The Hudson River Museum in Yonkers will use a $100,000 federal arts grant to collaborate with city officials and an urban environmental organization, Groundwork Hudson Valley, to produce two public artworks that draw on community input in downtown Yonkers.
The museum was among 66 organizations nationwide recently chosen to receive Our Town grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. The awards totaled more than $5 million in the fourth year of funding for the NEA program.
A permanent installation, “Sound and Light: Reflecting Yonkers and Its Rivers,” will be created at Van der Donck Park, site of the first phase of the city”™s Hudson River Walk being built along newly uncovered segments of the Saw Mill River in its underground course to the Hudson through the city’s downtown.
The $250,000 project, which will include cultural programs for Yonkers residents and visitors, will also be supported by a $150,000 contribution from the city of Yonkers for the light installation.
Austrian-born artist Erwin Redl, known for his large-scale outdoor light installations, will produce the permanent installation in the park on Larkin Plaza. Sound artist John Morton will work with community residents to identify sounds that reflect Yonkers”™ past and present and link them to Yonkers”™ stories and history.
Both artists will offer workshops so the public can interact with their works in progress. Redl and Morton will begin designing the installation in the spring, city officials said.
By next summer, 15 arts workshops and 10 arts performances will be operating in the city under the direction of the Hudson River Museum. Programs will be targeted to the residents of Yonkers and visitors from other Westchester municipalities and New York City.
“This exhibit will continue the growing arts movement in Yonkers while promoting Yonkers”™ rich and diverse history, and contribute to making our downtown a desirable community in which to live, work and play for years to come,” Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano said in the grant announcement.
Noting the vital role the arts play “in building strong communities,” Michael Botwinick, director of the Hudson River Museum, said the museum”™s long partnership with the city “is a model for how cities and arts organizations should collaborate. The NEA”™s Our Town program is a powerful recognition of that.”
Launched in 2011, the Our Town program supports arts-based community development projects throughout the country with grants ranging from $25,000 to $200,000. The NEA received 275 grant applications this year.
Participants in the Sound and Light project include Blue Door Arts Center, Youth Theater Interactions, Yonkers Philharmonic, Sarah Lawrence College faculty, Riverfront Library, Yonkers YMCA, Municipal Housing Authority of Yonkers and Sarah Lawrence College”™s Center for the Urban River.
