With rents rising 34% in a year, Malikah works to preserve Little Egypt identity against gentrification. Keeping the dual identity of immigrants intact. The exhibition at MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1 and Malikah: New York hyper-local
July 2023, Astoria, Queens, New York. Twelve women, an eight-months-long residency, and the willingness to tell a story. Grassroots feminist organization Malikah and MoMA PS1 stand together giving birth to an exhibition about the Astoria community – integrating part of the vibrant soul of New York, to preserve it.
Twelve of the women from the organization all became artists – through discussion, workshops and sharing. The exhibition tells the story of so-called Little Egypt, the ancient North American community in Astoria. From the Museum perspective: «Homeroom is the space that works with the hyper-local community to amplify the work of organizations and nonprofits like Malikah», explains curator Elena Katelsen Gonzalez.
«As a community», says Malikah founder Rana Abdelhamid, «this was an attempt to preserve a history that we saw was changing». The output is an exhibition – opened in Queens until October 9th 2023– made of pictures, objects, stories and a movie. Capturing the story of Astoria from the perspective of those who built it – before it fades away.
Malikah exhibition at MoMA PS1: what you will see
The exhibition that opened at MoMA PS1 as a result of the residency, has three main «deliverables». The first is a series of objects: every participant got to choose and bring in one object representing each milestone of her migration story to Astoria. The second is a series of pictures shot by Lebanese-American photographer Sandy Ismail: «We took photos intentionally by trying to get each of the women in a location that meant something quite meaningful to her in key parts of the neighborhood».
This part is combined with a long video where the women that took part in the exhibition talk about their stories, explaining what Astoria meant and means to them. Finally, the third is a series of pictures from the past – showing the neighborhood, but also the participants, as they were. The ensemble gives a complex, vivid and multi-angle perspective of what the area is today, what it used to be and what it is transforming into.
From New York: Gentrification in Astoria, Queens
Little Egypt «is a strong part of the fabric of Queens», says Katelsen Gonzalez. Yet, gentrification is rapidly transforming it. Just in the past year, since 2022, rents in the area have risen by thirty-four percent: «the highest data in Queens», and one of the highest in New York. With gentrification, populations that are originally from the area, working-class people for the most part, are pushed away. The history, identity, and soul of entire neighborhoods are lost.
Malikah protects and tells: «we wanted to make sure we told the story of the community as it is right now because we know that, even though we are working to keep it alive and thriving, change is happening». No space for illusion: «we all have friends and family who can no longer afford to live in Astoria». Katelsen Gonzalez sees it from MoMA’s perspective.
They wanted to understand how they could use the exhibition space «to tell this story, that complicates our own history and looks at the way the tale of gentrification is part of a long history that Queens and PS1 both have a part in». For Malikah there is a very practical aspect as well, «the need to feel economically and physically secure in our neighborhood without the threat of gentrification».
Malikah and the gentrification matter: creating as a safe space for women in community
Malikah was founded fourteen years ago, after Abdelhamid herself experienced a hate attack as a teenager in Queens, where she grew up. «Someone tried to take off my hijab» she recounts, emphasizing that this is sadly the reality that many women, especially belonging to minority groups, have to face daily in post 9/11 America. She understood the urgency, for herself and other women being targeted.
She saw «the need for a space for young, Nord African, Muslim, working women to gather and feel fully safe and in community». Women need somewhere they can heal, a place that denies individuality to embrace community: «I wanted Malikah to be a space where I could heal and process my experience – and do it within my community».
Their practice starts from the most down-to-heart aspects of life – that’s where power lies, and women are often still not welcomed. Malikah is focused on building safety and power through training»: they teach self-defense, and share organizing skills, but also hold finance literacy training, and have well-being and healing spaces.
Malikah and MoMA PS1: about gentrification and migration to Queens, New York
Little Egypt, Astoria, was created by the community. Step by step, bit by bit. In a struggle to create a space where community could thrive and feel a sense of belonging in the duality that characterizes the migrant identity – divided between tradition, homeland and the society people have migrated to. It can be challenging to integrate without losing your roots and soul.
Abdelhamid recounts how the Astoria we see today – the one that is more and more in fashion, more and more pricey – was built. Where its soul comes from: «we saw how our community, our elders who came to Queens and built it from scratch – in very difficult economic circumstances – but they did it because they thought it was essential for us, children of immigrant communities, to have things like halal food and a mosque and Arabic schools and feel safe in the duality of our identities». Preserving safety while maintaining a dual identity.
