AwesomeNYC is pleased to support the 2016 edition of ID Shop, artist Sue Jeong Ka's project that operates as a liaison between art and public institutions to help homeless and immigrant youths apply for federally issued ID cards.

Since 2014, ID Shop has offered letters of proof of residency and other legal documentation to these youths, including those struggling with residential and gender issues, through collaboration with organizations including the Art & Law Program at Fordham University, More Art, South Asian Women's Creative Collective, Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Sylvia’s Place, and the Queens Museum.

The ID Shop’s purpose is twofold. The first is structural: textually triangulating relationships between nonprofits, participants, the artist, and individual supporters via legal contracts. The second is practical: providing the opportunity for marginalized participants to apply for IDs and gain legal recognition as persons by offering proof of residence in cooperation with art institutions.

The art institution’s address legally serves as the recorded residence of the participants, exposing some of the loopholes in the process of establishing a legal identity and reimagining how art institutions interact with local communities. ID Shop is thus a performative platform, benefiting members of marginalized ethnic and gender groups, that re-examines the practice of hospitality within the legal structures of contemporary politically-defined territories.

ID Shop will be collaborating in 2016 with the film/video collective WRRQ to run the WRRQShop in Brooklyn, and with Arts In the Woods, for a summer retreat version of the WRRQShop. As for the future, Sue tells us, "Beyond my collaboration with art institutions and homeless youth shelters, I plan to serve shelters that fell out the Department of Homeless Services system through my work and will attempt to change homeless and housing policies of both NYC and NYS."

More about can found on the artist's website and Facebook page.