Rockaway Beach is a unique urban coastline that is home to 120,000 residents, host to myriad wildlife species, and a popular destination for millions of visitors who enjoy activities like surfing, swimming, and sunbathing. How do visitors and residents create communities that consider this complex ecology? How can leisure in shared spaces catalyze meaningful connections?
This summer, the multi-generational Queens-based artist collective Mobile Print Power (MPP) and Public Art Fund will explore how residents and visitors alike experience Rockaway Beach. Through a series of hands-on open workshops, MPP will use their participatory design methodology and portable silkscreen printmaking carts to connect with communities along the beach and boardwalk. With their collaborative process, MPP will co-create new graphic works based on participants’ sense of place.
On July 14 and 28, MPP will invite participants to learn screenprinting and unpack their thoughts and ideas through drawings and words. MPP will then integrate responses into original screenprint designs for the final workshop on August 25, where attendees will print collaboratively created designs from the initial two workshops.
This program is curated by Gabriela López Dena, Associate Curator of Public Practice.
No registration is needed. Audiences of all ages are encouraged to drop in! To receive reminders and calendar invitations,
click here.
Accessibility: Email [email protected] with questions and requests for accessibility. Please send any needs for services or accommodations to support your participation in this program by August 20.
About the Artists
Mobile Print Power is a multigenerational collective from different corners of New York City and the world. They started as a weekly printmaking and political education workshop at Immigrant Movement International in Corona, Queens (IMI Corona), in March 2013. Over time, and as regular participants in the workshop emerged as co-facilitators and co-organizers, they began referring to themselves as a collective. For over ten years, Mobile Print Power has been using its methodology for participatory design in public spaces along with its portable silkscreen printmaking carts to engage communities and explore social and cultural issues. To transmit the work that they co-create with the community, they make books, prints, and public sculptures. Each project that they do reflects a commitment to social justice and their belief in the value of shared artistic production.