Just a 15-minute walk from the Queens Museum of Art, Willets Point, also known as the Iron Triangle, is New York City’s cheap auto-parts and service supermarket. It’s a surreal landscape, as autoshops line a pothole-peppered roads that make you feel like you are in an abandoned city. Yet across the street lies the brand new CITIField Mets Baseball Stadium, and overhead planes are constantly buzzing to and from LaGuardia airport. More investigation reveals an ethnically diverse business community, in which many individuals have invested 10, 15 even 20 years of their lives. It’s a phenomenon of a local economy that is bizarre in many ways, where auto parts merge with urban identity.

With an imminent incoming redevelopment underway, Artefacting team members Alex White-Mazzarella and Arne De Knegt launch a timely initiative to not only document what may soon be displaced, but also to celebrate the area’s native ingenuity and creativity, and lift peoples’ spirits amidst a challenging transition. “Artefacting” is an ongoing initiative that supports marginalized people and places worldwide through artistic interventions, documentation, and artwork that strive to catalyze social cohesion, build community, and break down barriers. Visit www.artefacting.com for more information.

On October 29 and 30, a community celebration and arts festival will see the people and landscape of Willets Point documented, expressed and transformed into an art form. A tribe of muffler men sculptures will greet visitors as they arrive. The infamous potholes will be turned into “stepping stones” of color and memorabilia, reflecting those that have given life to these roads. Local singers will echo the tunes and music of their native Ecuador, India, Colombia, Afghanistan or countless other country of origin. Short films will be projected in the “drive in,” and photos & artwork will be exhibited in a handful of spots. Just a taste of what is to come when Artefacting continues to apply its process in an immersion, exploration and celebration of Willets Point’s “Iron Triangle.”

While you are in the neighborhood, please also come to the Queens Museum’s Partnership Gallery to see Artefacting’s exhibition IMMERSION, documenting their three-month journey into Dharavi, Mumbai through 20 paintings, four monitors presenting more than 20 video shorts & segments, a slew of photographs, eviction notices, plastic chips, and a buzzing beehive sculpture which “immerse” the viewer in Artefacting Mumbai.

Artefacting Willets Point Festival & Public Tours is the culminating event of the Artefacting Willets Point project.