Traditions Festival Online
For the past five years, Traditions Festival has been King Manor’s way of celebrating the myriad of cultures represented in Queens from the 18th century to the present day. In 2019, we welcomed over 1500 visitors to Traditions Fest to enjoy and participate in crafts, art, and demonstrations from eight different cultures led by members of the represented communities.
This year, a global pandemic forced us to put our in-person celebration on hold. Although we are disappointed not to be welcoming people back to King Manor for what has become our favorite annual tradition, we remain committed to our mission of supporting and providing a platform for local artists, arts organizations, and craftspeople in Queens and beyond to share their work, celebrate the diversity of the World’s Borough, and highlight social justice issues in the community. Instead of an in-person event, we are expanding our reach outside Rufus King Park and hosting the festival in a public, online gallery.
Engage & REspond!
The following works were submitted by members of our broader New York City community and curated into a collection of creative cultural expression that celebrates heritage, identity, and minority voices while also tackling social justice issues such as racial inequity, immigration, and feminism. We invite you, the visitor to this online festival, to enjoy but also to engage with and respond to the artists, authors, and craftspeople’s work.
On each work’s page, you can find a comment section where you are encouraged to share your thoughts, ideas, and perhaps your own related experiences. Then share your favorite works on social media or with your household and continue the conversation on your own platforms!
Please note that visitor comments will be moderated prior to public view to ensure respectful, meaningful discourse.
Traditions Festival Online is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council through the Cultural Immigrant Initiative.
Gallery
Traditional Korean Cooking
Soh Young Lee-Segredo. This program’s inspirations were many thousands of years of traditional Korean cooking, along with the many years of watching my mother feed my family members. She is now eighty-two and has only slowed down a little. I have been demonstrating traditional Korean cooking for over 20 years.
“Freezing,” “Volcanoes,” and “The Sky Below”
Kelsey Christine McConnell. A poetry collection of the female experience, encompassing an arc of the pains and fears of sexual assault, moving into the strength and resilience of rediscovering self-worth, and the hesitance and insecurity involved in falling in love for the first time in the aftermath.
A Journey Back Home: India and Beyond
Jasmine Singh & Puran Singh Rai. A collection of poetry and photography discussing immigration and Punjabi heritage.
Our Lady of the Wall
Christopher Spinelli. My submission entitled “Our Lady of the Wall” celebrates the Mexican people who are integral to the workings of NYC. The work in the form of a gilded renaissance altarpiece is dominated by an image of the patron saint of Mexico, Our Lady of Guadalupe that rises above the border wall on the southern border of the US. Also included is an image from the dollar bill, the Eye of Providence and Milagros.
Portrait of the Poet
Tobey Parker. This piece, Portrait of the Poet, is a portrait of my mother. The medium used is acrylic paint on canvas and stretched it within an embroidery hoop. I wanted to emphasize the domestic setting of this painting through the use of the hoop. The inclusion of the green background and pine-cones are a tribute to my mother’s past living in South Carolina before moving to NYC in the ‘70s.
My Can
Claudette Joy Spence. "My Can," a literary piece, speaks to my journey as an immigrant from Jamaica to the USA; my discovery of racism; my journey to cultural identity; my work to address systems of inequity for people of African ancestry; and the joy of living.
Poems from PollyNation: A Seminary of Self
Sherese Francis. This selection of poems and poetic visual art is from my unpublished manuscript, PollyNation: A Seminary of Self. The manuscript is an exploration of my identity as an American-born black person of Afro-Caribbean heritage through language and mythology.
Upcycled
Juan Hinojosa. The works I am submitting were all created during the start of the New York City lock down. As an LGBTQ + Latinx artist, I have had to adjust the scale of my work and my studio process.
Support our community programming!
Due to Covid-19, historic house museums like King Manor are in trouble. Our museum and its programming are only possible with the support of grants and donations from the public. In this our 120th anniversary year, please consider donating to our historic home to help us provide community space, festivals, concerts, family days, and workshops to our Queens community. Thank you for your continued support!