Archive

  1. Info Session: BMA Design Installation

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    Info Session: BMA Design Installation
    Tuesday, July 7, 4:30–5:30 pm
    Online-only via Zoom

    Learn more about our open call in collaboration with Broadway Mall Association. A recording will be posted online after this event.

    We’re now seeking emerging designers and artists for a temporary public design installation addressing the theme of “Eco-Mutualism.” Applications are due July 19. The selected project will be on view March 2027–January 2028 at Mitchel Square in Washington Heights, Manhattan.

    For additional inquiries, drop by office hours on Wednesday, July 1 or Wednesday, July 8, 3–5pm at Van Alen Institute (303 Bond Street, Brooklyn, NY). If you can’t make the office hours, email Shiloah Coley, Program Manager at scoley@vanalen.org to schedule a virtual meeting.

    RSVP

    Project Partner

    Community Partner

    Broadway Mall Association

    Ongoing

    Common Build: BMA Design Installation

    Apply by July 19 — With the Broadway Mall Association (BMA), we’re seeking emerging designers for an outdoor installation in Washington Heights.
    See Project
    Ongoing

    Common Build

    Surfacing the work of emerging designers and testing new strategies to bring people together in public space.
    See Project

    Supporters

    Supporter

    New York City Department of Cultural Affairs

    Supporter

    New York State Council on the Arts

  2. Broadway Mall Association

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    For more than 30 years, the Broadway Mall Association (BMA) has cared for the five miles of green space in the middle of Broadway — planting, restoring, and stewarding the 10.6 acres of parkland for the neighborhoods it connects.

    Each season, we plant annuals and bulbs, tend trees and shrubs, maintain garden beds, add winter lighting, and curate public art installations that enliven the corridor. We partner with city agencies, business improvement districts, workforce programs, and community organizations to keep the malls welcoming and vibrant year-round.

    In response to climate change and species decline, BMA’s expanded focus is ecological restoration and biological uplift — the foundation of our vision for The Great Green Way. Since 2024, we have completely restored many malls including 73rd Street, 83rd Street, 164th Street, and more, removing invasive English ivy and replanting with dozens of native species from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. These landscapes do more than beautify Broadway — they create an essential habitat for local pollinators, birds, and bats, and become ecological corridors.

    Founded in 1980 by Eugene Hide after years of fiscal-crisis neglect, BMA began as a grassroots effort to restore Broadway’s planted promenades and became a nonprofit in 1987.

    Today, as millions of New Yorkers live around and traverse Broadway – from the Upper West Side to Washington Heights – BMA is reimagining the malls, through restoration and community stewardship, as a continuous, climate-resilient greenscape.

    — broadwaymall.org

  3. Los Círculos team receives Lumen Award 

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    Los Círculos at Plaza de las Americas. Photo: Cameron Blaylock
    Los Círculos at Duarte Triangle. Photo: Cameron Blaylock
    Los Círculos at Plaza de las Americas. Photo: Cameron Blaylock
    Los Círculos at Duarte Triangle. Photo: Cameron Blaylock
    Los Círculos at Plaza de las Americas. Photo: Cameron Blaylock
    Los Círculos at Duarte Triangle. Photo: Cameron Blaylock
    Los Círculos at Plaza de las Americas. Photo: Cameron Blaylock
    Los Círculos at Duarte Triangle. Photo: Cameron Blaylock
    Los Círculos at Plaza de las Americas. Photo: Cameron Blaylock
    Los Círculos at Duarte Triangle. Photo: Cameron Blaylock
    Los Círculos at Plaza de las Americas. Photo: Cameron Blaylock

    We’re thrilled to share that Los Círculos has been recognized with a 2026 Lumen Citation Award in the Public Space Activation category. Organized by the New York City Section of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IESNYC), the Lumen Awards celebrate projects that demonstrate excellence in design, technical achievement, and the transformative power of light. IESNYC honored this year’ recipients at the 58th Annual Lumen Gala, held on June 18, 2026 at Pier 60 at Chelsea Piers. Read more about the event in Inside Lighting.

    Jury member Burr Rutledge of Kugler Ning Lighting noted, “With its artistic abstraction, the lighting relates directly to the people and the place, gives the public space a clear and meaningful presence, and addresses safety and equity in an underserved area.”

    On view through July 2026 at Plaza de las Americas and David Friedland Square, Los Círculos is inspired by how people form circles for dancing, celebration, and gathering. This multi-site lighting installation aims to increase a sense of joy, unity, and belonging in Washington Heights. Los Círculos is designed by Marvel and produced by Community League of the Heights (CLOTH) and Van Alen Institute, in collaboration with a coalition of neighborhood organizations and design experts.

