The wide skies, manicured park lawns, and grand, innovative dreams of the 1964-65 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park are well-documented. Superhighways that sorted cars with no humans around zigzagged the Futurama II exhibit by General Motors; in the Bell Systems Pavilion, video calls were made across the country; the fair's countless Belgian waffle stands created a popularity so viral that the sweet treat spread across the United States.
What is less documented—and less remembered—is the fair's international exposition. In the New York City artist Umber Majeed's new exhibit, "J😊Y TECH," which opens at the Queens Museum on March 16, she explores the gaps in the official archives that document the Pakistan Pavilion, blurring the lines between fact and fiction to create a purposely complicated depiction of the World’s Fair exposition, and with it, the scattered immigrant experience through time.
Those familiar with Majeed's work will recognize Trans-Pakistan, her ongoing fictional project based on her uncle's very real Jackson Heights travel agency, which shuttered after 9/11. In this iteration, a Trans-Pakistan tour guide meets us in an introductory video to take us through a distorted tour of the Pakistan Pavilion, woven with a familiar Jackson Heights motif: a phone repair shop.