Migration Across Frontlines and Borderlines

A Series of Poetry, Paper-Making, and Printmaking Workshops for Veterans, Latin/x Poets, and Dreamers

Frontline Arts paper and printmaking workshops are a unique practice that supports wellbeing and strengthened social support amongst communities that share complex narratives of trauma, loss, grief and identity such migrants. The emotional and practical difficulties that come with the psychological distress, negatively impact one’s ability to adapt, to trust and to connect.

We recognize the diversity of migrant communities and we've come to identify a language that creates unity: Dreams and nightmares, usually kept in silence and undocumented, are a symbolic representation of the commong fears, longings and desires which we invite participants to translate into a paper made out of traced objects such as bedsheets, pillow cases, pijamas.

Across workshops, participants have reported that for the first time, they feel safe sharing their dreamed experiences with a group. Dreams and their associated images have an important place in one's life and one's community and your help has helped us claim that space.

Most Recent Project:

Crafting Dreams and Migration

Alt: Graphic with [title] and text “a crowdfunding campaign to support art workshops for the NY Naval Cadet Corps in Corona, Queens”. To the right of text is handmade paper with flowers and paper snippets.

Camilla's Bio

Alt: Graphic with half photo half text. To the right is a photo of Camilla on blue background on larger crumpled photo background, to the right is blue text on yellow background that reads, “ My name is Camila Figueroa-Restrepo, a Colombian graduate Master of Arts in Psychology, currently residing in NYC. In 2020, as part of the. Trauma & Global Mental Health lab at The New School and together with The New York Navy Cadet Corps (a local nonprofit in Corona Queens), we interviewed families of Ecuadorian heritage including grandparents, parents and grandchildren in order to understand how narratives of migration get passed down through generations.”

Testimonial #1

Alt: Graphic split into two: one half is crumpled white paper background and other half is blue flat. Text reads, “I quickly realized during the interviews there were many parts of the migrant story that were not shared between family members, especially with younger generations born in the US. What was most compelling, is that the silence surrounding the memories of the migration experience are a potential danger to the transmission and heritage of their culture to younger generations that for the most part, reported being eager to listen.” Quoted text reads, “Emm I don't know anything about their stories, but if they told me, I believe it would help me be less stressed because I think they had to fight to be here. So I, I think that like stress and like problems that are happening in my life is like less worse than that.” Luis, 11 y.0.*

*Personal information has been changed for confidentiality purposes

Papermaking

Alt: Graphic split in half with crumpled white paper background on left and yellow flat on right. Blue text on white background reads, “In 2018, The NGO Frontline Arts, in partnership with the Bronx Museum, developed workshops with migrant communities to make paper and prints from cultural objects, plants native to the Bronx and Mexico, and clothes from Mexican street vendors. Participants were invited to share their experience of migration through making deeply personal crafts. Participants reported that for the first time, they felt safe telling their stories and expressing their feelings of what it meant to be an immigrant in the US.”. To the right is a picture of two people pulling a large sheet of handmade paper together and the Frontline Arts logo is on top and caption underneath reads, “2018 Frontline Arts paper and print workshop in partnership with the Bronx Museum”

New York Navel Cadet Corps

Alt: Graphic split in half horizontally, with image on top and blue flat on bottom. Top image is a large group shot of people outdoors, posed together. They are all wearing masks. On the bottom right corner is the New York Navel Cadet Corps logo. On bottom, white text reads, “This is why we want to replicate a 5-day paper and print workshop series with The New York Navy Cadet Corps community currently rising in Corona, Queens. The parents, many of them undocumented and currently unemployed because of Covid-19, will be invited to share and document their dreams using paper, papermaking and printmaking as the medium. The workshops will take place at the Flushing Meadows park which is the only space they were able to meet and wait for their children whilst being trained when COVID-19 was disproportionately hitting the neighborhood.”

The Process

Alt: Graphic with crumpled white paper background. There is blue text to the left and pictures to the right. Top picture is someone putting fibers into the portable paper beater. Bottom photo is of people pulling sheets of paper and stenciling. Photo captions: 2018 Frontline Arts paper and print workshop in partnership with the Bronx Museum. Blue text to the left reads, “We will macerate objects related to their dreams into fibers (e.g. clothes, bed sheets, pillow cases, or other cotton/natural fiber-based objects) in order to create paper. Participants will be encouraged to share their dreams, a common language that is rarely shared but always present in one's life, in order to explore the common themes in their stories that connect rather than separate them. Once the paper is ready, we will modify it with drawings, writings, prints, etc. related to the topics discussed during the production.”

Crafting Dreams

Alt: Graphic with crumpled white paper background. There is blue text in the center and pictures to the right and left. Left picture is two participants, one holding up their finished artwork. Right picture is a gallery wall shot of multiple finished pieces. Each has the caption, “2018 Frontline Arts paper and print workshop in partnership with the Bronx Museum.” Center blue text reads, “Crafting dreams will be an opportunity to tell one's story of migration through arts, enabling new narratives that will naturally strengthen the well-being and sense of belonging and connection within the community. The results will be shared in a public exhibition where families will have the opportunity to show and explain their work, thoughts, memories and emotions to their loved ones and to the migrant community at large.”

