Politics as Performance, an Evolving Art

imlogoh_web_4001-e1340551674757Cuban-born artist Tania Bruguera has created the equivalent of a full-time performance piece called the Immigrant Movement International in Corona, Queens. Conceived as a gesture of solidarity with people living illegally in countries not their own, staff and volunteers, many of them artists, offer a program of practical assistance and consciousness-raising activities to neighborhood residents, many of whom are new arrivals from Ecuador and Mexico.

Services include legal advice, computer instruction, and reading lessons. There are also health classes that incorporate meditation and tai chi, linking an isolated Latin American population to the borough’s Asian cultures; and theater workshops that function as safe places to work out stress, reimagine reality and rehearse political interventions.

One goal of the Immigrant Movement International is to bring the cause of civil rights for immigrants into the public sphere. At the center of this, is an attempt to merge life and art

For more information and complete article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/arts/design/immigrant-movement-international-in-queens.html?_r=2&ref=arts

 

By William Repicci

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