Constellation Bench: Community Collage and Painting Workshop

Join artist Eirini Linardaki Sat, Jan 24, 1–3 PM at Project for Empty Space, for Constellation Bench: Community Collage & Painting Workshop!
Participants will help create designs for “Constellation Bench”, a new public sculpture coming to Newark Grounds at Mulberry Commons Park next spring. This is one of three commissioned artworks planned for the park in 2026, part of an initiative to expand access to the arts through durational 3D installations and active community programming.

Please bring textiles or patterned clothing from home (you will take these items back with you). These can be fabrics with personal or family significance, or simply patterns that feel meaningful to share—we’ll take time to talk about them as a group. We’ll also have artist-selected fabrics available on site. All materials will be photographed for our visual archive and will help shape the final artwork, weaving your stories into the painted bench.

The collage and painting workshop is open to all ages and experience levels! Put on some paint clothes and come create with us as we build a constellation of shared memories, patterns, and connections.

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About the Artist:
Eirini Linardaki, (b. 1976 in Athens, Greece) is a visual artist and public art project developer. From her early work supporting environmental causes in Greece to her later involvement with Handicap International in Liberia (using art to bring visibility to people with disabilities), her journey has been shaped by human connection, environmental action and commitment to social justice.

She received her fine arts education at L.I.T. Limerick, Ireland, the Universität Der Kunst of Berlin, and the École Superieure des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, France. She later taught at art schools and universities in the UK, France and USA, and continues to appear as a guest lecturer at the SVA in New York. Outside of academia, one of her major professional focuses is community-based art practice. She has been an active member of Newark Artist Collaboration and Four Corners Public Art Project: two initiatives aiming to transform Newark through monumental public art.

More recently, she has undertaken large-scale commissions from high-profile partners and institutions including MTA Arts and Design, Monument Lab, Project for Empty Space, Audible Inc., NYC Parks and Art at Amtrak. As a result, her works have since adorned esteemed public spaces such as Grand Central Madison, NY Penn Station and the Newark Liberty Airport, Union Station in Washington D.C. and Harriet Tubman Square in Newark.

On a different plane is her involvement in participative school art projects across the East Coast that have resulted in numerous commissions for the schools themselves. Similarly, she is currently directing an art program in Cameroon, West Africa on behalf of the French Institute: a project enabling local talents to create and share public art.

Elsewhere, through her membership of Onassis ONX Studio in New York, she is researching environmental resilience in island communities. With these being by definition at the front line of climate change, she is seeking to develop immersive media practices and technologies that can evocatively communicate the collective anxiety of the people impacted. This is in some way an extension of Linardaki's activist work, which has been recognized with the 2022 Artivist Award from Sing for Hope, plus both the 2023 and 2025 Newark Artist Accelerator Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts powered by Project for Empty Space. But perhaps her proudest achievement of all is being the mother of two teenage sons.

About Newark Grounds:
Led by Project for Empty Space, this initiative is a collaboration with the City of Newark Division of Art and Cultural Affairs, the City of Newark Arts and Education District, the City Parks Foundation, the Newark Alliance, the Greater Newark Convention and Visitors Bureau, Newark Arts, the Four Corners Public Arts Partnership, and the Rutgers University-Newark Design Consortium. The project connects Newark Penn Station to Teachers Village through a dynamic arts path. The initiative bridges public art projects from Four Corners Public Arts, Project for Empty Space, and Gateways to Newark: Portraits, along with selected works from New Jersey Transit’s public art program at Newark Penn Station. It is strategically situated within the Arts and Education District, established by Mayor Ras J. Baraka in Fall 2022.

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