Art in Maker Park

Name: Art in Maker Park
Start: 2024-06-29T16:00:00-04:00
End: 2024-06-29T18:00:00-04:00
Location: Staten Island MakerSpace

Schedule

Sat Jun 29 2024 at 04:00 pm to 06:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Staten Island MakerSpace | Staten Island, NY

Join us on the 29th of June for our annual Art in Maker Park Residency 2024 Exhibition. These artists are brewing some incredible sculptures that will display in Maker Park for the next year. Let's Celebrate🌟
This is a free event! Light refreshments will be served.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- June 20, 2024
MakerSpace NYC is hosting an opening reception for “Art in Makerpark 2024” celebrating a new season of public art at Staten Island MakerPark, on Saturday, June 29 from 4 to 6 pm.
The reception is free, and open to the public. All ages are welcome.
Staten Island MakerPark is located on the corner of Front St and Thompson St in Stapleton, Staten Island.
Six artists were selected by a juried panel to participate in a public art residency program at Makerspace NYC. The 2024 participating artists are Cecile Chong, Cheyenne Concepcion, Darren Corona, Callie Hirsch, Sophie Kahn, and Sok Song. Artists spent 5 months working out of the Makerspace NYC facilities to develop and fabricate public art projects for Makerpark which will be unveiled on Saturday, June 29th from 4-6 pm. The projects will be on display from June 29, 2024 through May 31, 2025.
Cecile Chong was born in Ecuador to Chinese parents and grew up in Quito and Macau. Her public art installations include Art in Buildings/125 Maiden Lane (2024), EL DORADO - The New Forty Niners, installed in the five boroughs of New York City (2017-2022), and Socrates Sculpture Park. Fellowships and residencies include Art Omi, Marble House Project, Surf Point Foundation, Dieu Donné Workspace, BAC - Brooklyn Arts Fund, Asian Women Giving Circle, NYSCA, LMCC Creative Engagement, Urban Field Station, The Hispanic Society’s Vilcek Artist Research Fellowship, Block Gallery/Bronx Museum, BRIC Media Arts, Joan Mitchell Center, Wave Hill Winter Workspace, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant. Solo exhibitions include Kates-Ferri Projects, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum, Selenas Mountain, ICFAC at Pinta Miami, Smack Mellon, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Five Myles, BRIC House, Emerson Gallery Berlin, and Honey Ramka. Chong’s work is in the collections of El Museo del Barrio, Museum of Chinese in America, The Long Island Museum, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Center for Book Arts, Bryn Mawr Hospital, Citibank Art Advisory, and private collections internationally. She received an MFA from Parsons, an MA in education from Hunter College, and a BA in Studio Art from Queens College.
Her piece for this residency is titled“Prickly Issues” and resembles a prickly pear cactus, standing as a symbol of resilience in extreme conditions and for its historical and cultural significance as a native plant from the Americas. The prickly pear cactus (Opuntia) is unique in that it serves as both a vegetable and a fruit. “Prickly Issues” aspires to provide immigrant families and new immigrants in the city with a sense of welcome and a feeling of home.
Cheyenne Concepcion is a Filipino-American artist and designer whose work explores how architecture, politics, history and aesthetics shape place across a wide range of media including sculpture, design, social practice and public art. She creates craft-inspired sculptures, large-scale public installations and functional objects that confront hidden histories within the American landscape. By shining a light on the stories of the people and places that have been overlooked, Concepcion uses her work to engage ideas of cultural memory, migration and the built environment.
Concepcion has received residencies and fellowships from many places including Socrates Sculpture Park, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, and the Goethe Institut. She has exhibited at Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Highline Nine Galleries, New York, NY (2023); Worth Ryder Gallery, Berkeley, CA (2018); Code & Canvas Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2019); and Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, New York, NY (2019). A self-taught artist, Cheyenne completed a BA in Urban Studies and Planning from UC San Diego and a Masters in Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley where she was awarded a full-ride Graduate Opportunity Fellowship and the prestigious Excellence in Design Award.
For this residency, she has created a new functional art piece which can be used as a bench to sit on.
Darren Corona is a ceramicist and founder of Silk Road Ceramics Studio in Staten Island. He has been a practicing artist for over 30 years and exhibited widely. His piece for this exhibition is titled “Firebird” and is a large scale relief made of ceramic panels are fired using the traditional Japanese technique Raku. The Raku process is an integral part of this piece. As the pieces are placed into a pile of combustible material the fire begins to dance over the clay weaving through the texture creating a unique hypnotic experience to view. The heat and the smoke are pulled into the clay and glaze as you witness a transformation right in front of you. The interactive aspect, and the “trial by fire” nature of Raku is of paramount importance for the literal and symbolic creation of this project.
Callie Hirsch is a New York City artist who has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions over the last forty years. She pursued formal education in photography at Parsons, followed by a Master of Arts degree at New York University. In 2008, she was awarded a commission from MTA Arts & Design for permanent public art at 105 Beach Station, Rockaway, NY. Her artwork for Makerpark, titled “below the storm 1,2,3 & 4” comprises panels of faceted glass embedded in epoxy, an exploration of her fascination with oceanic themes.
The paintings of sea life teem with vitality, offering vivid glimpses into an octopus tank captured at an aquarium in La Coruña, Spain. The art and photos are meant to draw you in, to seek out discoveries, and to entice your fascination with the natural world. The work transcends mere representation, moving into a realm of contemplation and engagement. It offers a glimpse into the enigmatic beauty that surrounds us, beckoning us to pause, ponder, and embrace the wonder of existence.
Drawing inspiration from her lifelong fascination with the natural world, Callie's art serves as a conduit for introspection and communion. As a devoted observer of tidal pools, she has mastered the art of stillness, allowing her to perceive the subtle intricacies of existence. In her creations, she endeavors to translate this intimate connection into a shared experience, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in the language of curiosity.
Sophie Kahn is a digital artist and sculptor, whose work addresses technology’s failure to capture the unstable human body. She grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
She earned a BA (Hons) in Fine Art/History of Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London; a Graduate Certificate in Spatial Information Architecture from RMIT University, Melbourne; and an MFA in Art and Technology Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Sophie is the co-host of the YouTube channel File Exchange, and serves as a mentor with NewInc. Past residencies include the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Pioneer Works, Brooklyn; and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York. Sophie has exhibited her artwork in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Sydney, Tokyo, Osaka and Seoul. Her video work has been screened in festivals including Transmediale, Zero1 San Jose Biennial, Dance Camera West, Trampoline, Frequency, Currents New Media Festival and the Japan Media Arts Festival. Recent exhibitions include Transfigured at C24 Gallery in New York, Out of Body: Sculpture Post-Photography at bitforms gallery, New York, and Machines for Suffering (solo) at Bannister Gallery, Rhode Island College, RI. Her work has been supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic, and other private funding bodies. Her work is held in public and private collections in the United States and internationally. She is a New York Foundation for the Arts Digital and Electronic Arts Fellow. Sophie Kahn’s work investigates the complexity, and the poetics, of capturing the body in the digital age. She uses a 3D laser scanner to create sculptures, prints, video and digital artworks. This scanner was never designed to capture the human body in motion--when confronted with a moving form, the machine receives conflicting spatial coordinates and generates incomplete images. Kahn converts this deliberately damaged data into the form of prints, videos and hand-painted, 3D printed sculptures. In all her works, the human body is de-materialized, separated from the physical, and then re-materialized into a vastly altered form.
Sok Song is an award-winning origami designer and the founder of Creased, Inc., a company focused on using origami and paper sculpture in advertising, graphic design, and installations. Sok has authored several books and periodicals including “Origami Chic: A Guide to Foldable Fashion” and “Crease + Fold: Innovative Origami Projects Anyone Can Make,” and Creased – Magazine for Paperfolders. His art is rooted in his Korean heritage and explores identity through an interdisciplinary approach, highlighting the dynamic interplay between folding and various fine art forms including sculpture and printmaking. It serves as both autobiography and social commentary on themes like marginalization, gender identity, injustice, transnational migration, and bureaucracy, using art as a platform for dialogue and introspection.
Sok teaches at the American Museum of Natural History, MoMA, private and public schools, community centers and at conferences around the world. His work has been published in Vogue, Vanity Fair, L’Uomo, Pop, Marie Claire, Icon, Self, and GQ as well as in books published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, Firefly Books Ltd., and Quark Publishing. He exhibits widely and his work is in the permanent collection of the K.Caraccio collection in NYC, the Jongie Nara Paper Art Museum in Seoul, and the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton,NY.

