Centro Corona and the Queens Drive-In: A personal essay about curating for a drive-in with a purpose
In 2015, living in the Bronx, I needed to take on a second teaching job and I was encouraged by my partner at the time to learn Spanish so I thought if I could teach Spanish speaking students English through translations then my Spanish would improve. I was offered a temporary teaching artist position at Immigrant Movement International which is now known as Centro Corona. Centro Corona is a historic community arts center which was formerly a project by artist Tania Bruguera in 2011 and since 2014, the center has been led and sustained instead by local community members, artists and organizers in Corona, Queens. At Centro, my students only knew Spanish and I was just learning the language. It was also the first time I taught art. My supervisors Bonnibel Rosario and Chivita Espacial were very supportive and helped me with Spanish pronunciations and suggested preparing my student centered questions in Spanish. My Spanish pronunciations began to sound more natural and I learned to roll my “r”s. My students as English language learners began to recite important phrases in English as a means of survival in New York City. It was a thoughtful cross cultural exchange and an experience that stays with me.
Credit: @hotcabinetpresents Instagram
Prior to the pandemic, I continued to spend time at Centro Corona as a friend wanting to offer help and a student seeking political education. I stopped by to help scrape off fading paint from the garden’s fence, attended workshops that discussed how art spaces can become more inviting for non-artists, and how to support immigrant communities, prepped for Day of the Dead ceremonies and celebrations, attended end of the year parties and dance performances. I’m also a member of a film collective called Un Colectivo Recuerda which is about how best to collaboratively document our communities through documentary filmmaking. After all these gatherings, Queens has felt more like home even though I only lived in Fresh Meadows for 3 months. The Bronx is where I’ve called home for 5 years. Both boroughs have connected activist circles and through Centro Corona, I met Shellyne Rodriguez, a prominent Bronx activist and painter. Last fall, Shellyne spoke at the Hot Cabinet presents Cosmic Freedom event about gentrification happening in the Bronx and the courageous activism of the Bronx Social Center and Take Back the Bronx. Hot Cabinet is a video art and film initiative that I founded in 2011 with an emphasis on community building and supporting local businesses. Now we’re becoming more of a collective with a more queer perspective. Shellyne’s words called for the necessity for artists to participate in activism – we, too, as artists have the strength to make a difference in our communities and we can also have fun while we organize.
In 2016, right after Trump was elected president, at Centro Corona, I blended my activism with my love of organizing screenings in Hot Cabinet presents Pelo Mala Pelo Buena, a dialogue and video screening about anti-black racism in the Latinx community. It was a transformative discussion with folks’ prejudice being called out and other participants releasing their stories of prejudice witnessed or felt. Videos screened were Sábila / Leche by Joiri Minaya, Miatta Kawinzi’s La Tercera Raíz (The Third Root), ray ferreira’s aquí(que?_ya.o)aquí|rr.eⁿtangl.d (v 1.2) and my short docu-fictional film Cosmic Call.
Pelo Buena Pelo Mala showcased work that deconstructed the narrative structure and power dynamics of cinema. Video as an art form allows us to represent our truths and futures as black and brown folk. Within Spanish speaking countries in the Caribbean or Americas, the white supremacist beauty standard is straight hair, while thick, curly hair is seen as ugly often called “pelo malo” or “bad hair.”
In Sábila / Leche, Joiri Minaya’s diptych video is about identity and ritual, she uses aloe to moisturize her hair before straightening and on the other side, lathering milk on her already straightened hair to bring back the curls.
Miatta Kawinzi’s La Tercera Raíz (The Third Root) is a poetic, rhythmic meditation on the overlooked history of African descendents in Mexico with images of nature’s richest elements such as rocks, water, trees metaphorically representing the journey of intentional traveler and those forcefully taken from their homeland.
In a floating white luminescent space with Spanish language text, ray ferreira’s experimental animation aquí(que?_ya.o)aquí|rr.eⁿtangl.d (v 1.2) questions the ideas of whiteness as the normative and default and the invisibility of blackness.
Credit: @cosmicall Instagram
Former Black Lives Matter activists Tiffany Brown and Antoinette Gregg play cosmic warriors on a mission to stop the use of skin bleaching creams in the docu-fictional film Cosmic Call. My father improvises a true story about his questionable Native American heritage and my mother pretends to be herself on screen: a hard working nurse and mother. Set in my parents’ house, my mother’s kitsch taste in decorative art is shown. The futurist, sci-fi narrative weaves in cosmic spirituality and a righteous quest to save community members from addiction and self hate.
