Global Queens: An Urban Mosaic
by Joseph Heathcott
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GLOBAL QUEENS: AN URBAN MOSAIC BY JOSEPH HEATHCOTT
BOOK TALK
MON, SEPT 30
CAMPBELL 153
5 PM (ET)
FOLLOWED BY A RECEPTION
EXHIBITION
MON, SEPT 30 – SUN, OCT 20
CAMPBELL DEAN'S GALLERY
Urbanist Joseph Heathcott's latest book, Global Queens: An Urban Mosaic (Fordham University Press, 2023) is a vibrant exploration of the everyday life of one of the most diverse places in the world: Queens, New York.
Drawn from more than a decade of roaming around Queens and snapping photos, Heathcott conveys the juxtaposition of the ordinary and the extraordinary, the mundane and the surprising, and the staggering social diversity that best characterizes Queens. At the heart of the story are two separate but entwined histories: the rapid expansion of the borough’s built environment through the twentieth century, and the millions of people who have traveled from near and far to call Queens home. Newcomers have had to confront discrimination, white racial hostility, legal challenges, and language barriers. They have had to struggle to find adequate housing, places to worship, and jobs that pay enough to survive. And they have done all of this in the borough’s jumbled collection of neighborhoods, housing types, civic and religious institutions, factories and warehouses, commercial streets, and strip malls.
Heathcott makes primary use of documentary photography, and draws on demographic data, archival sources, planning documents, news stories, and reports to bring these social and spatial realities of everyday life into relief. The result is a visual meditation on Queens that provides clues about an urban future where notions of citizenship and belonging are negotiated across multiple lines of difference, but where a sense of ”getting along”—however roughly textured and unfinished—has taken hold in the everyday life of the streets.
Join a book talk and an accompanying photography exhibition featuring Heathcott's Global Queens: An Urban Mosaic, winner of the UVA Center for Cultural Landscape's 2023 David R. Coffin Publication Grant.
This event will be recorded and made available on the School of Architecture's YouTube Channel.
About the Speaker
Joseph Heathcott is Professor of Urban Studies at The New School in New York. His work brings together scholarly and creative practice in order to understand everyday urban life. His visual work has appeared in a wide variety of venues over the past 20 years, from books and essays to magazines, exhibits, and juried art shows. In addition to The New School, he has held visiting appointments at the London School of Economics, Sciences Po in Paris, Princeton School of Architecture, Central St. Martins, and the University of Vienna. Currently he is a Fellow at the Russell Sage Foundation.
Presented by the UVA School of Architecture's Center for Cultural Landscapes with support from the Sara Shallenberger Brown Endowment.