PURCHASE, NY.- The Neuberger Museum of Art presents Crossing the BLVD: strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America, on view through January 7, 2007. This exhibition is a multi-media project by documentary artists Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan that portrays the lives of new immigrants and refugees in Queens, New York—the most ethnically diverse locality in the United States today. From 1999 to 2002, the artists traveled the world by trekking the streets of their home borough in search of migration stories and a deeper connection to their diverse community.

As a photographic series, Lehrer’s direct portraits document individuals and families who arrived in the U.S. after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act mandated an end to discriminatory immigration policies that favored white Western Europeans. Portraits are paired with short narrative excerpts of the subject’s own words, contextual maps of the country or countries of origin overlaid with maps of Queens neighborhoods, and important objects and images that Crossing participants carry/carried with them from home to home. Audio stations throughout the exhibition allow the viewer to hear the voices of those portrayed in the exhibition.

Curated by and created by Judith Sloan and Warren Lehrer, EarSay. Organized for the Neuberger Museum of Art by Dede Young, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.