Sonia Boyce, Demonstrate

The Queens Museum presents a newly commissioned work by internationally acclaimed artist Sonia Boyce. Demonstrate is an ambitious installation that recognizes the essential power of the voice as a vehicle for freedom, collaboration, and radical imagination in ways that are emblematic of Boyce's social practice. The exhibition emerges from film and photographic documentation generated over two days of gatherings and events at the Queens Museum. Working directly with local organizations, the film shoots brought together a diverse group of New Yorkers, artists, educators, and the Resistance Revival Chorus to explore the relationship between artistic expression and the formation of community. Drawing from the creative abundance that regularly congregates at the Museum, Boyce facilitated performances in which participants were invited to make, sing, speak, or move to open up possibilities for play and social exchange. Documentation of these improvised encounters becomes material for multi-channel videos, kaleidoscopic wallpaper prints, photographs, and sculptural constructions presented in immersive installations. For Demonstrate, Boyce's works across a range of media direct our attention to moments of celebration, commemoration, testimony, and ritual. A multitude of cultural activities are featured in the exhibition from artmaking and movement workshops to the installation and opening ceremony of the Día de Muertos community ofrenda. They are accompanied by individual performances and reflections from the Museum's workshop participants and collaborating artists. Boyce's shoot culminated in a procession led by the Resistance Revival Chorus around the Museum and into the Panorama of the City of New York. Their joyful call and response chants reverberate across the Museum's galleries to exemplify how communities can unite to find hope and dream together in times of uncertainty. For Boyce, the collective voice in song offers not only a sense of vitality and belonging, but a form of healing.