“Welcome” is a two-part participatory project with students from Flushing International High School in Queens, New York that utilizes immigrant narratives to activate conversations and new imaginaries regarding subjectivity making, rights to the city, and the notion of a cosmopolitical ethics of hospitality. This work will focus specifically on the experiences of migration from the youth perspective. A primary component of this project will be the design and production of a multichannel, site-specific public video installation that is experiential and participatory, and that explores the complex relationships between immigrant subjectivity formation, the personal process of making home, and the public process of making place in the global city. Workshops with students will also inform the second element of this project, which will be in the form of conversations as public intervention. Operating under the name Hospitality Services, this element will entail the design of a series of conversation-based situations with residents of Queens and other areas of New York City. In the form of a mobile hospitality kiosk hosted by immigrant youth, this initiative will stage public acts of hospitality and invite encounter and dialogue around the meanings of hospitality and inclusion in the context of immigration. Hospitality Services will also be included as part of the video installation, creating a dynamic and participatory space for viewers to join in on the conversation.

 
As part of the December 18th Artist Action for International Migrants Day, I will invite immigrant artists and students from Flushing International High School to participate in a public reading of a newly drafted bill of rights for the migrant, issued by Immigrant Movement International. As an international and multi-lingual collective, we will travel along the 7 subway line from Flushing/Main Street in Queens across the border into Manhattan, reading the document aloud in Spanish, Korean, Tagalog, and English. Along the way, the public will be invited to participate as readers and engage with us through conversation and the making of convivial public spaces.

OPEN INVITATION FOR ACTIONS

• We are inviting artists, curators, activists, organizers, and everyone who wants to be involved to propose and create an artwork, art project, or action of any scale or format in relation to immigrant issues and migrant rights.
• Participants can simply join us by reading the Manifesto of Immigrant Rights that we stand by – publicly or in the solitude of their studios – and documenting it.
• They may also organize and carry out an action in their area that fits within the local context of immigrant issues.
• The participants should affirm their engagement in the project by registering their name and location on the map now, while also describing their future action or sharing the proposal.
• They will then conduct these projects or present their works at 2PM of their local time, document the action, and upload their reports on the global map right after the action.
• On December 18, this will unfold as a rolling international action for 24 hours.

The December 18th Call for Actions is supported by the United Nations. Read their official letter of support here.

For questions email united@immigrant-movement.us.
To follow the actions go to www.immigrant-movement.us/december18