FIGMENT 2011 Sculpture Garden

FIGMENT Terrace Sculpture Garden 

May 27 – September 18, 2011

Governors Island

Over the past two summers, The FIGMENT summer long sculpture garden on Governors Island has been a huge success, and has received significant media attention and a large number of visitors… over 100,000 over the course of the 2010 season.

This year, out of over 50 submissions, FIGMENT selected 17 amazingly creative, interactive, and sustainable sculpture projects that have found a temporary home on Governor Island. In the FIGMENT Terrace Sculpture Garden, these highly interactive sculpture projects are now open and free for the public to enjoy while the island is open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from May 27 to September 18, 2011. FIGMENT is looking for volunteers to help de-install the FIGMENT Sculpture Garden on Friday September 23, Saturday September 24 and Sunday September 25, 2011. Want to learn more about FIGMENT: Demolition Weekend and how you can help? Click here!

Please help us maintain these projects this summer by making a donation to FIGMENT.

FIGMENT Reminders:
To make sure you and all other visitors have a fun and safe experience, please keep the following in mind:
1 It is NOT SAFE to CLIMB the art
2 YOUR child = YOUR responsibility
3 TREAT the art like it was your HOME
4 It is NEVER “just you” doing it!
5 THINK before you ACT
6 Make the art look even BETTER for the NEXT VISITOR

These are the projects for 2011:

TreeHouse by Benjamin Jones

TreeHouse is part nostalgic playground, part classroom. Encouraging the viewers to play, it is also meant to serve as an educational tool for sustainability issues. The project brings together both kids and adults through hands-on activities and is exemplary for the use of reclaimed materials both on a small and large scale level. TreeHouse and its surrounding playground activities are created entirely from reclaimed materials from the streets of Brooklyn and project partner Build It Green! NYC, a non-profit retail outlet for salvaged and surplus building materials. Wind and solar energy are used to power the activities surrounding it. To make a contribution to support TreeHouse, please click here.

Microtopia by Grace Delgado, Barrie Cline, and Dimitri Williot

Students from Quest 2 Learn public school, graffiti art class students at the Educational Alliance, and FIGMENT visitors build Microtopia, a durable modular miniature city and a skateboard park to play in and build on. Graffiti mini-murals are created on the buildings; blocks and paint are available to visitors to add to the city. Workshops with educators, graffiti (and other) artists as well as environmentalists are held throughout the summer. Microtopia emphasizes the value of play, equal opportunity, and the sense of belonging to and caring for the city. Kids will help de-install and take home parts of the city. To contribute to this project, click here.

Bottle Cap Shaker by Alexander Lockwood

Bottle Cap Shaker is a giant, colorful musical shaker of found plastic bottle caps. Visitors can play the shaker by pulling a rope attached to the bottom of the instrument, allowing the shaker to bounce and thousands of caps to hit against each other. Visitors to Governors Island consume thousands of water and soda bottles over the summer. The caps from those bottles will be collected in labeled buckets located at garbage stations. The artist will rework those caps into the shaker with the help of volunteers and visitors, doubling its size over the course of the summer.

Invisible Sculptures by Andreas Keller

The 9 hours every day we spend watching TV and in front of the computer have dramatically impoverished our sensory experiences. We engage with sights and sounds but rarely ever attend to smells, tastes, and touches. Invisible Sculptures consists of odor delivery devices in each of the oak trees facing Liggett Hall. The odors are site specific olfactory sculptures that refer to Governors Island and its history. Visitors can walk from tree to tree and release odors by pulling ropes tangling from the trees, inspiring them to pay attention to odors everywhere on Governors Island and beyond. To contribute to this project, click here.

SWAN by Bayard

SWAN, a group of three inflatable sculptures made of found fabric, is hand screened, sewn and inflated by fans. One inflatable asks visitors to MAKE A WISH, another asks visitors to WISH FOR PEACE, the third piece is a sea of white stars on a blue flocked ground representing the universe overseeing wishes, granting all once peace has been achieved. SWAN, embraced by visitors as something fun, subliminally challenges them to think about themselves, the world they live in and how their desires can affect not only themselves but the human condition all around them.

Temple of Grace by Jen Upchurch

Intended as a place of exploration, contemplation, reflection, and personal expression, the graceful timeless design of the sculpture will encourage visitors to walk around and through the wings, sit down and even climb into one of the wings, and interact with the temple’s structure by leaving contributions of art, messages, and other ephemera on the wooden feathers of its wings. The temple encourages people to interact mentally, physically, or artistically and discover their own eccentricity and the angel within themselves.
The Temple of Grace is a fiscally sponsored project of Circle Arts, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. To contribute to this project, click here.

Knit For Trees by Isabelle Garbani

About 21 million plastic bags are used every minute worldwide… a staggering figure. What better way to fight this ecological disaster, and at the same time acknowledge the futility of the task, than to use plastic bags as yarn to knit scarves, sweaters, and mittens for trees? Throughout the summer, the artist collects shopping bags from visitors to Governors Island, and uses them as yarn to knit protective garb for the trees of the island. Visitors are encouraged to participate by helping cut the bags, roll the strips into yarns, sort the yarns by color, and knit. Check out the Knit for Trees blog!

