News

The Queens Museum of Art presents

Suitcases on Tour: Chanika Svetvilas & the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)

a program of Fatal Love ’06

Saturday, August 19, 2006

3:15 p.m.

Within the performance/installation Suitcases on Tour, red, orange, and yellow plexiglass suitcases, echoing the high security alert levels that have become a part of daily life in New York,will be carried into the Queens Museum from the park by Leadership Through the Arts Youth Program, teen docents and volunteer travelers, followed by a presentation by Mabel Tso, Community Organizer, AALDEF, and documentation of the journey. The suitcases echo paranoia and suspicion associated with unattended luggage during a time of heightened security. The images cut onto the surfaces of the suitcases reflect the recent proposed U.S. legislation to increase monitoring of immigrants, but also the impact on families and the relativity of borders and national identity. Challenging the notion of border control, a mobile immigration booth, co-designed by Miguel Baltiera, located right outside the museum and manned by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, will provide resources and answers to questions by the public.

Queens Museum of Art presents Fatal Love ’06

For the 6th year, the Queens Museum of Art will host Fatal Love, an event based around the principles of independence, tolerance and freedom of South Asian nations. Designed to raise discussion and examine current global struggles for resistance, Fatal Love 06 will include political and radical readings, discussions and performances by Kiran Desai, Chanika Svetvilas and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Naeem Mohaeimen, Emergency Broadcast Artists and the release of Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith and Sexuality. Editor of the anthology Sara Husain will be accompanied by contributors Sham e ali al Jamil, Chaumtoli Huq and Zohra Saed.

Schedule of Events:

3:15 – Suitcases on Tour: Chanika Svetvilas and AALDEF

3:30 – The Young Man Was No Longer: Video & Text, Naeem Mohaiemen. Originally presented at Dictionary of War, Munich

3:45 – Voices of Resistance: Sarah Husain, Chaumtoli Huq, Sham e Ali Al Jameel, Zohra Saed – Readings and Discussion

4:45 Kiran Desai reading from her latest book, The Inheritance of Loss

5:00 Emergency Broadcast Artists 5:30 – Reception

For additional information, visit www.queensmuseum.org or call 718.592.9700. Queens Museum of Art, New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens NY 11368

Subway Directions: Take 7 Flushing IRT. Exit Willets Point/Shea Stadium and follow the yellow signs on a ten-minute walk through the park to the museum.