Art in Makerpark projects are made possible by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Development Fund and the New York State Council on the Arts.
Makerspace NYC is a non-profit community based organization dedicated to building economic growth and supporting innovation in our community. Our mission is to promote creativity and collaboration across disciplines and to make technology accessible to anyone who desires to make or invent something, regardless of skills or experience.
We seek to support individual entrepreneurship and help sustain artists, craftspeople, engineers, hobbyists, inventors, and other groups by offering low cost access to a facility that houses industrial and digital fabrication equipment and facilities, open workspaces, meeting rooms, and private studio and storage spaces.
MakerPark is an outdoor sculpture park and community workspace that provides opportunities for artists to make and exhibit temporary public art projects. We also host community events and teach outdoor workshops in carpentry, blacksmithing, beekeeping, sustainable energy systems, and more.
When we opened Staten Island MakerSpace in 2013, the empty lot across the street was filled with 18 burned out, flooded, and smashed up abandoned vehicles. Thanks to the help of the NYCEDC, NYC Councilwoman Debi Rose, Borough President Jim Oddo, volunteers, and community partners such as Makerpark Radio and Bee University, we are transforming the derelict lot into a useable community space. It is a work in progress.
For more information about MakerSpace NYC visit www.makerspace.nyc or contact Associate Director, DB Lampman at (718) 273-3951 or [email protected]