Claiming Space For All Occasions by Maria Hupfield

This durational performance piece and installation is a constructed ground based circular earth work. The artist creates a pattern in this circle by cutting away the existing grass; the exposed earth underneath shapes the image. The resulting outline is based on regional American Indian floral designs, determined by the artist during the performance in response to conditions, visitors and site location. The work remains on Governors Island for the duration of the summer until the pattern fades from exposure to the natural elements and the grass grows back. The piece expands on themes of displacement, connection to land, and heritage.

Becky’s Dream Catcher by Mike Maung

Visitors to the Sculpture Garden can relax, dream, reflect and watch the world go by while suspended in Becky’s Dream Catcher on an oversized hammock. The hammock will be suspended within an 18′ diameter geodesic sphere made of oak struts and aluminum hubs. The installation is a showcase of durability and structural integrity.
The artist has created an Indiegogo fundraising campaign to support this project. To make a contribution to Becky’s Dream Catcher, please click here.

Transformative Kayak by Robert K. Otani

Inspired by a desire to bond the playful atmosphere of children playing on Governors Island to the tranquil ambiance of the more mature who seek a day of repose, Transformative Kayak is intended to be a sculpture for relaxation and social interaction, disassembled, and then transformed and donated to children for their use around the island. Transformative Kayak is a fun and leisurely space where children can play in the ‘floating’ kayaks while their parents relax in the hammocks that are tethered between the kayaks. A shading diffusion of light is provided by translucent polycarbonate panels atop the sculpture. The artist has created an Indiegogo fundraising campaign to support this project.

Pop-Up Adventure Playground by Pop-Up Adventure Play

Pop-Up Adventure Playground is a temporary play space dedicated to children’s right to play. Gathering materials from and making connections with other island events, this project is a creative, interactive opportunity to engage visitors. Children of all ages come together to seize found, recycled, and donated materials, transforming them into the environments they want and need to imagine. The trained adults who caretake the site are known as Playworkers. They protect the child’s freedom to explore the sensory and aesthetic possibilities of the site, to experiment and take risks, and to transform the materials and themselves into something new. To contribute to this project, click here.

Stealth Fighter by Zaq Landsberg

Emblematic of US military operations in both Gulf Wars and the time in between, the F-117 stealth fighter’s odd, angular design makes it invisible to radar. This 1:1 scale replica is framed in wood and wire and covered in Astroturf. It will be hidden in plain sight. Although the Astroturf blends in with the grass, Stealth Fighter will be obvious because of its size and distinctive shape. Visitors can go inside the fighter and use its ‘cover’ to peek out the jet intakes and cockpit windows. The fighter’s sloped sides provide a tent for people to hang out underneath. To make a contribution to support Stealth Fighter, please click here.

Mood Lighting by Kristina Wilson, Jason Jeunnette, and Mark Jeunnette

Inspired by Ray Bradbury’s story All summer in a day – about Venusian children who see the sun for the first time – Mood Lighting invites people to remember the value, joy and wonder of the sun through 4 mounted boxes. Each box has cutouts of specific elements of the face: hair, eyes, nose and mouth, and three design options (smile, frown and buck teeth). When all 4 boxes are rotated and aligned with the sun correctly the shadow on the grass becomes a face. Participants are invited to mix and match elements to make all of the possible 81 faces.

Flaming Cactus by ANIMUS

Flaming Cactus creates something of beauty out of everyday items. ANIMUS transforms three of Governors Island’s lampposts or signposts – by nature cold and utilitarian – into something colorful, whimsical, and artistic, by wrapping them in brightly colored cable ties. Because of the way that they are linked, the ‘tails’ of the cable ties stick out, creating the effect of ‘cactus needles’ protruding from the ‘trunk’ of the lamppost. Our hope is to show that adding art to a community or space doesn’t require a lot of resources, formal education, or even money. Creativity is something we’re all capable of.

M.O.R.E. Drums by Andrzej Liguz

M.O.R.E. (Ministry Of Random Events) was started by Andrzej Liguz in Australia and is dedicated to creating interactive sculptures and events which promote the use of recycled materials. The M.O.R.E. Drums were created using plastic industrial drums which were formerly used for transporting shampoo. Anyone can play them and should. They are set up in a circle so that people can see one another which will help them to listen to one another and play together. To see M.O.R.E. sculptures and events check http://moreimages.net. Enjoy.

Strange Bugs! by Adel Kerpely

Strange Bugs! is a make-your-own animation project with an installation of 15 nearly identical bug sculptures placed in a circle. As visitors sit on the giant insects, a friend takes a series of 15 photos of them on each bug — one after another. The photographer sits in the middle of the circle, making sure the bug stays in the same spot of the composition. Played consecutively, these 15 photographs can be viewed as a movie. It will appear, as the background changes behind them, that the bug and the person who sits on it are on one crazy ride. Strange Bugs! is made possible in part with public funds from the MCAF, supported by the NYC DCA in partnership with the City Council and administered by LMCC and chashama. Go to www.strangebugs.info.