Special Needs Residency Program - End-of-Year Installation!

We are so immensely proud and impressed by the hard work, creativity, and enthusiasm shown by the students in our Special Needs Residency Program at P.S. 15! Ms. Cavanagh and her talented kids have taken a year's worth of study on the properties of water, combined with their experiences in the gallery and classroom, to create an expansive, interactive, and stunningly beautiful "water worlds" installation in their school hallway.

Throughout our semester-long residency with Ms. Cavanagh's class, Teaching Artist Ruth Wetzel and the students explored different themes related to rivers, ponds and oceans. They drew a collaborative seascape/landscape mural, used straws, bubble-paint and shaving cream to simulate ocean waves, created aquariums and transparent ponds to show lifeforms in their environment, and worked from Kentler's spring exhibitions to incorporate atmosphere, gravity, and trees into their curriculum.

The hanging elements, inspired by Jaanika Peerna's mylar installations in "Light Matter," crawl-through ocean floor space and corner installations of a river and frog pond all contribute to the interactive nature of their project. I'm so thrilled to have experienced this for myself, along with a student-led personal tour!

So much gratitude is due to Ms. Cavanagh, who inspires her students to no end, her excellent classroom aides, Ruth for her endless innovation, AND the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, who generously funded this project. We will pick up again in the fall with a new curriculum, a new exhibition, and a new set of activities to learn from and explore!