With construction
underway at the Staten Island Children’s Museum (SICM), MPA devised an installation to introduce museum visitors to the three “environmental
structures” soon to be in place, as well as to provide a window into the
construction process.
Painted in matte
white with shiny black outlines, images of the Wind Turbine, Wind Scoop, and Meadow
Structure enter the children's world at eye level, turning the construction
fence into a canvas for a series of kids' painting workshops run by the Museum. Coloring in the full-scale shapes,
kids will get to experience the three structures on their own terms, up
close. Windows cut into the fence will
give glimpses of the Meadow Structure as construction proceeds, while mirror panels will reveal
the real Wind Turbine and Wind Scoop, when they are raised into place on top of the Museum
roof.
Complementing the
fence-painting workshops, a series of postcards – also to be colored – re-introduce
the same project elements in miniature.
After the postcards are distributed to children and their families, MPA
hopes to coordinate an exhibition of the completed works – enabling the excitement
and dynamism of the construction process to endure even after the project is
built.