Immigrant Movement International

Founded by artist Tania Bruguera

Artist initiates social movement through long‐term project in Corona, Queens

The Queens Museum of Art and Creative Time present Tania Bruguera‘s Immigrant Movement International, a long-term art project in the form of an artist-initiated socio-political movement. The project will take place in Corona, Queens over the course of a year. Bruguera plans to then take her headquarters to various locations around the world.

About the Project

Concept

Immigrant Movement International (IM International) is a five-year project initiated by artist Tania Bruguera. Its mission is to help define the immigrant as a unique, new global citizen in a post-national world and to test the concept of arte útil or “useful art”, in which artists actively implement the merger of art into society’s urgent social, political and scientific issues.

During 2011, IM International is located in Queens, NY—a borough where 167 languages are spoken and where 46 percent of the population is foreign born. From its office on Roosevelt Avenue in Corona (a neighborhood dominated by Ecuadorian, Dominican, Mexican, Chinese, South Asian, Korean immigrants), IM International provides space for member and outreach activities by local social service and cultural organizations, engages elected officials, and hosts monthly “Make a Movement” Sundays in which artists, activists, and community members come together to celebrate and build a new, cross-national immigrant community.

As it moves to different locations around the world, IM International will draw on the lessons learned in the multinational and transnational neighborhood of Corona and its vibrant and pioneering organizations run by immigrants for immigrants.

Year one of Immigrant Movement International is supported by The Queens Museum of Art, located in Queens’ historic Flushing Meadows Corona Park, and CreativeTime, a public art organization that sponsors art and artists all over New York City.

Facts

Initiated by

Tania Bruguera is one of the leading political and performance artists of her generation. Bruguera’s work researches ways in which Art can be applied to the everyday political life; creating a public forum to debate ideas shown in their state of contradictions and focusing on the transformation of the condition of “viewer” onto one of “citizenry.” Bruguera uses the terms ARTE DE CONDUCTA (conduct/ behavior art) and ARTE UTIL (useful art) to define her practice.

Bruguera has participated in Documenta, Performa, Venice, Gwangju and Havana Biennales and at exhibitions at mayor museums in Europe and United States including the Tate Modern, The WhitechapelGallery, PS1, ZKM, IVAM, Kunsthalle Wien, and The New Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work is part of the collection of the Tate Modern; Museum für Moderne Kunst; Daros Foundation; Museo del Barrio; Bronx Museum; IVAM; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam.

A graduate of the MFA programs at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (United States) and Instituto Superior de Arte (Cuba), Bruguera is also the Founder / Director of Arte de Conducta; the first politic art studies program in the world, hosted by Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. She is visiting faculty at Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, IUAV in Venice and Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.

Support for this project is provided by the Rockefeller Foundation Cultural Innovation Fund.

Click here for pdf of press release

Click here to visit the Immigrant Movement International website

Click here to visit Tania Bruguera’s website