As a filmmaker, the films that have impacted me the most are the films watched at Centro Corona as part of the Un Colectivo Recuerda discussions & screenings. Milton X. Trujillo co-coordinates these programs, also known as Movie Time for the People. These screenings helped us build community with families and other artists, and we were able to bring up conversations on displacement, anti-blackness in Latinx community, gentrification and colonization. The most memorable programs were Chantal Akerman’s From the Other Side, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and Carlos Diegues’ Orfeu. On a tender, chilly night in March, we also showcased community films made by us collective members. This happened right before the quarantine and some of these films played prior to feature films at the Queens Drive-In. The Queens Drive-In has been a collaborative partnership between The Museum of the Moving Image, Rooftop Films and New York Hall of Science. After the feature films were decided on, I matched the features with short films created by mostly filmmakers tied to the Centro Corona space.
In Queens Coming Back which screened prior to Do The Right Thing, Esneider Arevalo, founder of Culinary Backstreets and member of punk band Huasipungo and ABC No Rio collective, takes us through Queens. He tastes the delicious cuisine of the neighborhood’s independent and family-owned restaurants while he reflects on the economic and social impact of the Coronavirus crisis.
Screening prior to the Double Feature: The Babadook and Get Out, Milton X. Trujillo’s Monstrita Attacks! originally showed as part of an interactive haunted house experience. The short was made in response to the eviction of Centro Corona in 2018. In it, the courageous Justice Monster (Monstrita Justiciera) taunts a sell-out politician, reminding viewers of the displacement of working-class and impoverished community members.
Karina Hurtado, the screenwriter of First They Came For My Mother which screened prior to The Last Out, consulted the Centro Corona community before writing the script. The film is about two daughters seeking help from their neighbors after their mother is arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
I also screened work by non-collective members that have ties to the Centro Corona space: Neha Gautam, Zelene Pineda Suchilt, Cristobal Guerra and Carrie Hawks.
Neha Gautam, a graduate student at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, who I met through Milton X. Trujillo warmed our hearts with Without Say, a story of a young Queens girl finding a note under her desk at school. She develops a connection with another girl and must choose between unspoken obligations and love. This short film and Carrie Hawks’ Origin of Hair screened before School of Rock.
I met Carrie Hawks at the artist and activist retreat Set on Freedom, held at the Queens Museum in 2016 and co-organized by two Centro Corona folks: Chivita Espacial and Dominique Hernandez. Carrie Hawks’ Origin of Hair is a rumination on Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s legacy in the creation of rock ‘n’ roll—and one’s search for the best curl pattern—this film explores black queer female identity and self-acceptance as a pathway to personal utopia.
Zelene Pineda Suchilt’s film Waiting for Sun screened prior to Moonstruck. Zelene has taught writing workshops at Centro Corona and last year, I screened Waiting for Sun at Hot Cabinet presents PURO COLOR 2 in La Bodega Gallery. The short is an ode to the art and music of El Barrio, this poetic film celebrates joy in the fear of displacement and the solidarity between friends DJ Bembona, poet Maria Fernanda and Zelene.
Cinema of Women poster for Born in Flames
Cristobal Guerra and I met when he was a bilingual translator for Centro Corona events. Cristobal also taught theater and dance classes at Centro Corona, some of which I attended. At the drive-in, we screened two of his films, one was collaboratively made. Prior to Landfall, we screened Para Gregorio, in this work of vibrant intimacy, Cristobal Guerra captured the life of his uncle Gregorio “Watusi” Guerra, a Queens resident who migrated from Puerto Rico to New York City in 1964. Cristobal Guerra also co-directed Stefa Marin Alarcón’s music video “Fascist Love,” with politically charged performance by STEFA* who questions whether love is possible under an authoritarian regime. “Fascist Love” was included in the Women’s Work program which preceded the screening of Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames (1983).
During Labor Day weekend, we screened Born in Flames (1983) to call attention to the subject of women’s labor rights. Two shorts also included in the Women’s Work shorts program were Queens filmmaker and Un Colectivo Recuerdo collective member Rachel Brown’s Yes, I Rode Here and Bronx filmmaker and New Negress Film Society member Stefani Saintonge’s Fucked Like a Star.
Tiffany Joy Butler is a filmmaker, writer, curator, and educator.
Follow her projects @tiffjoybutler
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