Art in the Parks

Since 2021, community members, neighbors, kids, parents, grandparents, artists, musicians, seed finders, cooks, gardeners, farmers, bird watchers, writers, poets, thinkers, finders, seekers, and explorers have gathered at Socrates to intentionally build a body of knowledge together as part of the Field Guide program. Teaching artist Aneesa Razek has gathered and woven together a constellation of drawings and observations from Field Guide participants.

This exhibition is presented by Socrates Sculpture Park.

The Socrates Annual exhibition marks the culmination of the 2023 Socrates Annual Fellowship. The central theme of this year’s exhibition revolves around transformation, echoing the Park’s evolution – from an abandoned landfill to a flourishing gathering space. These five projects reflect on diverse stages of growth, change, and renewal while also invoking a keen understanding of how visitors use this space, informed by the artists’ firsthand experience fabricating these works on-site over the summer. Many of these works are constructed with found and recycled materials that have been ingeniously repurposed, breathing new life into objects that were once discarded or considered undesirable. Collectively, these artists compel us to value the histories embedded in materials and the surrounding landscape.

This exhibition includes works by Ashley Harris, Ndivhuho Rasengani, Bat-Ami Rivlin,Kate Rusek, Maryam Turkey, and Stefania Urist.

This exhibition is presented by Socrates Sculpture Park.

The Red String is an art installation inspired by the Chinese knot, a type of Eastern folk art consisting of distinctive patterns that symbolize unity and love. The installation integrates a series of physical banners with short animations using an Augmented Reality (AR) application on mobile devices. Viewers are advised to scan the banners’ QR codes to watch the animations, which reinterpret Chinese folktales or traditional operas to reflect on the modern Asian-American identity. The Red String calls for unity and dialogue across the cultural and ethnic boundaries within the social spectrum.

Presented on PhotoCubes placed at four locations throughout the park, the photographs in this exhibition scrutinize what it is to be both at one and apart from the natural world. Together the works explore the interactions between humanity and ecology, and how they shape each other. This exhibition is spread across a landscape seeded with native vegetation and designed for climate resiliency. As the photographic works examine our relation to nature during a time of ecological change, the park itself gives an ample backdrop to further explore that relationship.

This exhibition includes works by Delaney Allen, Barrett Doherty, Daesha Devón Harris, Elise Kirk, Jennifer Latour, and Denisse Ariana Pérez.

This exhibition is presented by Hunters Point Parks Conservancy and Photoville.

We Are Beautiful represents diversity, celebrates multiculturalism in New York City, especially on Staten Island. It consisted of 4,950 multicolor butterflies attached to the metallic railing by the water at Stapleton Waterfront Park. This installation is part of La Isla Bonita Series and Festival, which intends to beautify public spaces with the collaboration of community members.

This exhibition is presented by La Isla Bonita.

Antoni Gaudi’s 1908 skyscraper for NYC is reinterpreted here as a prototype based on structural concatenated catenaries actualized as signal feedback simulation/optimization across generations conforming an Artificial Neural Network. The installation aims at pairing the infinity of the fields of skyscrapers in Jersey City, Manhattan and Brooklyn in the background view from Stapleton Esplanade. The installation is a prototype for a skyscraper that can implement catenaries to optimize a construction system based on slabs and enables viewers to experience an empty skyscraper structural-envelope with an interior top featured catenary-dome landscape. The installation proposes a skyscraper typology as a voided functional space, bringing the voided space as a social experiential inhabitable art piece in Staten Island’s waterfront landscape.

This exhibition is presented by New York Institute of Technology. This project was made possible with assistance from NYIT’s School of Architecture and Design, MS Architectural Computational Technologies: Research Assistant Mike Saad and Research Students Yashraj Chauhan, Arefin Chisty, Selin Dastan, Jacob Sam; Meraj Nasir, Karan Patel, Alejandro Romero, Amisha Bavadiya, and Jahan Selim.