STREET WORKS EARTH
September 22, 2024 , 11AM - 5PM
(All photos we use are licensed by artists associated with MJN's The Arisen and reflect their creative works. Feel free to reach out if you want to know the stories behind them.)
Open Discussion: Green Building Focus (and Support!) Group
Hosts: Queens Climate Project, Make Justice Normal/Street Works Earth (more coming soon!)
Calling Queens neighbors! We're ready to do our parts to implement Local Law 97, meant to put New York buildings on a path to lower greenhouse gas emissions. But greening a home or building is not easy. Stop by for an open, informal discussion on challenges in greening New York buildings — small and large. We’ll also discuss the challenges for co-ops, resident-owned buildings in which the path to go green comes with unique challenges.
MJN Resources
Open Discussion: Dealing with Extreme Heat
Stop by for an open, informal discussion on dealing with extreme heat, including an introduction by Queens Climate Project and Nitin Mukul. We'll have a simple circle of chairs and welcome you to take a seat, share your thoughts, and/or listen in.
Landscaping our Climate Future
What does a joyful future, free of climate change, look like to you? Join Frontline Resource Institute in a visioning of our collective future inviting participants to make artwork — with watercolor, pencil, pastel, and more — reflecting on this question. Over the day, we’ll combine everyone's artwork into a single image, like an unfolding puzzle.
Reimagining the Brooklyn Queens Expressway
Join El Puente and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway Environmental Justice Coalition (BQE-EJC) in an art-marking and storytelling journey to imagine how the public spaces that are disrupted by highways today can be transformed into futures in which we prioritize community health & environmental wellness.
Mushroom Power! By Remember Y(our) Connection
Join Remember Y(our) Connection in a creative exercise inspired by the power of mushrooms to clean our environment. Mushrooms will blossom on a log over the day as participants envision more beauty & compassion in our world. (Image: Connecting to our environment through mobile-making w/ found objects, Remember Y(our) Connection Chill 'n' Grill, Flushing Meadows, 10/23. Photo: Molly Hein.)
Colorful World, by Jing (Ellen) Xu
Small actions can make a big difference in the future of our planet and oceans. Join Jing (Ellen) Xu for an interactive art installation of colorful foam and cardboard rocks reflecting on how small actions can tip the balance. You’ll have about 2 minutes to balance seven foam rocks of different colors. (Spoiler: it's not easy!)
Community Superheroes for Just Climate Futures! By Kaimera
Passersby joined Kaimera for an interactive journey into imagining and shaping our own climate futures, creating climate superheroes, sharing stories, and participating in community creations that blend art, movement, dance, and imagination. (Photo by Brentton Wilson.)
Flood Sensor Aunty, by Sabina Sethi Unni
Join Sabina Sethi Unni for a play starring an anthropomorphic flood sensor who wants to be a movie star, designed for brown aunties and communities. Halfway between public theater and culturally competent emergency management, audience members will leave nourished: bellies full of chai and pakoras, good vibes, and emergency planning materials.
Wasted Potential, by The Veggie Nuggets
What are the impacts of food waste on the environment? And what can we do about it? Help the Veggie Nuggets create a painting made of block brints and vegetable dyes that represent the food we waste. The canvas, which rotates throughout the day, will slowly change colors. While you're there, learn from about the benefits of turning food scraps into “black gold.”
Próxima Tierra, by Kaleidospace
Join Kaleidospace for coloring, workshops, and dance performances. For the first half of the day, participants will color in a replica of Kaleidospace member Mark Saldana’s mural in Travers Park, nearby, co-created with NICE. Stick around near the end of the day for a final performance in Travers Park.
Community Climate, by All Street Collective
How do local communities respond to climate change? Participate in building an archive of Queens climate actions facilitated All Street Collective. There will be workshops and interviews throughout the day on zine-making and more. By the end, we’ll have recorded our community's history in their own words.
Heat Maps: Jackson Heights, by Nitin Mukul
Collaborate with Nitin in creating an improvisational artwork made by layering paint in sheets of ice, freezing each layer so it accumulates color and texture, and then watching it melt according to natural weather conditions while it’s filmed. As you're making a new one, you can watch an existing one melt in the open Jackson Heights air.
Hip Hop 50 Boombox, by Bayeté Ross Smith
Participants contributed their favorite songs on freedom and liberation alongside perspectives on climate change to Bayeté Ross Smith’s mix tapes on the climate change crisis, part of a sculpture made of sugarcane and cotton boombox replicas. Their songs and voices were mingled with pre-recorded perspectives from Street Work participants. (Photo by Cindy Trinh.)
Green Card by Purvi Shah & Troy Woodley
Green plays hide & seek in a tapestry of grey asphalt and brown buildings in Jackson Heights. A lack of trees means a dearth of places birds can call home. Participants joined Purvi & Troy in explorations of how green space helps increase clean air, limits the heat index, and gives space for our feathered friends (and people!) to nest & soar. (Photo by Cindy Trinh.)
Societal Composting, by Mazorca Colectiva
"Prepare for an impending collapse!" is how the government and the media express the failure of our society to support our lives. Colonial-capitalist systems continue to profit from disaster, without contributing solutions. Join Mazorca Colectiva in healing circles reflecting on collapse. Participants will create poetical work, which will be composted into something beautiful. In a space of rest, they’ll imagine the seeds to plant for the future that will emerge.
The Art of Letter Writing to Get Out the Vote, by MJN collective
Did you know that writing a letter to someone on why you vote can actually increase the odds that they will? Hang out with MJN to write nonpartisan letters encouraging young voters across the country to participate in our democracy in the upcoming Federal election. (Photo by Cindy Trinh.)
Places of Pollution, Places of Resilience
Participate in an environmental mapping activity to pinpoint sources of pollution and, separately, sources of resilience on a map of Queens. We’ll also be coloring maps of Queens all day, talking about all our favorite places, and learn about the role that environmental pollution plays in maternal and child health.
Rising. Curtains. By Ernest Verrett & Anjali Deshmukh
Join MJN members, Ernest and Anjali, in the locally loved craft of community beading. As local stewards of this wearable art, we're excited to reflect with participants on the story of climate change, by co-creating a glittering bead curtain mapping global temperatures. (Photo by Cindy Trinh.)
Gadgets!, by Solar One’s Youth Advisory Committee
Collaborate with Solar One’s Youth Advisory Council (YAC) to explore how your unique skill sets and experiences can help you make meaningful changes in the climate space. You'll also have the opportunity to generate actual, physical energy by playing with solar panels and circuits!