tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

 

 

Miércoles, 14 de Marzo, 2012, 6:30 PM
The Cooper Union School of Art, Rose Auditorium El día Miércoles 14 de Marzo acompañe a la artista Tania Bruguera en la conversación con el Curador Jefe de Creative Time Nato Thompson y con Tom Finkelpearl y Larissa Harris del Queens Museum of Art para resumir el primer año del Movimiento Inmigrante Internacional, el proyecto en marcha de Bruguera en Corona, Queens. Después de la conversación, Habrá una corta sesión de preguntas y respuestas en la cual miembros del público serán invitados a participar.
Movimiento Inmigrante Internacional: Primer Año se llevara acabo de 6:30 a 7:45PM en el Rose Auditorium en The Cooper Union School of Art, ubicado en 41 Cooper Square en la esquina de la 3ra Avenida y la calle 7 Este. No es necesario RSVP, las entradas serán distribuidas según llegada.

LEFT FORUM 2012: MARCH 16-18, 2012 NEW YORK CITY

 

The Immigrant Manifesto and the Struggle for Social Justice
Organizer and Chair: Saskia Sassen 

March 17, 2012, 12 pm
Room W402

PANEL DESCRIPTION

Immigration is at the forefront of the increasingly abusive control practices of the US government at diverse levels. The panel will examine what diverse organizations and initiatives are doing to a) contribute to a different type of analysis about immigration, and b) actively contest the abuses deployed by government agencies in the name of the law.

PANELISTS

Tania Bruguera, a highly acclaimed artist, is active in the struggle for immigrant rights; she researches how art can be applied to everyday political life. Her work is in the collections of Tate Modern, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Museum of Modern Art, and several other museums around the world. She has received many honors, including most recently a Guggenheim fellow, the Prince Claus Prize, and the first Neuberger Prize.

Ujju Aggarwal is a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center. Her focus is on the importance of the public sector within education as an actively contested arena in which neoliberal projects are generated and contested. This grows out of her work with the Center for Immigrant Families (CIF). She is a community organizer and popular educator on immigrants’
rights, the intersections of art and social justice, public education, and violence against women of color.

Donna Nevel, a community psychologist and educator, organizes for equity and justice in public education; for peace and justice in Palestine/Israel; and against Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism. She coordinates the Participatory Action
Research Center for Education Organizing (PARCEO) that operates in partnership with the Educational Leadership Program at NYU-Steinhardt, where she teaches PAR.

Sarahi Uribe coordinates the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) The aim is to advance and protect the civil, labor, and human rights of day laborer in the United States. NDLON has helped in the creation of dozens of worker centers, campaigns to overturn anti-day laborer solicitation ordinances, fought labor abuses including wage theft, and built strong alliances with labor unions. It is the national leader challenging the devastating impact of harsh immigration enforcement.

Chair: Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Co Chair, The Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University. Her recent books are Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, A Sociology o Globalization, and the 4th fully updated edition of Cities in a World Economy. Among older books is The Global City. She is the recipient of multiple doctor honoris causa and was selected as one of the 100 Top Global Thinkers of 2011 by Foreign Policy Magazine.

Radiator Gallery presents Together Again

Radiator Gallery 
10-61 Jackson Avenue, 3rd Floor, 347.677.3418
Long Island City
March 2 – March 20, 2012 
Opening: Friday, March 2, 6 – 9 PM

Artists: Adam Frelin, Daniela Kostova, Georgi Tushev, IM International,
Michel Kong, Paul Jacobsen, Vikenti Komitski, Yael Kanarek

Curated by Daniela Kostova. Site-specific projects by guest curator Natalia Mount.

The show’s title is based on a piece by Vikenti Komitski, which presents an intriguing world map whose continents have come together in a single, interconnected body. Is this restored Panguea, a Utopian island or a new world order?  Is it the result of natural disaster or of carefully engineered forces of globalization?

“Together Again” is charged with both contradiction and potential, fueled by a Romantic sentiment that togetherness/ solidarity is still possible. The show is immersed in the “ideal,” presenting artistic gestures that push beyond a possible yet desirable future.
Landscape is a recurring motif, behind which lie attempts to observe and contemplate, efforts either enhanced or mediated by technology. This detour back into nature is interrupted by an accelerating tension between nature and culture. Thus is formed the overall arch among these artists’ exercises in Utopia.

