For Queens residents, it can be hard to agree on a single characteristic that defines New York City’s largest borough. For some, it is the 7 train, affectionately nicknamed “International Express” by locals, which runs from 34th Street–Hudson Yards in Manhattan all the way to Main Street in Flushing, bisecting neighborhoods like Sunnyside, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Corona on its way. For others, it is the plethora of historic cemeteries and burial grounds, the oldest of which was founded in 1668 and has markers dating as early as 1709, or its vibrant food culture representing regions from the Philippines to Ecuador.
All of these defining attributes and more are featured in the ongoing World’s Borough Exhibition at Flushing Town Hall (FTH), which opened last Thursday, November 7 and runs until the 25th. Featuring more than 70 New York City-based artists primarily from Queens, the show contains everything from personified felt dumplings and graphite rubbings of headstones to crochet renditions of the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Unisphere to a painted rodent remix of the Star Wars: Episode IV movie poster (complete with pizza slices). Curated by longtime Queens resident and FTH teaching artist Stephanie Lee, it is the culmination of the organization’s first open call in five years, which took place this summer.
“It’s all about fostering community, so we tried to do as broad a topic and theme as possible so we can connect with as many people as we could,” Dan Bamba, FTH’s director of Arts Services who also grew up in Queens and helped organize the show, told Hyperallergic. The main requirement, Bamba explained, was that each work had to have some sort of connection to the borough.
To this point, the works on display range from Queens Village artist Julia Shaw’s mixed-media collage tracing 50 years of her family lineage to Masstransiscope (1980), artist Bill Brand’s ink and watercolor rendering of a hosta in his Jackson Heights garden. In the center of one wall, the SouthEast Queens Artists Alliance has nine zines on display; founded in 2017, the collective of visual artists and writers runs a mobile museum and multilingual library of zines, artist books, and chapbooks that regularly travels by cart to various parks and outdoor events in the borough.
In one corner, an orange, gray, and red gremlin sculpture hangs off a painting of the back of the 7 subway. In another corner, a blue iris fashioned from clay and fiber weavings conjures up images of the borough’s lush 39-acre botanical gardens.
Lee also has work on display: a painting called “Modern Wish” (2015) inspired by the chaekgeori Korean still-life paintings that flourished during the Joseon dynasty. It features renditions of modern luxury objects including designer handbags, a set of golf clubs, and a tea cup.
Another teaching artist at FTH, Steve Palermo, who has lived in Flushing for at least six decades, is presenting a 2024 photograph of one of the white wooden doors in the town hall itself. Palermo told Hyperallergic that while he’s seen a lot of changes in his home neighborhood, “they’re all good,” so he can’t complain.
“I’ve always said, the diversity and the people here is my favorite part,” Palermo added.