    The full project team includes:

    • Producers: Community League of the Heights, Van Alen Institute
    • Designer: Marvel
    • Lighting Designer: Buro Happold
    • Structural Engineer: TYLin
    • Fabricator: A05 Studio
    • Community Partners: Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Juan Pablo Duarte Foundation, NewYork-Presbyterian, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, United Palace
    • City Partners: NYC Department of Small Business Services, NYC Department of Transportation, NYC Department of Parks
    Learn more
    Common Build
    Ongoing

    Los Círculos

    On view October 1, 2025–July 2026, this award-winning lighting installation encourages gathering and interaction in Washington Heights.
    See Project
    Ongoing

    Common Build

    Surfacing the work of emerging designers and testing new strategies to bring people together in public space.
    See Project

  5. Dear Neighbor: Community Interviews with Tiffany Baker

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    About

    Has flooding in Gowanus impacted you? We want to hear from you!

    Coming in Spring 2025, Tiffany Baker’s Dear Neighbor, project is a multi-site campaign and art showcase spotlighting the experiences of Gowanus residents impacted by flooding, depicted through experiential murals, audio recordings and abstracted portraits. The project aims to reflect how neighbors across the community care and support each other through a public, visual display of their stories.

    Sign up to share your story at recording sessions held at Van Alen Institute at the following times:

    Wednesdays, 3–6pm:
    January 15, 22, and 29

    Thursdays, 3–6pm:
    January 16 and 23

    Reserve your time here.

    Dear Neighbor, is part of our multiyear initiative Points of Promise, which creates public art and design tools that support civic engagement and foster connection among Gowanus residents in the midst of significant neighborhood redevelopment.

    Sign up to share your story

  6. Tiffany Baker

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    Tiffany Baker (she/her) is a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based visual artist, working in oil, acrylic, pencil, digital media, and glass. Tiffany works in a unique style of realist portraiture marked by vibrant palettes and considered attention to her subject’s grooming, often merging somber, regal, and mundane themes, bringing forth her subject’s essence. In her portraiture, she transmutes life experiences into emotive visual expressions that reimagine trauma, embed messages of connection, and celebrate her identity as a Black woman.

  7. Immanuel Oni

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    Immanuel Oni is a first-generation Nigerian-American artist and space doula living between New York City and hometown Houston, TX. He believes design is not about what he is making, but who he is making it for. As for art, it is religion. His work explores loss, memory, and its deep connection with space. He utilizes spatial justice design and visual storytelling to unearth narratives related to trauma, healing, and ritual. His canvas consists of repurposing existing public space infrastructure such as light posts, fencing, underutilized green areas or mobile spaces to prompt community dialogue and connection. His aim is to fuse the physical with the spiritual. He has led and participated in international art and urbanism workshops in Venice, Hong Kong, and Lagos. He has been a Fellow for the Design Trust for Public Space, Culture Push, New York for Culture and Arts, More Art Engaging Artist Commission NY, and received awards from Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts NY, Office of Neighborhood Safety, Architectural League of New York, the New York State Council of the Arts, and commissioned by Fourth Arts Block (FABnyc) as the artist for the Chrystie Street African Burial Ground Memorial Installation in the Lower East Side. He is a former Director of Community Design at the New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and Adjunct Professor at Parsons the New School for Design. He is the co-founder and Creative Director of Liminal, a non-profit that works at the intersection of art, unity, and space.

  8. Lynn Neuman

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    Lynn Neuman is a national leading eco-artist known for programs and performances layered with involvement and action. She has created 45 works for Artichoke Dance, been commissioned to create 22 works for other groups and directed nine operas. Her site specific work has been commissioned by The Soraya, connecting California State University with Los Angeles River restoration, Waterfront Alliance, reflecting on the effects of sea level rise, Texas A&M, engaging with water use and rights in the desert southwest, and National Gallery of Art, for Voices of the Ocean.

    Source

  9. Curry J. Hackett

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    Curry J. Hackett is a transdisciplinary designer, visual artist, and educator exploring Black relationships to land, media, and memory. A Farmville, Virginia native, his work operates across scales and mediums to speculate on the aesthetics and ecologies of the American South.

    Curry’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and Metropolis, among others. He has exhibited at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville, the Architectural Association School of Architecture, and Making Home, the 2025 Smithsonian Design Triennial at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

    Curry holds architecture degrees from Howard University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and currently serves as Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

  10. Rodolfo Kusulas

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    Rodolfo Kusulas is a transdisciplinary creator with a deep passion for social innovation and sustainability who uses his work as a tool to help communities thrive. With experience working internationally, he has a background in industrial design, extensive experience in branding, product and retail. After winning a global competition for the 140th anniversary of Heineken, Kusulas joined VBAT as a creative in the Latin American office. Since 2018, he’s developed programmatic design and creative community development work with KOUS studio, which he co-founded in 2016, and in collaboration with artists and nonprofit organizations.