The newly opened art gallery – Space 37 – in Jackson Heights welcomed residents and visitors to its inaugural exhibition in late June.
“Jackson Heights is an image of the diversity of the city and it has always lacked the arts center it needed to establish itself as an artist community the way Long Island City and other Queens communities have already done,” said Hector Canonga, director of the Queens Media Arts Development, the non-profit organization that operates the gallery.
The space on 37th Avenue and 86th Street was donated by Exit Realty with the assistance of Councilmember Daniel Dromm and Queens Pride Committee supported the project
Overcoming the boundaries set by language differences was the unifying theme of the “Babel” exhibition opened for viewing from June 16 to July 1. The featured artists are from as near as Jackson Heights, Sunnyside or Woodside to as far as Washington State and Texas, and were born in Europe, Asia and South America.
The exhibition was unified by the theme of language. An open contest for submissions was announced and 135 submissions were accepted, out of which 31 were selected for display. The works aimed to convey a message through different mediums: text on a black board, cartoons, text on metal, short movies, note cards and even clothing labels put together in a poem.
The exhibition featured not only a showing of the works, but also demonstrations from the artists themselves. Some works were created live on the spot and musicians performed live for the many locals who stopped by to see the new art space.
The exhibition closed on Thursday, July 1 with a panel discussion with some of the artists, musical performances and a question and answer session with the audience.
Canonga’s vision of the future is “to create a well-established arts center, a space for exhibitions, for educational programs in the arts, a multicultural artistic center, not a community center.”
