Heat Maps: Queens Exhibit

Queen-based artist and Epicenter-NYC co-founder Nitin Mukul’s latest project and exhibition Heat Maps: Queens, a new series of durational painting video works, is raising awareness of the climate crisis on a local level. The art project focuses on specific neighborhoods in Queens that have been rated high risk on a scale called the Heat Vulnerability Index (HVI), these include: East Elmhurst and Corona, Jamaica and Hollis, and Richmond Hill. The project was supported by a grant for Queens-based artists from the New York Foundation for the Arts. 

“It’s not surprising that neighborhoods such as Corona and East Elmhurst, which are just a few blocks away from my residence in Jackson Heights, were among the hardest hit during Covid are also the ones at high risk on the HVI. Art has an incredible power to influence activism and raise awareness on important issues––I wanted to tap into this to exhibit the inequities that New Yorkers experience. I used durational painting to show the effects of heat disintegrating the paintings in real time in these neighborhoods,” shared Mukul. “I am grateful to the New York Foundation for the Arts for supporting projects like Heat Maps: Queens.”

The artworks themselves, painted outdoors in these neighborhoods, function as an index of the green space inequity and systemic racist policy in urban planning that ultimately lead to the formation of these heat islands. See full project overview and images here. Further, this project is another example of using art to help inform neighbors around important issues; Mukul led Epicenter’s efforts with local artist Heidi Howard to showcase vaccine success stories.

The exhibit is on view through January 30th at the Local NY