Preservation Garden is a public art installation at Trinity Commons created during the fall 2022 semester of Trinity Youth’s after school program in collaboration with Miguel Braceli, Artist-in-Residence at Children’s Museum of the Arts, and Danielle White, art teacher at High School for Economics and Finance.
Through weekly experimental projects, students took multiple approaches to matter, space, and place guided by conversations surrounding site-specific installations. After serious discussion, students chose to create a hanging sculpture that evokes the effects of climate change, as well as Earth’s beauty. They began by foraging for found materials in the areas surrounding Trinity Commons’ location in Downtown Manhattan, gathering branches, leaves, and other raw materials that had fallen to the ground in the autumn weather. Using plaster, they casted these raw materials and created their own imagined flowers and structures. Through this artistic practice, students preserved a moment in nature and prioritized the environment that we currently live in. Preservation Garden encourages viewers to pause and take in the beauty of the “garden” while considering the ever-uncertain future of our climate.
Participating students include Yu Liu, Shi en Chu, Instinct Wang, Jazmelly Caro, Alvin Lin, Areg Melkumyan, Jason Lee, Wilson Zheng, Daniel Zhou, Winston Zhou, Jacky Zhao, and Kevin Zheng.
About Miguel Braceli
Miguel Braceli (he/him) is an artist, architect, educator and 2022-23 Artist-in-Residence at Children’s Museum of the Arts. His work is focused on participatory art projects in public space; at the intersection of art, architecture, and social practices; exploring geopolitical and local conflicts. Most of these projects have been large-scale works developed in Latin America, Europe, and the United States. Miguel Braceli holds an MSc degree in Architecture from the Central University of Venezuela and an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Arts. He has participated in programs such as Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2022), AIM Bronx Museum Fellow (2022), Art Omi (2021), LASPAU Fulbright Scholar (2018-2020), Future Architecture Fellow (2019), and Young Artist Award of the Principality of Asturias (2018). In 2021 he founded LA ESCUELA___ together with the international foundation Siemens Stiftung.
About Children’s Museum of the Arts
Since 1988, Children’s Museum of the Arts has been changing the way people value our youngest artists and their aesthetic contributions to the world. In 2022, pledging to make all of its programs 100% free of charge, the museum closed its fee-for-service facility at 103 Charlton Street to follow a new North Star: maximizing accessibility to excellent progressive arts education for all children. In 2021, Seth Cameron, Executive Director of Children’s Museum of the Arts, established The Look Make Show, the first digital commons specifically designed for child-artist-centered learning. In addition, the museum maintains a collection of over 2,500 works by children, from over fifty countries, dating back over a century.
About Trinity
Envisioned to be New York City’s “spiritual family room,” Trinity Commons welcomes individuals from all walks of life to rest, reflect, connect, and grow. Guided by the core values of Trinity Church Wall Street: faith, integrity, inclusiveness, compassion, social justice, and stewardship, Trinity Commons is a safe, inclusive space offering rest, intellectual development, and advocacy for a stronger New York, nation, and world.
Programs at Children’s Museum of the Arts are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
