My New Land – Cultural Fluidity is a crucial project that encapsulates the multifaceted experiences of diasporic identity shaped by immigration.Supported by the 2023 NYSCA individual art project grant, this installation employs innovative techniques like 3D portrait projection and digital printmaking to create a dynamic public art experience. Large-scale portraits projected onto shoreline monuments amplify immigrant voices and celebrate their contributions to community building.
The project delves into immigrant experiences, emphasizing community empowerment and partnership. It invites reflection on identities, exploring issues of belonging and adaptation. Through a community voting process, members nominate unsung heroes who uplift and support other immigrants. This democratic approach not only recognizes community leaders but also empowers individuals lacking traditional political participation avenues.
By projecting portraits onto public monuments, the project bridges the gap between past and present, highlighting the relationship between local history and a diverse immigrant population. Each portrait features poetic and colorful textures inspired by individual identities, creating a collective narrative celebrating diversity and resilience. The impact of "My New Land" extends beyond its artistic merit, touching lives like Erica's, a first-generation college student who worked as a translator for a Spanish-speaking community voting campaign, and providing a platform for self-expression and community building for the Asian immigrant community. By collaborating with scientists at Stony Brook University, the project fuses art and technology to explore 3D geometric capture and artistic visualization, challenging viewers to rethink immigration and belonging while fostering dialogue and understanding. More than an art installation, "My New Land" is a catalyst for social change and community empowerment.
My new land video clip, copyright @Han Qin韩沁 studio
My new land video clip, copyright@Han Qin韩沁 studio
MyNewLand-HanQin-face
MyNewLand-HanQin-face
Public Screening x Poetry Reading | Nov 2023
Patchogue Lighthouse
Han Qin, My New Land–Cultural Fluidity, 2023, Mockup installation mapping at Patchogue Lighthouse, Patchogue NY. ©Han Qin Studio
Patchogue Arts Council • Museum of Contemporary Art L.I. is honored to announce the award and fiscal sponsorship of NYSCA funding for four artists from across Long Island for 2023!
NYSCA 2023 Support for Artists
Artists:
Han Qin in the category of Film, Media, and New Technology
Andrea Cote in the category of Visual Arts | Installation
Anu Annam in the category of Interdisciplinary
Benny Migliorino in the category Folk and Traditional Arts
Andrea Cote in the category of Visual Arts | Installation
Anu Annam in the category of Interdisciplinary
Benny Migliorino in the category Folk and Traditional Arts
Location
Patchogue Lighthouse, Public screening + poem reading
116 Brightwood St, Patchogue, NY 11772
TUNE IN TO FM 90.1 RADIO STATION to listen to MY NEW LAND and Poetry Reading
Dates
Nov 11th, 2023
Time
4:45-6:00 pm
Credits:
Han Qin, Artist • Margaret Schedel, Composer
Production Team:
Jiayi Zhao, 3D Animator
Zhou Zhao, 3D Specialist
Tabitha Voisich, Public Relations
Floral Yu, Social Media & Video
Erika Vallance, Studio Management, Voting Event & Graphic Design
About | Poetry Reading
Featuring Poems by (alphabetical order):
Aiguo Ying, Lost on Highway 13
Jian Wang, Stranger
Ke Qiang Ruan, Living on Long Island, New York,
Keming Liu, Who Am I
Liang Jing, Bedtime; London; 2019
Preeti Shah, My Name
Shakira Croce, Family History
Wang Jiaxin, For Nikola Madzirov
Xinyue Huang, Commute in a Strange Body in New York
Featuring Unsung Heroes:
Yanping Yu • Xin Jin • Lucie Kwon • Clara Cortes • Frank Sprouse-Guzman
Programing:
Date:11/11/2023
Address: Patchogue Lighthouse. 116 Brightwood St, Patchogue, NY 11772
4:45-5:10 ON-SITE arrival
5:10-5:20 Tune in FM 90.1 WUSB and introduction of My New Land by Beth Giacummo and Han Qin
5:20-5:30 ON-SITE My New Land （10 mins）
5:30-5:50 ON-SITE Poetry reading with 9 poets（20 mins）
5:50-6:00 ON-SITE My New Land plays again （10 mins）
Public Screening | Sep 2023
The Heckscher Museum of Art
Han Qin, My New Land–Cultural Fluidity, 2023, Mockup installation mapping at Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY. ©Han QinStudio
Location
Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY | Outside in the front of the museum building
Dates
October 7- 8th, 2023
Time
7:00-8:00 pm
Detail of the event | Illuminations 2023:
My New Land will be part of Illuminations 2023, will be projected onto The Heckscher Museum of Art’s façade during two evenings of the annual Long Island Fall Festival at Heckscher Park, outside of the museum's building.