In Paul Jacobsen’s imagery social norms have been vanquished, renewed sensuality is everywhere and the natural world is looked upon with honor and wonder. Jacobsen first seduces the viewer with over-sexualized nudity, then confronts us with a bold pronouncement about the world we’ve created: “Civilization is a Bridge from Paradise to Nowhere.” Continuing the rhetoric further in another piece, he waves a black flag at us, suggesting unity without nationality, in a space of zero gravity.

In Yael Kanarek’s piece the viewer becomes hostage to an irresistible landscape of languages, radiating from center to periphery in a perfect red circle – a wavelet of emotions. Drawing from her personal history living between cultures, languages and body languages, and her study of Networked Society as an increasing global phenomenon, the artist proposes that the future citizen can only be post-national.

The photograph by Daniela Kostova is an ironic celebration of internationalism. A white dove has landed on the head of an infant child in a space suit, its sewn-on badges suggesting affiliation with countries previously on opposite sides of a divide, Capitalist and Communist. The image feels borrowed from a TV commercial designed to convince us of a dream which anyone’s money can buy: the Cold War is over, globalization of space is a reality and even infants can fly.

An attempt at gaining more space is seen in the video by Georgi Tushev that presents flying as Utopia. Using custom made aircrafts with mounted, remotely controlled cameras, Tushev offers an experience that challenges our physical limitations. Grounded in the immigrant experience, his work is an emanation of changing human conditions resulting from global processes. Tushev’s second piece, “Strange Attractor,” is a mysterious “formation-painting” created by the Earth’s magnetism and never touched by hand.

In Adam Frelin’s video, a golden boulder floats impossibly on water, enjoying its fictional freedom despite the constraints of its small pond. In another video, “Unknown Lesson,” (a collaboration with Michele Kong) a blind woman drives a car. In both cases, human and stone, limits set by the subject’s very nature are challenged and conquered, allowing us to experience the impossible.

This contagious spirit of ’dreams come true’ is a temporary reality in a participatory project by Immigrant Movement International, simultaneously an artwork and a social movement. Their “Immigrant Respect” pin becomes a flag, a gesture in solidarity – an ideal which we sense might still be possible.

Special Events: March 2 and March 9
Guest curator Natalia Mount organizes a series of elevator based performances and sound works, which highlight themes of contemporary cultural production of simulation and appropriation. Her projects also deal with issues of commodification, fetishism and shamanism.

Radiator Gallery: 10-61 Jackson Ave, LIC, New York 11106
Tel: 1.347.677.3418, email: info@radiatorarts.com, www.radiatorarts.com
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday 2-6 PM, Weekend 11-6 PM during Armory Week,
After Armory week Wednesday, Friday 3-6pm, Saturday11-6 PM

NYSYLC Dream Act Fundraiser at Immigrant Movement

IM International stands strong with the Dreamers!  We had a great time at the Dream Act Fundraiser last Friday.  We are pleased to announce that over $1K was raised and will go towards scholarships for undocumented students. Click here to join the YLC on March 6th for the Dream Act Albany Day of Action.  To get more information about the New York State Dream Act click here.

SIGN THE PETITION to pass the NY State Dream Act!

Immigrant Movement International in Mexico with PPM

El Partido del Pueblo Migrante (PPM) will be working in Mexico City from January 2012 to July 2012

Migrant People’s Party
A project by Tania Bruguera
Description:

The Migrant People’s Party (MPP) will intervene in the 2012 elections in Mexico with a platform focused on the political presence of citizens that have been expelled from their places of origin and from their rights.  Starting from the migration phenomenon, the party’s political axis is making steps toward eliminating borders, as dignity has no nationality.

The platform on which we work demands the creation of structures in civil society that:

·     Include migrants in equal conditions and access as complete citizens.
·     Eliminate differentiation amongst people based on their migratory status.
·     Recognize that, through migration, the global system generates traits of a trans-border modern slavery.
·     Create and promote living conditions that make migration a choice and not an imposition.
·     Identify the inadequate treatment of institutions towards the Central American migrants in Mexican territory like and similar to the one suffered by Mexican immigrants in the United States.
·     Demand receiving places to have a political space for both citizens and migrants.
·     Claim dignity in migrant treatment.
·     Require public space to be common property of all those who inhabit it.

