AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

from Franklin Furnace

Tongue Tide Exhibition Dates: July 3-August 2

Major Exhibition Open Call : Tongue Tide

Inspired by the location in Queens, NY, Tongue Tide invites creative practitioners, artists, performers, researchers, and educators to submit proposals for new artworks, workshops, and performances with the subject matter of language. Artists will receive stipends to participate.

Tongue Tide is one of Flux’s major 2017 exhibitions and is curated by Emireth Herrera and Christina Freeman.

According to the 2015 census, half of all New Yorkers speak a language other than English at home and over 200 languages are spoken across New York City. Including speakers of endangered languages, the number is closer to 700. As the most diversely language dense area on the planet, the borough of Queens is positioned as a unique microcosm of the greater world – and within it Flux Factory an ever-changing reflection of this multilingualism. This exhibition will explore the plethora of living languages in the borough of Queens, NY and their potential as a springboard for connections across the globe.

We are interested in the dual nature of language as simultaneously expressive and limiting. The title Tongue Tide references the phrase, “Mother Tongue,” meaning one’s native language, as well as the colloquialism “Tongue Tied”, or speechless, expressing the limits of that language. Replacing “Tied” with the word “Tide”, references the ocean tide, and the organic, fluid aspect of language.

Artists are invited to propose new works around the theme of language and translation including, hybrid, vernacular, and invented languages, American Sign Language, gesture, body language, subtitling, language censorship, coding, word play, and slang lexicons such as “urbandictionary.com”.

Works can take the form of musical performance, stand-up comedy, sound installation, food art, dinner party, dance party, karaoke, human megaphone, sidewalk chalking, mail art, chain letter/pyramid scheme, mixtapes, site specific signage, bike messenger art, flyering, coupons, text-messages, Apps, virtual reality technology (oculus rift, Google cardboard), web art, language classes, workshops, walking tours, scavenger hunts, interspecies communication, t-shirts/merchandise, poetry readings, dictionaries, zines, film screenings, theatrical performances, opera, endangered language archiving, artists’ books, as well as 2D/3D/4D works. Artists will be informed of acceptance status by April 30.