Our sculpture story begins here. Project '79 had staged theater and other public learning experiments before the 2006 sculpture, but this work is the first word in our current chapter in public art. Students in Al Lantis' U.S. 2 class met with WHS art teacher Roy Chambers to consider how they might conceptualize the 20th Century's many examples of genocide. The students were looking to make sense of what they were learning; Chambers, artist and social activist, wanted to explore with a new group of students a different approach to sculpture (concrete on rebar armatures). "Let Us Not Turn Our Heads" (left) is permanently on display in the Project '79 Courtyard of the Sciences, designed and constructed by members of the Class of 2007. Chambers joined p79 as Artist-in-Residence soon afterward.
METAL TREE (above). Inspired by the work of American sculptor Roxy Paine (b. 1966), Project '79 student members, staff, and friends constructed a metal tree during 2010-11. The "bark" is rinsed, repurposed aluminum cans wired onto a rebar armature. The work fuses concepts of conservation and recognizing unseen sides within the everyday.
FOUND/BURNING UNICORN (above). Inspired by the work of sculptor Deborah Butterfield, p79 students constructed a wooden unicorn from found wood in the fall of 2010. (Initial supply came, with permission, from our annual Blairstown retreat.) The following spring, the sculpture was carried down Rahway Ave to the site of the Homecoming Bonfire behind Edison Intermediate School, where it was burned in a community ceremony. Change comes to all things--even beautiful ones.