Due to heavy rain in the forecast, tonight’s High Line Tour: From Freight to Flowers has been canceled. We look forward to seeing you on a future tour!
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Azikiwe Mohammed & Quest to Learn Middle School
Potential Futures #15, 2023
The High Line, in collaboration with Quest to Learn Middle School, presents Potential Futures #15, a new immersive installation by Azikiwe Mohammed with participating students from Quest to Learn. This installation is the inaugural art commission for Art Off Line, the High Line’s community-driven art program. For Potential Futures #15, Azikiwe Mohammed worked with 6th- and 7th-grade students over the course of three months to develop the concept for a site-specific installation at Quest to Learn in response to the themes determined by the students—space, nature, and nature in space.
Through a collaborative creative process with Mohammed, students made drawings that reflected their fascination with outer space, including diagrams of black holes, quasars, constellations, stars, and other space phenomena. These elements playfully interact with contrasting visuals like humorous drawings of loaves of bread and eyes, as well as leaves and butterflies—directly linking the project to the nature found on the High Line. Mohammed then synthesized the students’ work into the visuals for the installation, resulting in light-hearted stained-glass style windows and dreamy images of the earth’s atmosphere on printed fabric covering the walls. The result is an outdoor-like space, where students can relax and feel connected to nature and the outside world, even when inside.
Learn more on the blog
Artist bio
Azikiwe Mohammed (b. 1983, New York, New York) lives and works in New York City. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at institutions including Transformer, Washington, DC (2022); The Seaport, New York, New York (2021); SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia (2019); and Knockdown Center, Maspeth, New York (2017). He has participated in recent group exhibitions including because I am that, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, California (2022); Elegies: Still Lifes in Contemporary Art, MoAd, San Francisco, California, and Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia; and This Is The Day, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas (2021).
The High Line is a public park built on a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side. Saved from demolition by neighborhood residents and the City of New York, the High Line opened in 2009 as a hybrid public space where visitors experience nature, art, and design. Through work with communities on and off the High Line, the organization is devoted to reimagining the role public spaces have in creating connected, healthy neighborhoods and cities.
Quest to Learn Middle School Student Artists:
Brian Castro
Christopher Reyes
Che Coppin
Diego Urbina
Isabelle Gonzalez
Jenabu Ceesay
Jennifer Castillo
Joshua Wilson
Julian Crosby
Londyn Etheridge
Melanie Almanzar
Michael Zika English
Orion Bupphavesa
Paloma Mayo
Persephone Axelbank
Telula Rose Shapiro
Wilder Garcia Harto
Vanessa Cielo
Jenna Castillo
Dashaun Briggs
Arthur Alcoff
Adam Cottoy
Renn Thompson
Jacob Munoz
Jaden James
Jasper Lefer
Archer Ruiz
Milai Sakai
Sasha Rael
Hex Owens
Elliot Page
Support
Lead support for High Line Art comes from Amanda and Don Mullen.
Thank you to Chris Schilling; Quest to Learn Assistant Principal, Brian Pew; and Quest to Learn Principal, Marina Galazidis.
