Fellow Steemians,
Today I wanted to share a special public art sculpture that I completed last year in New York City. This was my first large-scale public art project (outside of a gallery) and one that was subject to the elements year-round. Here's a little bit about the project and the story behind it...
First... A Little Context
The sculpture was sponsored by a local public park called "Freshkills" in Staten Island. Freshkills Park has a fascinatingly complex history. At 2,200 acres, Freshkills was actually once the largest landfill in the United States. At its peak, the landfill accepted 650 tons of garbage on a daily basis. After operating from 1947 into 2001, the landfill closed down operations and soon took up the mission of transforming its topography of trash back into marshland habitat. Today, the park is in the midst of a busy 35-year plan of capping landfill mounds and reintroducing native species to the area. You can see the park's dramatic past, present and future below.
Two years ago, the Freshkills Park Alliance reached out to me with the hopes of designing an interactive sculpture that would pay homage to the revival of habitat and migratory bird population of Staten Island. The work that followed was first nicknamed "the NEST." The artwork aimed to bring Freshkills Park wildlife to the people of New York City while encouraging visitors to experience this unique park firsthand.
Birdhouses as Building Blocks
A collaborative collection of habitats found in Freshkills Park, NEST represents an intersection between the diverse bird population of Staten Island and the dynamic urban environment that surrounds it.
Composed of three colorful towers, NEST uses bird houses as building blocks to create multiple forms and experiences for the passerby. From top to bottom, different color tones and nest-textures are collaged to create a vertical habitat. Inside the boxes are habitat dioramas created from community submissions. We enlisted the help of local elementary students (plus a few adults) who created incredible drawings depicting the kinds of habitat that they discovered in the park. Here are a few of those drawings, below...
- Each drawing was then printed on plexiglas and layered inside each of the stacked "birdhouses." There are some fun ones in here. (FYI - there aren't cows in the park just yet, who knows, maybe in a couple decades!)
The colorful skin of the sculpture was made out of paneled lenticular prints. Each panel actually contains 10 textured images that reveal themselves as you pass by or circulate around it. For the textures, I superimposed pixelated images of bird habitat from grass to tree branches. The brightly colored layering effect is a nod to the layered landfill, where (with time) beautiful habitat can shine through. Designing these panels was a challenging process of trial and error. (I probably drove the lenticular fabricator crazy.) I wanted to maximize the effect of shifting color and moving branches without being too distracting. Ultimately, I was thrilled with the prints and the effect!
I Learned (Quickly) That Tough Art = Good Art
NEST was located just outside of St. George's Ferry Terminal (Staten Island Ferry) where 70,000 commuters pass by each day. The Ferry Terminal is the juncture between tourists and commuters, Staten Island and lower Manhattan. It is a super high traffic area, which made for some material-durability concerns early on. Within 10 minutes of installing, a group of students passed through... one of the kids swung around and literally round-house kicked one of the birdhouse towers. My jaw dropped. I hadn't slept in a couple days so I just turned and stared at my colleague from Freshkills Park Alliance, she calmly said... "Welcome to public art."
The NEST survived a full season of round-house kicks, a blizzard, a hurricane warning and countless other things that I probably never even saw.
After a full year it was time to pick up and move out... (but not the end, just yet!)... here are a couple photographs of the deinstallation process. You can see how the birdhouses were stacked. Each base was a 3'x3' steel square, with three to four square concrete blocks to keep everything in place. The white steel frame slid over each stack and held the birdhouses firmly aligned.
Here's the sign that stood next to the installation. In the real world, a couple of people might call me 
A New Home in 2017
Lastly, an animation of the deinstallation process. After a full year the three towers were carefully disassembled and carted away. I'm super excited to say that NEST will have a new home this year at a sculpture park in Staten Island. More on that soon :)
This project was made possible by many, many creative hands and minds beyond my own. A big thanks to Freshkills Park Alliance, The NYC DOT Art Program, The Staten Island Foundation, and Tauck Ritzau Innovative Philanthropy. A special thanks goes out to NYC Parks, Staten Island Makerspace and Gifpop.
follow me | design collective 
| design collective