New York Navel Cadet Corps

Alt: Graphic with half crumpled white paper/ half blue flat background. There is white text on top and a picture in the center. The picture is of a group of the New York Navel Cadet Corps with their logo. Top white text reads, “THIS CAMPAIGN IS TO PROVIDE FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO THE NEW YORK NAVY CADET CORPS WHOSE MAIN GOAL IS TO PROVIDE YOUNG INDIVIDUALS AGES 9 TO 17 WITH AN ALCOHOL-FREE, DRUG-FREE AND GANG-FREE LIFESTYLE THROUGH NAVAL TRAINING, IN ADDITION TO COVER ART SUPPLIES, AND TRANSPORTATION FEES”

Dreams and Migration

Alt: Photo with yellow block on left side with text that reads, “Please help us with a donation and spread the word to make this ART ABOUT DREAMS AND MIGRATION COME TRUE! We thank you for ALL your support, even $5 could make the difference.”. Photo is a close up shot of participant’s art on handmade paper with words, “Immigration, deportation, illegal/undocumented”.

In Summer 2021, we restarted the Migration Project with the New York Navy Cadet Corps community currently residing in Corona, Queens. Thanks to your generous donations, we were able to hold a 2nd weekend-long workshop in Corona, Queens in May of 2022.

With your support, we were also able to hold the 1st day of a workshop with a diverse community of migrants at the Queens Museum on Sept. 21st, 2021. We had over 40 participants from diverse ethnic and racial groups, connecting through dream sharing and paper and printmaking practices. A warm thanks for believing in the power of arts and crafts to engage communities in a space of commonality, connection and empathy through the arts! Then on May 28th and 29th, 2022, we were able to host 150 more participants for Weekend Honoring Caretakers of All Kinds at the Queens Museum, with instructors Camila Figueroa-Restrepo and Niceli Portugal. They worked with multilingual storytellers to learn about stories of caretakers from around the world, followed by a collaborative floor mural project and a Frontline Arts’ printmaking workshop. The stencils and prints were done on paper was handmade from medical uniforms, sheets and pillowcases by healthcare workers, patients and the migrant community of Queens as they shared their dreams and stories during the pandemic.

Stay tuned for upcoming workshops!

Gallery of images from the Weekend Honoring Caretakers of All Kinds conducted at the Queens Museum in Corona Queens on May 28th-29th, 2021 (With Camila Figueroa-Restrepo and Niceli Portugal, all photos credit to Camila Figueroa-Restrepo and Niceli Portugal)

Young Child Looking at stencils and paint

Niceli teaching children stenciling with Frontline Arts info sign in front on table

Camila working in background with familes at table, stenciling words on mulitcolored handmade paper. Closest stencil reads "that beautiful smile" with floral border

Long view of room with several families at table, working with stencils, brayers and paint

Table of colorful stenciled words on handmade paper, several read "B kind, Smile, Love Always, Namaste, Heaven Right Here"

Workshop participant standing at table, holding stenciled print on paper that reads "love life"

Workshop participant attaching tree of colorful cut out hand shapes from paper onto wall

Long, white fabric with plant and hand prints, with hand-written black and yellow text that reads "Dejando Huella"

Camila teaching 3 children, standing at a table, with workshop participant standing in front with a backpack

Selfie of Niceli in front of table with paint, wearhing black mask, striped shirt and ornate necklace

Gallery of images from the Migration Project workshop conducted at the Queens Museum in Corona Queens on August 21st, 2021 (With Camila Figueroa, Ron Erickson, Walt Nygard and the NYC Naval Cadet Corps)

Beginnings:

Inspired by the Poetry Coalition and Canto Mundo’s shared programming, "Because We Come from Everything: Poetry and Migration,” CantoMundo, Frontline Arts, Mobile Print Power and La Morada continue to conduct this process-based project, where each workshop-session informs the next over a course of two years, and results in a traveling visual art exhibition to showcase shared struggles and experiences across borders.

Our Shared Process:

The project started in August of 2018, in partnership with the Bronx Museum, which consisted of four workshops in the South Bronx where immigrants and veterans made paper and prints from cultural objects and plants native to the Bronx and Mexico, military uniforms from local veterans, and clothes from Mexican street vendors.

Frontline Arts will ensure to create multiple prints of the work to archive, to include in portfolios, to showcase in the traveling exhibition (both physically and digitally), and to distribute to the artists and their family members who co-created the final products. The exhibition and will take place along with a poetry reading, with a possible weekend symposium focusing on the connective practice of transformative art and public participation can find commonality between communities. This bringing together of people highlights social difference, prompting the importance of celebrating and protecting cultures of identities, yet also creating a new culture of commonality - a new creative common language of shared experiences, Our ability to live and produce within this environment is achievable, and we must promote this type of participation. Building walls and creating bans only stifles that connection.

The community presentation at La Morada in 2018 that included an exhibition of the art made, and spoken-word presentations by individual participants, was a passionate response on themes of violence toward immigrants, police harassment, and gentrification. There was an overwhelming feeling of solidarity between the veteran and immigrant communities involved, and some participants expressed that this was the first time they felt safe telling stories of their experiences and expressing their feelings of what it means to either be an immigrant or a veteran in this country.