#Newsflash | MoMA PS1 Hosts a Mural-Unveiling Party on July 23
BY QEDC It's In Queens
This party is going to be off the wall!
MoMA PS1 will host a community unveiling of the After the Fire mural on Saturday, July 23, starting at 2 pm.
To adorn the PS1 Courtyard, the artwork was created by Nanibah Chacon, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and Layqa Nuna Yawar in collaboration with members of the Shinnecock, Unkechaug, and Matinecock nations and the local nonprofits Transform America and Make the Road.
After the Fire imagines rebirth following rupture. The creative process began with workshops during which the creators discussed elements of society that they would eliminate in order to create a more just world. (Meals were provided by Chef Blu Cheez and Ediciones Projects, and participants were paid and encouraged to bring family members to the workshops.) They imagined new pathways rooted in communal safety, collective caretaking, and regeneration.
The event is free, but please RSVP.
The July 23 program will take place in the public plaza outside the museum’s main entrance at 22-25 Jackson Ave. in Long Island City. Local vendors will give away food and drinks courtesy of the Street Vendor Project. Attendees will be treated to an “abolitionist tea party” led by jackie sumell, who is currently exhibiting Growing Abolition (below) at MoMA PS1. A collaboration with interns from The Lower Eastside Girls Club, summell’s work is unfolding around a greenhouse in the PS1 Courtyard. Visitors are invited to circle up, taste, feel, and smell the plants, many of which are considered weeds.
Getting back to the mural’s creators, Chacon partly grew up on a Navajo reservation. She began with graffiti before developing strong painting, illustration, and design skills. Now she combines her talents to create murals and large scale public works.
Fazlalizadeh is a Black/Iranian painter from Oklahoma City. Her Stop Telling Women to Smile, a street are series addressing sexual harassment, can be found on walls across the globe. In 2019, she was the inaugural Public Artist in Residence for the New York City Commission on Human Rights.
Yawar, who was born in Ecuador, is a public artist and multidisciplinary storyteller. He’s best known for large scale community-based murals, intricate portrait paintings, and multimedia projects related to immigrant, Black, Indigenous, and subaltern populations.
Top two images: MoMA PS1; bottom two images: Rob MacKay