Illuminations 2023: A dynamic multimedia display of art, light, and sound, sure to delight and engage all audiences. This socially-engaged and collaborative visual art installation has been specifically created for the Museum by a team of international digital artists working with Executive Director Heather Arnet, and visual artist Han Qin, an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, in collaboration with composer Margaret Schedel & independent curator Chiarina Chen.
About
Han Qin collaborated with the community of Long Island to portray the layers of diasporic identity shaped by the immigration experience. This outdoor, public art projection highlights immigrants using large-scale portraits, digitally projected onto monuments. Collaborated with musician Margaret Schedel who created the soundtrack based on the interview of community leaders.
Celebrates Immigrant heroes by voting through digital art
Featuring Unsung Heroes (from left to right):
Yanping Yu • Lucie Kwon • Frank Sprouse-Guzman• Clara Cortes • Xin Jin
Yanping Yu • Lucie Kwon • Frank Sprouse-Guzman• Clara Cortes • Xin Jin
Exhibition Artworks
About | My New Land-Cultural Fluidity
"My New Land" identifies and highlights unsung immigrant heroes in the community by allowing members of the community to vote for the individuals they would like to see honored in art. This project provides an alternative opportunity for community empowerment and partnership, especially for people who do not have the legal right to vote.
Invisibility and lack of voice are the primary challenges facing immigrant communities. Many communities and marginalized groups depend on a few leaders within the group to create a safe “time capsule” to maintain a shared culture and social connection. The project transforms the facade of local architecture into storyboards while appreciating unsung heroes who are building the community. My project’s purpose goes beyond honoring these unsung immigrant heroes. My New Land’s purpose is also to adapt and establish these community leaders’ new identities in their new land via the social-engaged art methodology. The projected portraits in My New Land are created with poetic colors and textures inspired by the unsung heroes’ unique identities. They evoke an ongoing history of immigration involving converging paths of unique ethnic identities. By creating a dialogue between this ongoing history of immigration with the local history of Long Island, my project becomes a socially engaged community art project. As a socially engaged community art project, My New Land intends to create a path of inner discovery, mental health, and confidence rebuilding for the broader immigrant and Long Island communities.
The music Margaret composed goes along with the timeline that both artists developed together, thinking of structure, movement, and emotion. It is electro-acoustic-ambient saturated with starlight.
The piece consists of a resonated sample of The Open Goldberg Variations a project by pianist Kimiko Ishizaka, and MuseScore.com, to create a public domain recording and score of JS Bach's theme and variations. Margaret mixed in samples of water since many of the people interviewed mentioned having a connection to water. There are some samples of singing bowls and an organ sample. She also used recordings from the community leaders' interviews. Mason Youngblood studies the evolution of the songs of House Finches, a bird that immigrated to Long Island in the 1960s from California so Margret added those in as well.
ARTIST BIO | Han Qin
Pronouns | she, her, hers
Han’s inspiration comes from her own life and also draws from travelers and wanderers she encountered. Through migrants’ stories and travel impressions, she seeks to visualize the movement and connection between who we are and where we go. While primarily focusing on digital art, Han’s work also extends to printmaking, video, installation, and performance art. Han is a winner of the NYSCA Artist Award 2023 (New York State Council of Arts). Currently, She lives and works in New York as an artist and adjunct professor at Stony Brook University's art department.
MUSICIAN BIO | Margaret Schedel
Pronouns | she, her, hers
With an interdisciplinary career blending classical training in cello and composition, sound/audio data research, and innovative computational arts education, Stony Brook professor Margaret Anne Schedel transcends the boundaries of disparate fields to produce integrated work at the nexus of computation and the arts. She has a diverse creative output with works spanning interactive multimedia operas, virtual reality experiences, sound art, video game scores, and compositions for a wide variety of classical instruments with interactive audio and video processing.
EXHIBITION SUPPORTERS:
My New Land is made possible with lead support from New York Council on the Arts, The Heckscher Museum of Art, Patchogue Arts Council and Stony Brook University 3D Scanning Lab. Additional support provided by Huntington Township, Make the Road New York, Museum of Contemporary Art Long Island.
This exhibition is made possible in part by the NYSCA artist award 2023.
