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Art in Makerpark

2025 Artist in Residency Program 

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- June 4, 2025

 

MakerSpace NYC is hosting an opening reception to celebrate a new season of public art at Staten Island MakerPark, on Thursday, July 10 from 6-8 pm.

 

The reception is free, and open to the public. All ages are welcome.

 

Staten Island MakerPark is located on the corner of Front St and Thompson St in Stapleton, Staten Island.

 

Six artists were selected by a juried panel to participate in a 4-month public art residency program at Makerspace NYC. The participating artists are Rosa Suyeon Chang (장수연), Mars Dietz, Diane Matyas, Nifemi Ogunro, Noah Powell, and Gabrielle Vitollo.

 

Rosa Suyeon Chang (장수연) is a South Korean artist specializing in kinetic installations, printmaking, performance, and machine learning. Her practice examines how seemingly insignificant daily habits and obsessive repetition are products of heritage, intimate relationships, physical environments and political identities. Documenting and analyzing these patterns– especially as an isolated immigrant redefining her personal values apart from her cultural upbringing– has reshaped her understanding of why people perpetuate or tolerate harmful cycles. On the other hand, it also emphasizes the poetics of mundane, repetitive acts, recontextualizing their significance within our ordinary lives. Chang earned a BA in Computer Science and Art from Yale University and has exhibited her work in solo and group shows internationally, including at the Hongik Arts Center, Montclair Art Museum, We Are the Arts Foundation, The Graduate Hotel, and the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Her work has been featured in VICE i-D and HUG100’s Artists to Watch. She has also received fellowships and residencies from institutions such as Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Ox-Bow School of Art, Vermont Studio Center, Pocoapoco, Makerspace NYC and Trinity College. Chang’s sculpture for Makerpark titled, Goose Father, is inspired by the term Gireogi Appa and refers to fathers who remain in their home country while supporting families abroad, often to further their children’s education while understanding the limitations of professional opportunities abroad. The sculpture’s winglike forms make reference to migratory geese and blends personal history with universal themes of migration, displacement, and homecoming.

 

Mars Dietz is an intermedia sound artist and musician whose background includes multi-channel sound performance, club DJing, writing, and interdisciplinary collaborations in Berlin, New York, and elsewhere. Mars’ work is often research-driven, focused on topics such as human rights, the affect of knowledge, and the fallout of extractivism, but sometimes Mars creates pieces and performances with more nebulous motives, like feelings, or interpersonal states. Mars was born and raised along the shores of the very tidal strait bounded by MakerSpace NYC’s two locations. For the Makerpark residency, Mars is presenting a sound piece entitled, Detuning, which consists of two public announcement horns atop steel beams, playing in a daily cycle. A chord progression repeats in sequence, every note gradually detuning in scaled proportion to the amount of sea level rise projected for this decade and known to render this exhibition area and its near surroundings vulnerable to coastal surge flooding.

 

Diane Matyas was raised in Ithaca, New York, and received her MFA and BFA from Cornell University in printmaking. Diane lives on Staten Island, where she maintains her studio. In addition to painting, drawing, and printmaking, Diane is also an author and illustrator and has had a career with museums most notably as a curator and VP of Programs and Exhibitions at the Staten Island Museum, and now currently is a teaching artist for the Guggenheim Museum. Diane is an avid swimmer and is a founder of Swimmers of Anarchy, a creative wild-swim community that swims near the Verrazzano Bridge. In her own words, “My work is an intersection of art, science, and allegory. I create works-on-paper and public art with animal themes. These metaphorical tableaus are narrative, while reflecting our human condition. My fascination with biology, physicality, imagination, and theatricality, are always in evidence.” Her piece in the Makerpark Art in the Park 2025 exhibition is The Luna Park Elephant Project and is a large-scale swimming elephant based on a true story about Alice, the Sri Lankan elephant that swam from Luna Park, Coney Island to Staten Island in 1904.

 

Nifemi Ogunro is a Nigerian-American designer and artist whose work reimagines furniture as functional sculpture, blending personal history, cultural identity, and social consciousness. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Ogunro's practice integrates photography, performance, and design to explore themes of Blackness, queerness, and the lived experience of everyday objects. Ogunro's innovative approach has garnered attention in the design world. She was featured in Dezeen's "Fourteen Black Architects and Designers You Should Know" during Black History Month 2022, nominated by Nifemi Marcus-Bello of NM Bello Studio. Her work has been exhibited at notable venues, including the Denver Art Museum and Side Gallery in Barcelona. In 2023, Ogunro was awarded the Black Utopian Fellowship by Culture Push for her project "MELD," which reimagined public spaces for play and rest, blending art and functionality to create inclusive environments. Nifemi’s has created Temporal for Makerpark; a family of sculptures that live outside of the confines of a gallery and are meant to be places for rest and play. This piece allows for passersby to engage with work that otherwise would be exclusionary.