The party highlights a contemporary Mexican phenomenon in the public sphere: Migration; a political axis that has been displaced from the history of electoral campaigns of the main political parties of the country, especially those in 2012. The borderline geographic condition between Mexico and the United States leads to a massive migration of Mexicans to the North, which adds to the reception and transit of groups coming mainly from Central America. This, therefore, generates a time-space in the Mexican territory related to displacement and associated to the violation of human rights of the Central American people, which further tears the country’s social tissue. Mexican authorities, then in many cases, reproduce the same unjust conditions with migrants and passers that arrive to Mexico as those that migrant Mexicans are subjected to when arriving to the United States. On the other hand, the migrant community that lives in Mexico constitutes a ghost population that lacks a space of political breakup in the country.

The party is assumed as a space from where all migrants can exercise a political presence through educational projects, of the active and conscious use of media communications, and through creative actions that are focused on issues that affect the different types of migrants. The MPP, presented by the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros (SAPS), will hold a series of conversational forums, open to the general public, centered on Mexico’s complex migratory issues. During the months leading up to elections, the MPP will link to other groups that work on migration topics, with artists and citizens in general. Media will be used by the MPP to communicate with the public sphere and the political sphere of the country. In April, the party will move to a physical space in the center of the city, which will be neutral, safe and accessible for those who decide to join the party.

Finally, the MPP will conduct a series of creative interventions in the public space during the months of May and June, keeping in mind that this is the time when parties have a marked public presence, to highlight both the absence of compromise and of a project with migration issues in the country’s electoral campaigns. In August and September, a publication will be done to commemorate the project, which will be launched at the end of 2012.

The MPP in Mexico City (in collaboration with SAPS) is a project that originates from Immigrant Movement International in Queens, New York, initiated by artist Tania Bruguera and sponsored by The Queens Museum of Art and Creative Time.  Its mission is to redefine the citizen-migrant situation and to put the concept of “useful art” to test, a notion that promotes the integration of art in the search of sustainable long term solutions, to urgent social and political issues.

Partido del Pueblo Migrante
Un proyecto de Tania Bruguera
Descripción:
.
El Partido del Pueblo Migrante (PPM) es un partido de ideas que irrumpirá en el proceso electoral del 2012 en México, con una plataforma orientada a la presencia política de los ciudadanos expulsados de sus lugares de origen y de sus derechos. A partir del fenómeno de la migración, el partido tiene como eje político dirigir sus pasos hacia la desaparición de las fronteras, donde la dignidad no tiene nacionalidad.
.
La plataforma sobre la cual trabajamos es demandar la creación de estructuras en la sociedad civil que:
·      Incluyan a los migrantes en igualdad de condiciones y acceso como ciudadanos plenos.
·      Eliminen la  diferenciación de las personas a partir de un estatus migratorio.
·      Reconozcan que el sistema global genera, a partir de la migración, rasgos de una esclavitud moderna trans-fronteriza.
·      Creen y fomenten las condiciones de vida que hagan de la migración una elección y no una imposición.
·      Identifiquen el inadecuado trato institucional al migrante centroamericano en territorio mexicano como, similar al sufrido  por  los mexicanos emigrados especialmente a Estados Unidos.
·      Reclamen a los lugares receptores un espacio político para los migrantes como ciudadanos.
·      Reivindiquen la dignidad en el tratamiento al migrante.
·      Exijan el espacio público como propiedad común de todos los que lo cohabitan.
.
El partido puntualiza en la esfera política uno de los fenómenos del México contemporáneo: la migración; un eje político desplazado del centro del debate de los principales partidos políticos del país en la historia de sus campañas electorales, y especialmente en la del 2012. La condición geográfica fronteriza entre México y los Estados Unidos conlleva a una migración masiva de mexicanos hacia el Norte, además de la recepción y tránsito de grupos provenientes principalmente de Centroamérica, que generan un tiempo-espacioen el territorio mexicano relativo al desplazamiento y asociado a la violación de los derechos humanos de los centroamericanos, lo cual desgarra  aún más el tejido social del país. De tal forma, las autoridades mexicanas, en muchos casos, reproducen con los migrantes y pasantes que llegan a México las mismas condiciones injustas a que son sometidos los inmigrantes mexicanos en los Estados Unidos. Por otro lado, la comunidad inmigrante que vive en México constituye una población fantasma que carece de un espacio  de ruptura política en el país.
.
El partido se asume como un espacio desde el cual todo migrante pueda ejercer una presencia política, a través de proyectos de educación, del uso activo y consciente de los medios de comunicación, y de la realización de acciones creativas enfocadas hacia las problemáticas que afectan a los distintos tipos de migrantes. El PPM presentado por la Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros (SAPS), realizará una serie de foros de conversación ciudadana, abiertos al público general, centrados en la compleja problemática de la migración en México.
.
Durante los meses anteriores a las elecciones, el PPM se vinculará con otros grupos que trabajan el tema de la migración, con artistas y ciudadanos en general. Los medios de comunicación serán utilizados por el PPM para comunicarse con la esfera pública y política del país. El partido se desplazará en el mes de abril hacia una sede física en el centro de la ciudad que será neutral, segura y más accesible para aquéllos que decidan sumarse al partido.
.
Finalmente, el PPM realizará una serie de intervenciones creativas en el espacio público durante los meses de mayo y junio teniendo en cuenta que es este el período en que los partidos tienen una presencia pública más marcada, y de esta forma señalar la ausencia de un compromiso y de un proyecto con el tema migratorio en las campañas electorales del país. A finales de junio y los primeros días de julio, en vísperas de las elecciones, se harán las últimas intervenciones públicas del proyecto. En agosto y septiembre se realizará una publicación como memoria del proyecto que se lanzará a finales del 2012.
El PPM en la ciudad de México (en colaboración con la SAPS)  es un proyecto que parte del Movimiento Inmigrante Internacional (Im International) radicado en la ciudad de Nueva York, fundado por la artista Tania Bruguera, presentado por el Museo de Arte de Queens y Creative Time, Nueva York. Su misión es redefinir la situación del ciudadano-inmigrante y poner a prueba el concepto de “arte útil,” noción que promueve la integración del arte en la búsqueda de soluciones, sostenibles a largo plazo, a las urgencias sociales y políticas.

