Art in the Parks

Through collaborations with a diverse group of arts organizations and artists, Parks brings to the public both experimental and traditional art in many park locations. Please browse our list of current exhibits and our archives of past exhibits below. You can also see past grant opportunities or read more about the Art in the Parks Program.

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Find out which current exhibits are on display near you, and browse our permanent monument collection.

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2018

Brooklyn

Asha Hanna, Afro Clouds
August 20, 2018 to August 19, 2019
Thomas Boyland Community Garden, Brooklyn
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:
Asha Hanna’s design honors the communities that live in Brownsville and the theme of GreenThumb’s GrowTogether Conference Honor Our Roots.  This project is part of NYC Parks GreenThumb’s Art in the Gardens - Shed Murals project, an initiative that provides local artists with the opportunity to collaborate with community gardens as a platform to create and display their art.

Photo credit: Jasmin Chang and Trellis, Community Heroes, Courtesy of the artist

Jasmin Chang and Trellis, Community Heroes
August 28, 2018 to August 17, 2019
Commodore Barry Park, Brooklyn
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:
Community Heroes aims to bring together residents in the neighborhoods of Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Farragut, and celebrate those who empower and nourish these neighborhoods. Twenty individuals were selected as representatives of the community, or heroes, from a pool of over 140 nominations collected during a seven-month outreach process. Each park will exhibit 10 portraits printed in large banners and shot by local photographers. Community Heroes seeks to tell the stories of the neighborhoods’ unsung heroes through the collaboration of newer residents and long-time residents, often people of color whose families have lived in the community for generations. Community Heroes continues to collect nominations for heroes and seeks photographers to take their portraits. Twenty more portraits will rotate into the exhibition until its final month. Please note the exhibition will be temporary. 

Photo credit: Jasmin Chang and Trellis, Community Heroes, Courtesy of the artist

Jasmin Chang and Trellis, Community Heroes
August 18, 2018 to July 31, 2019
Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

Community Heroes aims to bring together residents in the neighborhoods of Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Farragut, and celebrate those who empower and nourish these neighborhoods. Twenty individuals were selected as representatives of the community, or heroes, from a pool of over 140 nominations collected during a seven-month outreach process. Each park will exhibit 10 portraits printed in large banners and shot by local photographers. Community Heroes seeks to tell the stories of the neighborhoods’ unsung heroes through the collaboration of newer residents and long-time residents, often people of color whose families have lived in the community for generations. Community Heroes continues to collect nominations for heroes and seeks photographers to take their portraits. Twenty more portraits will rotate into the exhibition until its final month.

Image credit: Tanda Francis, Adorn Me, Photo by NYC Parks

Tanda Francis, Adorn Me
July 17, 2018 to July 16, 2019
Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

Tanda Francis’ work examines the African presence in public space as a powerful force of beauty and cultural relevance. Inspired by African sculptural tradition, including Ife portraiture, Francis also incorporates Victorian and colonial ornamentation into her work. Adorn Me addresses the underrepresentation of this demographic in public artworks, and provide a healing message during a time of heated debate over monuments erected as symbols of oppression and control.

This exhibition was made possible by the Art in the Parks: UNIQLO Park Expressions Grant.

East New York: We Walk in a Field of Dreams
June 22, 2018 to June 21, 2019
Success Garden, Brooklyn
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

As part of an inaugural collaboration to integrate the arts into civic life called CivLabs, Arts East New York and the New York City Department of City Planning (Brooklyn) have teamed up to activate Success Garden on Livonia Avenue in East New York. Artists Walis Johnson and Paul Sue Pat collaborate to create East New York: We Walk in a Field of Dreams, a socially engaged multi-media art installation that incorporates community oral histories, a labyrinth walk and sculptural creations. It explores the past and future of East New York, a predominantly African-American and Puerto Rican middle and working class neighborhood in Brooklyn long neglected by the city, now on the verge of enormous change as a result of city rezoning. It considers neighborhood history, hopes and dreams and the persistence of residents and institutions who have served as community place-keepers and healers in spite of many obstacles.