Malikah: founded in post – 9/11 America
Abdelhamid, who was in elementary school when the Twin Towers came down, recalls what it meant to grow up in post 9/11 America and belong to the Muslim community as a young woman: « there was both a lot of economic insecurity – but also a lot of xenophobia and anti-Muslimism bias that our community was confronted with».
Especially in places like Astoria. Muslims were targeted, surveilled, and profiled because they looked like they did. This is the context Malikah was created in. «We have been doing this work for the past fourteen years» Abdelhamid recounts, «and the climate has definitely shifted in some ways – but the reality of ant-Muslim violence and hate-based attacks has remained the same, while economic insecurity has even worsened». The need for the work is still very much present.
Art legitimates: MoMA and PS1 exhibit
«In the past couple of years, » says Abdelhamid, «we have been focusing on storytelling as a core part of our mental health work». The residency and exhibition at MoMA PS1 are part of this process. According to Katelsen Gonzalez, «art and activism always go hand in hand», but this is not always socially recognized: «oftentimes these stories that are political are not framed or taken as seriously as other art objects like a sculpture or a painting».
Yet, art has a strong power of legitimization and amplification of impact: «you can read facts in news or essays (like the one about rent increasing 33%) and that affects you, but it doesn’t impact you in the same way as when you see that woman’s lease or when you see her picture or her family. Being able to really visualize and humanize these stories is a powerful tool». And that’s what art does: putting stories inside a museum for visitors to immerse in them just feels different.
«Being able to have a platform and raising the profile of women who have been doing the work and who are artists in their own right», shares Abdelhamid, «was indeed a big deal – especially in a place like NY where oftentimes the art industry isn’t accessible to immigrant communities, to working class communities».
Katelsen Gonzalez explains: «visual culture, sounds, music, signs, banners, storytelling, archives – every culture has them, as a way to tell stories. Particularly cultures that are marginalized in the US come from such a long history of resistance – songs, poems, and photography can capture those stories» for others to see.
How MoMA and PS1 built the narrative
Katelsen Gonzalez also recalls one of the activities they did during the workshop, «we went to the MET Museum, looked at the Egyptian wing, and talked about how those histories are normally represented and how we might want to represent them differently». A part of it was understanding how museums and institutions come up with narratives. Usually, narratives are created by curators and art historians – generally people who are not in the community that the history is about.
Abdelhamid, Katelsen Gonzalez and the group wanted to oppose this practice: «it was an intervention – if we are going to tell the history, it is going to be told by the people who built it» says the curator. Object were exhibited in a different way too, explains Abdelhamid: «when you go into museums you do see objects, especially when you are talking about Egyptian art, but those objects are where either taken away from communities, or objects that Egyptian people don’t really have an agency in describing – this was us putting objects in a Museum while telling the story the way we wanted».
Each woman chose her own objects. One of them, for instance, had her lease from thirty years ago when she was paying a really low rent for a three-bedroom in the house she still lives in. Life made accessible becomes art.
Malikah and PS1 zine retracing the history of Astoria
Part of the project is a Zine the group created, retracing the story of the neighborhood. As part of one of the workshops during the residency, every single woman got to write down their personal timeline, describing the journey that brought her to Astoria – with all the main events, like the day she arrived, or days that impacted them even before arriving in the US. They started putting different elements on the wall and taking turns describing their journeys.
What came out of it in the end was a description of the history of the neighborhood. «We then consolidated those notes with desk research», explains Abdelhamid, «and spoke to other people in the neighborhood to fill any missing gaps». It didn’t take long to realize a wall was not going to be enough.
They ended up creating a zine, together with the MoMA PS1 design team, printed in three thousand copies. Anyone who walks into the exhibition can get one. «This is the first time to my knowledge, » says Abdelhamid, «that the story of the neighborhood has been written down this way».
Preservation at the core of Malikah and MoMA PS1 project
The zine also links back to the idea of preservation driving the whole project. It starts from 1527, when Mustafa Azemmouri, an enslaved Amazigh Moroccan, arrived in what was to become the United States. He is the first known North African to have done so.
The list goes on with events like what happened in 1979, when the religious association Masjid El-Ber was founded, right in Astoria, to more personal stories like that of Mahmoud Saber, who opened one of the first cafes in the area, Mahmoud’s Corner. Integrating with the exhibition
Malikah
Malikah is a feminist grassroots organization based in queens, specifically within the Nord African working class and immigrant community often nicknamed Little Egypt – particularly focused on building safety and power through training
MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1 is a museum in Long island city, Queens, NY. Founded in 1976 after a group of artists took over the building in which the space is still based today. It was formerly a school building. Within the legacy of being an alternative art space we still work with different communities and artists to present experimental performances, exhibitions and projects.
