Spike Lee-Inspired Pop-Up Shows Queens Through Millennial Eyes

JAMAICA, QUEENS -- As talk of Queens' changing culture unfolds in conversations throughout the city, one local group wants to make sure the voices of its Millennials aren't forgotten.

The Voice Of Youth Changes Everything (VOYCE) wants to show the world what the future of Queens looks like through the eyes of its young people. To do that, the nonprofit will host a pop-up art exhibit on Saturday and Monday at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, featuring over a dozen pieces from local artists showing what the "culture" means to them.

The pop-up exhibit was appropriately named "Queens Gotta Have It" after Spike Lee's popular 1986 movie "She's Gotta Have It," which VOYCE Co-Founder Tunisia Morrison said inspired the idea.

"It surrounds the culture change of what Brooklyn was going through in the 80s and 90s, and how those characters maneuvered through that," she said of the movie.

Morrison, a Jamaica native, told Patch she's watched Queens go through a transition of its own, from "old-school to new-school" and wants to make sure the borough's younger generation is included in that conversation.

"It was time to do something that kind of portrayed how the young people feel about their neighborhoods changing and gives them a space to show what culture in Queens looks like to us versus what politicians and other officials say Queens is," she said.

The exhibit will feature up to 18 art pieces on Queens culture from young artists, almost all of whom are natives to the borough, Morrison said.

Artwork on display will include a painting of Spike Lee in his "Do The Right Thing" movie and portraits of other "black elite" icons like Oprah, Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson, Morrison said.

More politically charged pieces include a painting of the Statue of Liberty with her mouth being covered by the hands of "old-school white elite people," Morrison said. Another features bullets painted with anti-police brutality quotes like "Hands up, don't shoot" and "I can't breathe" inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement.

The pop-up gallery was supposed to open Friday, but snowstorms delays pushed its debut to Saturday, with the opening now planned for 10 a.m. and a launch celebration from 5 to 9 p.m. It will reopen again for one more viewing on Monday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Morrison said this is VOYCE's first gallery at the Jamaica Arts and Learning Center since 2015, but she hopes it won't be their last.

"As much as downtown Jamaica is changing, there are not a lot of places for young entrepreneurs to use or rent to create amazing things," she said. "Space is one of the issues we're constantly having here."

Lead image courtesy of VOYCE.