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HomeMy WebLinkAboutProject OverviewTHE TRUST Yr PUBLIC LAND South Florida Office 7900 Red Road Suite 25 Miami, FL 33143 T.305-667-0409 F.305-667-0427 www.tpl.org Miami River Art Project Overview The Miami River Art Project was designed to be a Community Change Project that would bring children together from the diverse communities of Overtown, East Little Havana, Highland Park, "Spring Garden and Allapattah together to participate in a Miami River Greenway and environmentally related project. With support from the Dade community Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Trust for Public Land (TPL) and the Spring Garden Civic Association ultimately worked in partnership with Tiger -tail Productions, Miami -Dade County Art in Public Places, Riverside Elementary School, Town Park Village Summer Camp, and the Overtown YWCA Summer Camp to plan and execute the activities and events for this Community Change Project. We involved children in East Little Havana and 'Overtown in a program we created titled the "Miami River Poetry Project" (MRPP). The MRPP featured local published authors/poets Adrian Castro and Geoffrey Philp as the workshop facilitators who led the students in poetry writing sessions using the Miami River as inspiration. The poems were then used as material to inform, direct, influence, inspire or become an element of two site-specific visual art projects. At the conclusion of the poetry sessions, the process for soliciting artists began. With the assistance of the Miami -Dade County Art in Public Places Department, the community change partners and Miami River Greenway engineering and design team consultant Curtis+Rogers Design Studio, slides of approximately 36 local artists were viewed and ranked. The selection committee unanimously chose artists Carlos Alves and Vickie Pierre to create public art for the Miami River Greenway. Regrettably, Vickie Pierre has not completed her work. As such, TPL is only pursuing installation of the Carlos Alves design at this time. The vision of Carlos Alves' project is to "create a suite of site-specific concrete and ceramic tile structures imbedded with a surface of hand -made tiles utilizing the poetry about the river, created by the local children; therefore, bringing attention to writing and literacy skills of youth from our neighboring communities. These `snail' like sculptures will be created on location using re -enforced rebar, covered in heavy metal mesh, then with a thick coat of stucco and concrete. Finally a smooth and creative assemblage of both hand -made tiles and broken smooth edged mosaic tile will cover the entire structure designed with functional seating incorporated into the structure itself" Carlos has completed the process of creating the hand -made tiles through a series of workshops with children from East Little Havana and Overtown. The sculptures will be installed as part of Phase I Miami River Greenway construction., currently under construction. Part of TPL's mission is to reconnect people with the land and water in the hope that we bring more humanity to our environments and enhance our own lives and the world around us. This community change project has enabled us to initiate a relationship between these children, their natural environment and their own voices. This project has given TPL the opportunity to raise awareness and foster a desire to care for a tremendous environmental, educational and economic resource, the Miami River. The photographs depicted below reflect a similar mosaic art bench that was installed at the Palm Beach County Courthouse by the same artist we have under contract, Carlos Alves.