Working sustainably with materials already present in the garden the artists create an interactive sculptural “shrine” that incorporates East New York oral history recordings by Sarita Daftary-Steel from her East New York Oral History Project of the neighborhood’s vibrant immigrant past, the destructive practices of redlining, block-busting, and economic exclusion. The shrine becomes a place for reflection in preparation to walk the Red Line Labyrinth using thematic prompts to focus the mind and heart in meditation. Created from old shoes, The Labyrinth, poetically embodies footsteps of a resilient people who have come, gone or still reside in East New York. As people emerge from the Labyrinth, they enter into a new space, a field of tall grasses and flowers that speak of hope and with luck, a brighter future. Participant reflections are collected and displayed in the garden rain shed.

Photo credit: Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine, Fence Weaving, Michael Piña

Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine, Fence Weaving
June 16, 2018 to June 15, 2019
Fidler-Wyckoff House Park, Brooklyn
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

The Brooklyn Hi-Art Machine (Mildred Belte and Oasa DuVerney) has created a yearlong installation in conjunction with the exhibition Nou La – We Reach! Their weaving addresses multiple narratives around migration and immigration, as well as address the history of Brooklyn as a site of settler colonization. The woven message “Stories Tell Of Loss Each New Land Allows New Dreams” acknowledges the Indigenous population that lived in Brooklyn and how that history exists alongside the story of early Brooklyn migration and the stories of the current immigrant populations in the borough.

Part of Brooklyn Arts Council's Nou La--We Reach! program, supported by the Lincoln Center Cultural Innovation Fund, which is generously supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and administered by Lincoln Center. This project is presented with the Wyckoff House Museum.

Martynka Wawrzyniak, Ziemia
June 9, 2018 to June 8, 2019
Msgr. McGolrick Park, Brooklyn
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:

Ziemia (“Earth” in Polish) is a public art project created by artist Martynka Wawrzyniak in collaboration with the Greenpoint community. The ceramic orb is glazed with a mixture of clay excavated in Greenpoint as well as soils contributed by participating residents from places that are symbolically representative of their identities, including: the United States, Poland, Ukraine, Germany, France, Japan, Serbia, Nepal, the United Kingdom, Ecuador, Mexico, and Namibia. The sculpture serves as a collective portrait of the community. It is also a cultural locus focused on the social and ecological history of the neighborhood.

The meadow is composed of species which date to the pre-colonial times. Meaningfully, the same species can be found in the Polish countryside. Soils from foreign countries which were used in the ceramic glaze were imported with an official USDA Soil Importing Permit and Heat Treated at Lehman College of CUNY.

This exhibition is presented with the Polish Cultural Institute and the Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn

Image courtesy of the artist

Bennett Lieberman, Color Columns
September 6, 2018 to May 31, 2019
Dr. Ronald McNair Park, Brooklyn
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:
Placed near the park’s northwest entrance to the park, three “color columns” create fortuitous interactions among themselves, and harmonize with the green foliage and grey slate pathways of the park. Texts inscribed on the colorful prism facets riff on the poetic and lucid state of mind produced by epicyclic movement from one season into another. The prism facets are inspired by the luminous arrays of elegantly designed paint chips found in local hardware emporia and home furnishing mega-stores alike. When paired with their given names, these color groups present perfect opportunities to develop brief narratives or small poems that draw us deeper into the experience of color. The chromatic fields, especially in large format, add a physical dimension, like song lyrics, to the experience of language.

Meg Minkley, Fiesta Forever, Image courtesy of the artist

Meg Minkley, Fiesta Forever
June 1, 2018 to May 31, 2019
Powers Street Garden, Brooklyn, Brooklyn
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:
?Fiesta Forever celebrates the beginnings of Spring and the fun of Summer and honors the re-birth of color in the city. The mural is illustrative of the vast collection of flowers that bloom throughout New York City from Spring all the way through to Summer.

This project is part of NYC Parks GreenThumb’s Art in the Gardens - Shed Murals project, an initiative that provides local artists with the opportunity to collaborate with community gardens as a platform to create and display their art.

ASKEW ONE, Artwork Inspired by The Last O.G. on TBS, Photo by Jason Elbourne

ASKEW ONE, Artwork Inspired by The Last O.G. on TBS
April 17, 2018 to April 16, 2019
Marcy Playground, Brooklyn
Map/Directions (in Google Maps)

Please note: This is a past exhibit that is no longer installed in the park.

Description:
A newly refurbished basketball courts and an artistic mural at Marcy Playground include new asphalt, four new polycarbonate backboards, and a mural designed by artist ASKEW ONE, recognized worldwide for his unique approach to graffiti art. 

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