 

Noah Powell hails from the urban streets of New Jersey and often uses materials associated with urban growth and decay in his sculptural work. Environment plays a tremendous role in the inspirations for his work. Conveniently placed in an ecosystem based on survival - naturally the art of sublimation instructed and guided Noah to be able to obtain the broken pieces of what once was and construct them into something new, true and unique. A familiar motto " As above So Below" can serve as an explanation to the rusted and thrilling material used to emphasize the imperfections that Noah uses as his muse to tell a story universally familiar to the viewer yet foreign enough to question the concept of perfection. The sculpture he will present at Makerpark is entitled A Conversation and consists of two moss covered concrete walls that face each other.

 

Gabrielle Vitollo is a painter, sculptor, and mollusk/arthropod enthusiast living in Brooklyn, NY. They teach figurative drawing at Pratt Institute and observational painting at Montclair State University. As a German Fulbright and DAAD research scholarship recipient, they understand education and visual art to be essential as it can serve as a powerful educational tool for environmental advocacy initiatives. By staging nature-inspired public art paired with educational programming involving nature journaling and upcycled embossing, they aim to inspire a more environmentalist, humanitarian future by engaging viewers in a dialogue about our collective impact and potential for change. For Makerpark, Gabrielle has created, Exoskeletal Odyssey, a 15-foot-long stainless steel sculpture inspired by the forms and resilience of the ancient horseshoe crab — the undefeated evolutionary champion that survived the last five mass extinctions. This “spiritual armor”, painted with blues symbolizing the creature's copper-rich blood used in the pharmaceutical industry, is an exploration of the boundaries between nature and culture, abstraction and image, painting and sculpture.

 

2025 Art in Makerpark projects are made possible by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Development Fund.

Art in Makerpark

Four Month Residency

February-June 2025

> Fabrication at Makerspace NYC

February-June 2025

> Public art exhibition at Maker Park June 2025-May 2026

> six artists or artist teams
will be selected

PUBLIC ART RESIDENCY PROGRAM
IN OUR MAKERPARK IN STATEN ISLAND


Up to 6 artists or artist teams will be selected to create an outdoor public art piece that will be installed in Makerpark for 1 year. This is an opportunity for artists to learn how to develop artwork suitable for outdoor, public display. 

No prior public art experience necessary.

Apply with your idea now! The primary criteria our jurors are looking at is whether we think we can help you realize your project in the time allotted. 
 
DEADLINE DECEMBER 31, 2024

Makerpark Art in the Park Residency Program is made possible with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs 


 



 


2025 applications are now closed

Applications are due on December 31, 2024 at 11:59pm.

 

APPLICATIONS ARE CLOSED

Makerpark Art in the Park Residency Program is made possible with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs 

 


2024 applications now open!

Applications are due on December 31, 2023 at 11:59pm.

 

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artist in residency faq

Who is eligible to apply?

Either individual artists or collaborative teams may apply, though each artist must be 18+. You do not have to be a Makerspace member.

What are the residency parameters?

Artists will create an outdoor public art piece, to be installed at Makerpark in Staten Island from June 2025- March 2026. 

Will there be anything else required of me to participate?

Artists must attend some planning meetings in Makerpark- at least one at the beginning of the residency period and at least one prior to installation. Additionally, artists will be expected to spend at least 8 hours per week working in one of the two makerspaces and will be expected to help with the installation of the artwork.

Are there restrictions I should keep in mind regarding material, scale, or durability when submitting my proposal?

You may propose to use any materials that will last outdoors for one year. This can be a sculptural self-standing piece, or our shipping containers can be available for murals or wall-mounted work. There is no electricity in Makerpark, so projects that involve the need for power during exhibition must utilize other solutions. Please keep in mind that this is a public, unfenced area and your work is subject to the weather, vandalism, theft, children climbing on them, etc. 

What resources will be available to me during residency?

Artists may work out of either Staten Island Makerspace and Futureworks Makerspace at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. Artists have access to fabrication tools at both facilities, will receive free tool training on equipment needed for their project, and be allocated a storage spot for their materials and work in progress. Additionally, artists or artist teams will receive a $750 material stipend.

Are there any additional costs I should expect?

Some specialty CNC machines may incur an additional cost, because we have one of our techs operate these machines. These include the waterjet cutter, CNC milling machines, and CNC router. Artists who need parts fabricated on any of these machines will be charged our member fabrication rates.

Can I expect any additional support during my residency?

Makerspace NYC staff will help you realize and install your project. We will hold one-on-one meetings with each artist during the residency period to help troubleshoot problems, and figure out the best fabrication strategies for your project. That said, each artist will be responsible for fabrication.

Are there differences between Brooklyn & Staten Island facilities?

Yes! Both makerspaces have ​wood and metal fabrication facilities. Staten Island has blacksmithing and ceramics capabilities while Brooklyn does not. Brooklyn has more 3D printing and laser cutters, and a sewing room with industrial machines that we don't have in SI. Staten Island Makerspace also has more limited hours than our Brooklyn shop but we can coordinate access times with you. 

If you have any other questions, please email DB Lampman

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