Two FC Exhibitions receive NEA Grants

Two FC exhibitions receive NEA grants!

We are very excited that two of our public art projects received NEA grants this year.  Our Ilya & Emilia Kabakov park project for Redwood City, CA received an NEA grant.  The park will include an updated version of their sunken pirate ship commissioned for Artlantic, 2012 – 2016.  Redwood City is beginning their site assessment and design process and when completed will then invite Ilya & Emilia to develop their artistic interpretation of how they envision the new park design and installation of The Pirate Ship.  This of course will follow many community input sessions run by Fung Collaboratives in partnership with Redwood City.  Through resident voices, the artists will learn what is desired and needed so that these concerns may be integrated into the conceptual designs.  This project is exciting because it will be the only permanent public artwork by the Kabakovs in the United States and their first inclusive park design.

The NEA funds will go toward the design and realization of shade sails for the park.  A city wide drawing competition for local children will be created by Fung Collaboratives and administered by the Redwood City Library.  We hope this will be a way to allow local children to participate in the project prior to being able to play and dream in the new park.  The goal is to have children submit their drawings with the idea to include some of them with a short story written in 2012 by the artist’s granddaughter.

Ilya, who once was a children’s book illustrator, created several drawings to be included in the book alongside the winners of the drawing competition.  In the end, we hope to have a fantastic children’s book with added information documenting the entire process.  Ilya and Emilia would then collage some of the children’s drawings to create final designs to be printed on large shade sails for the park

Fireflies by Cai Guo-Qiang, our recent project in Philadelphia partnered with the Association for Public Art, received the other NEA grant.  The project also received a major grant from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.  We are very proud of Fireflies and the quantity of Philadelphians and visitors who came out to experience the artwork first hand.  Details along with new images can be seen on our website.