Epicenter NYC unveils Friends of Diversity, a public art project celebrating the people who keep Jackson Heights running.
Anyone who steps out of the Roosevelt Avenue subway by Diversity Plaza is greeted by seven tall windows of Kabab King. The South Asian restaurant is a mainstay of Jackson Heights, serving sizzling kababs and fresh naan to families and late-night regulars until 4 a.m. every day.
For more than a year, Epicenter NYC co-founder and visual artist Nitin Mukul has been working to fill those 5-by-3-foot windows with art. Friends of Diversity, a new public art project, is on view at the plaza, thanks in part to the restaurant’s owner, Shaukat Ali, who recently became president of the newly formed Diversity Plaza Merchants Association and offered the windows for the project.
Mukul has been a part of the plaza since it opened in 2012, volunteering to beautify the space and support cultural programming through organizing annual events like Glocalize!, helping to commission murals, hosting city and nation wide events like Slow Art Day, Make Music New York and providing support to community groups using the plaza.
For the windows, he turned to Epicenter NYC’s artist archive and chose six artists: Lily Honglei, Natalia Nakazawa, Javaid Nayyar, Anuj Shrestha, Pranav Sood and Azzah Sultan. Many trace their roots to the places Jackson Heights neighbors call home. Their work carries those cultures onto the glass through vivid color, layering images and symbols from across multicultural diasporas.
Mukul chose the artists with the neighborhood’s everyday life in mind: the restaurant workers, delivery workers, business owners, their patrons, and the civic spirit that holds it together.
The project reaches beyond Kabab King’s windows. Out in the plaza, two 10-by-2-foot planters now carry art as well. The planters are maintained by The Horticultural Society of New York, and their art commissioned by Queens Economic Development Corporation, with support from Council Member Shekar Krishnan.
The public is invited to see the work up close on Monday, Nov. 16 from 3 to 5 p.m., when artists, community leaders and Epicenter staff will celebrate the project’s inauguration with a walk-through at Diversity Plaza.
