ART

Using the forms of drawing, tracing, and sculpture students created artwork that reflects their research and observation of natural and built landscapes. Students explored their relationship to preservation, restoration, development and the concept of “letting nature take its course” in the name art project. With the observations they made during a visit to different parts of the Lyell’s Brook Corridor and lessons from Professor Juan Ayala about urban planning interventions, they started work on their final project. Using mediums of clay, paper, and writing each student created a piece of their group's creative intervention. The students brought a creative tenacity to this work that is often dwindling in the adults that have most of the access to it.  

ADVOCACY

Working with the themes of “Preserve, Restore, Develop” teaching artists introduces socially engaged art and urban planning concepts to our student planners. Heather Fenyk from the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership, taught students about New Brunswick’s historic Lyell’s Brook Corridor, a stream that once flowed through downtown New Brunswick into the Raritan River. Students then visited four sites along the corridor, the New Brunswick Public Library, Willow Grove Cemetery, Promise Community Garden, and Boyd Park. The path of the now underground stream is pictured in green on the map above. In their final project students advocated for creative interventions that preserve, restore, and develop the Lyell’s Brook Corridor.

COMMUNITY

Throughout the week students considered the ways environment and urban design impact communities. From their site visits they made direct connections with how the natural and built landscapes of the Lyell’s Brook Corridor impacts their own community of New Brunswick. Looking at other national and global examples of socially engaged arts and environmental interventions, students began to consider how their work would impact the future of New Brunswick. “How can we leave it better than we found it?” “How will future generations think about the decisions we make today?” Became the main reflection questions when planning for their final projects.

IN PERSON: Bloustein School

VIRTUAL: Youtube Live Stream (linked below)