Free Family-Friendly Interactive-Art Weekend Comes To Snug Harbor

FIGMENT is a free, family-friendly art event that is a gift to the city.  Created entirely by volunteer artists, FIGMENT brings an invitation to create, dream, play and explore in a beautiful park setting that is filled with historic buildings and museums. 

FIGMENT Weekend is unusual in many ways. It is a forum for creativity and art that is unmediated by commerce. None of the art at FIGMENT Weekend is for sale and no art will be sold. Participants come together to create and interact freely. 

Everyone involved in making FIGMENT happen is a volunteer, from the coordinators and planners, to the people in colorful t-shirts who show up to help on the weekend, to the artists who dream up interactive projects and participatory art for the event. 

More than 50 exhibitors are expected and exhibitions include: 

The Pneuma from Ying Qi Chen and Ryan Somerville which demonstrates using air as a building medium. As described by the artists, “Using recycled exercise balls, cradle-to-cradle fabric, and rented scaffolding, we will create a series of amorphous geometries that range from canopies to seating elements. The taut fabric registers nuanced air pressure changes in the inflated balls, generating an unlimited array of forms with a limited set of modules."

The Amnesia Wars Company of artists will present: The Slightly Silly Party, an Avant Prov style exhibition in the form of a legitimate political party.  Visitors can join the Slightly Silly Party to celebrate Patriotism, Empathy, and Nuance!  Join the Slightly Silly Party to create your own patriotic poster at the  crowdsource creation station! And  join the Slightly Silly Party's very own John Phillip Kazoousa Very-Non-Military Marching Band in Playing Patriotic Pieces for their Parade of Positive Patriotism. It will march around the festival three times a day. 

Sarah Aponte, a local Staten Island artist will be creating Transfigured: a hanging art installation of recent work sculpted into ethereal shapes that form cocoons representing rebirth and elevation, connecting with nature, light, and sound. Participants are invited to Immerse themselves  to improve spiritual well being, awareness, and self love.

Gathering(s) – a work in progress, will be presented by musician, educator, and producer, Elena Moon Park.  It  is a reflection of conversations we have with one another about what brings us together in community and the feelings, memories, and stories we all hold around gathering(s).

In this performance, Park and collaborators, Nathan Koci (accordion) and Brett Parnell (guitars), use stories and memories developed at Snug Harbor to create a gathering space with an afternoon of music-making both communal and performative, inspired by this shared reflection around what brings us into community with one another, and what those experiences feel, look and sound like.

What are you bringing?  Participants are asked to bring a willingness to try something new, an open mind and a picnic. This is a leave-no-trace event so visitors are encouraged to bring a reusable water bottle, or two, and to use public transit to get there. Sharing is also encouraged. 

More than 50 artists and 4 Snug Harbor Museums are ready to create and connect with individuals and families in an environment where all are invited to participate.