 

 


Danza Azteca De Mexico Tenochtitlan Calpulli Tletl Papalotzin
 at Immigrant Movement International every Saturday from 4pm-7pm!

.

.

Happy 2012 from IM International

 

Dear Friends,

We have had a wonderful first year at Immigrant Movement International!  As you may know, IM International serves the community on a daily basis through a variety of services.  We have worked with numerous community organizations to provide workshops and classes to the community including N.I.C.E, the Queens Museum of Art, NYCOSH, Make the Road, the Corona Youth Orchestra  and Centro Comunitario, Occupy Wall Street among others.

The first Sunday of every month we had Make a Movement, a day that we dedicate to carrying out actions related to cultural enrichment and immigration.   Some of the past actions include the Immigrant Respect Letter Writing Campaign to our elected officials in Washington, trips to Detention centers to visit immigrants, a town hall on the Dream Act with the New York State Youth Leadership Council and a Slogan Writing Workshop.

In addition to our monthly actions, IM International put on several major events this year.  In the spring we hosted a  Conversation on Useful Art featuring panel discussions with artists and group discussion with the community.  In November we held Re-Conceptualizing the 21st Century (Im)Migrant, a convening that brought together politicians, community organizers, academics and immigrants from our community to discuss issues relating to immigration.  The convening culminated with the development of our Migrant Manifesto.  The first reading of the manifesto took place at the United Nations Annual Student Conference on Human Rights.

Following the convening in November, we put out an open call to artists around the world to respond to the Migrant Manifesto by taking action on December 18th, the International Day of the Migrant.We had an overwhelming response with over 200 artists participating worldwide that included all continents. The actions highlighted the fact that human migration is an increasingly central phenomenon of contemporary global existence, asserting and promoting the fundamental human rights and dignity of migrants and their families.

We culminated our year by joining the working group on immigration from Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and marching with various organizations on the first public immigration stand form OWS.

We would like to thank our three amazing interns, Ahram Jeong, Anjali Cadambi and Anya Pantuyeva for their exceptional work with us this year.  We wish them luck in all of their future endeavors!

We are excited to announce that we will be staying in our headquarters in Corona Queens for 2012 and will be presented by the Queens Museum of Art.  We will keep fighting for immigrant respect and continue the conversation on political and useful art through our work with the community and our public actions.  If you would like to support Immigrant Movements’ initiatives in the year to come, please click here to make a tax-deductible gift.

Thank you for all of your support, we wish you the best in the New Year!

Warm Regards,

The IM International Team

Alejandra Salcedo,  Alexandra Hodkowski, Camilo Godoy, Elisabeth Ingwersen Ganung, Jill Seymour and Tania Bruguera