Fundraising For A Documentary
100% of the SBD (Steem Dollar) rewards from this post will be converted into a donation towards the Freshkills Park documentary film project. The Park team is actively fundraising through ioby.org (a fundraising site for local community projects) and have 1 week / $1,000 to go and meet their goal! I thought this would be a nice opportunity to support a team who I've collaborated with before while simultaneously showcasing the power of fundraising across the Steem blockchain.
Your upvotes will go towards supporting one of the largest and most unique public parks in New York City. (I'll post a deposit image 1 week from now to confirm the Steem-powered donation.)
"Raised funds will be used to work with Staten Island-based artist Michael McWeeney to develop a video about Freshkills Park during its transformation from landfill to parkland. Using the art of storytelling and digital narrative, interviews with researchers, engineers, and local residents will explore the subject of the new grassland habitat that has formed and brought many species of birds to Staten Island. The video will be available as a free educational resource and shared during public programs that promote environmental awareness." Source
A Brief Backstory - Looking Back at a Past Project
I worked closely with Freshkills Park and the New York Department of Transportation back in 2016 / 2017 while creating an public art installation. Here's a bit about the art project itself and the history of the Park that inspired it...
Learning from "Freshkills"
This was my first public art project (outside of a gallery) and one that was subject to the elements year-round.
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. Having operated from 1947 through 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.
A couple years back - 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 and ferry-goers 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!
Public Art needs to be Tough Art
NEST was located just outside of St. Georges Ferry Terminal, where 70,000 commuters pass by each day. The Ferry Terminal is the juncture between tourists and commuters, Staten Island and lower Manhattan. The NEST survived a full season of rowdy teenagers, a blizzard, a hurricane warning and countless other things that I fortunately never witnessed.
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 
This project was made possible by many creative people and problem solvers. 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.
Learn more about NEST, here: http://freshkillspark.org/os-art/nest
100% of the SBD (Steem Dollar) rewards from this post will be converted into a donation towards the Freshkills Park documentary film project.
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