Event Date: 2-29-24
Collaboration and community are at NBRR’s core, so when presented with an opportunity to further its mission, the team stepped up, volunteering its time and expertise in helping create the Unity Sculpture, exhibited at New Bedford’s Buttonwood Park.
“NBRR is a local organization that believes in the power of community and serving it through advanced technologies and comprehensive ecosystems, so the Unity Sculpture was a great fit!” said Tobey Eugenio, NBRR Advisor and STEAM teacher and Learning Experience Designer Our Sisters’ School.
The project came about when Eugenio applied for an Art is Everywhere grant through New Bedford Creative that she envisioned could empower New Bedford’s youngest changemakers. The concept was to create a public art installation using action words generated by the city’s youth, describing how the South Coast community could unify.
For its part, NBRR’s staff and University interns from UMASS Dartmouth graduate Engineering and Computer Science Programs stepped in to assist on the main installation with everything from ideating and problem-solving to design execution and assembly. After some testing and troubleshooting, the NBRR team decided an illuminated geodesic dome structure would be the best design solution to display the students’ words, due to the democratic nature of the distributed structural system.
“We realized that a dome allowed every word to get equal treatment and its own space in the installation,” said Matt Paknis, NBRR Community and Education Lead. “Once everyone agreed on the design, the engineers ran with it,” he added.
NBRR used its 3D printers to fabricate all 476 colorful hub and spoke structural components and assembled them with the help of Eugenio’s 7th and 8th graders. Although the final installation was temporary, a sizable crowd was on hand to enjoy the work and participate in a night of programming in Buttonwood Park.
“Engaging our amazing NBRR staff, local community youth, and our tools, we were not only able to design and build a meaningful piece of public art, but we were also able to engage local youth in the work of envisioning, prototyping, and building a project that truly honored their voices,” said Eugenio
The project was a natural way to extend NBRRs existing partnership with Our Sisters’ School and to impact New Bedford’s public spaces. The exhibit not only showcased the creative capacity of the city’s youth but demonstrated how effectively they can express themselves through art and technology.
The evening’s agenda included a speaker program and students singing and reciting poetry. As participants and guests huddled in Buttonwood Park in the February cold, they were bathed in the glow from the geodesic dome installation and the illuminated student works hanging from the surrounding trees.
Eugenio, first to address the crowd, noted how the light exhibit “intentionally honors the power of youth, and our collective community to come together and embrace our individual and collective lights.”
Among the speakers was NBRR’s Matt Paknis, who fittingly closed his remarks by recalling the words of the late Martin Luther King:
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
If you’re interested in getting involved in NBRR’s Community programming, click here.