Jacob Riis Neighborhood Settlement Center in Queens, NY.

The mylar environment functions as an abstract, womb-like space for listening, gathering and being—a communal site where thoughts can land and where bodies are held within the warmth and reflection generated by the sculpted material itself. Jan 2025 I created a collaborative mylar installation with high school students at the Jacob Riis Neighborhood Settlement Center in Queens, NY. I’ve been developing these mylar environments since 2012 as sites for public togetherness, healing, and creative regeneration—spaces that act as seeds, allowing participants to carry an energy back into their own lives.

I was invited through Wide Rainbow to work with high schoolers from the surrounding neighborhoods, many of whom consider the Settlement Center a second home—a place where they’ve been cared for since early childhood by dedicated staff, and most especially by Ms. “V” (Veronica Franklin), the Center’s director and matriarchal presence. Entering the project felt like being welcomed into their home. I’m very grateful for their openness in letting me in. Over the course of one month, we built the mylar environment together while developing new artworks collectively each week. I invited artist friends whose practices I deeply admire to join, including Sydney Spann and Andrew Riad, who generously shared their creative processes and developed participatory activities with the students.

Each week’s work accumulated into the next - the structure of the environment evolved alongside the relationships forming within it. Synthesized sounds created during Sydney Spann’s workshop became the evolving soundtrack of the space, while movement and poetic orchestration developed with Andrew Riad animated the environment, filling it with collective presence, expression, and care. The installation emerged as a living force—a layered record of shared time, learning, and imagination.

Sydney Spann : Intro to Synthesis

Andrew Riad : Poetry & orchestration; Coptic Egyptian traditions