Onondaga Lake Art Project Proposal

To-Do List:

Create a Powerpoint Presentation- Tim
Write a more formal short essay- Courtney
Get pictures and other visual representations-Everyone
Take another trip to Onondaga Lake Park- Tim
Finish Handout Questions- Everyone
Finalize all of our ideas- Everyone
Plan our presenation-Everyone


We're meeting at 5 tomorrow in order to plan out everything about our presentation

For our project we will act as an art curator in a way, and try to integrate the community members of Onondaga County to interact and support the cleanup of Onondaga Lake. We want to be able to create a “trash sculpture” utilizing the trash found in and around the lake. The project will be always changing and evolving because community members will be encouraged to clean up the physical trash around the lake and add their trash onto the sculpture. We got this idea from seeing similar “trash sculptures” on the beaches in Montauk, New York and Block Island, Rhode Island, where trash and other debris that washed up on the beaches were put together in a somewhat unorganized yet artistic fashion. As the lake gets cleaner and more trash is picked up, the sculpture will become bigger and more intricate. The trash sculpture should be placed in the Onondaga Lake Park because it is easily accessible, widely known throughout the area, and the most traveled/visited of sites located around the lake. In order to gain awareness and recognition for our project we will sponsor trash pick-up days on the first Saturday of every month, and put notification of the events in the local newspapers of Syracuse and place fliers throughout the city and its surrounding suburbs. We want to be able to work in this area, because of the lake’s rich history with pollution. We feel that almost all of the adults in the area are aware of the pollution problems associated with Onondaga Lake, and will be glad to help with the efforts of cleaning up the area while being able to gather, socialize and be creative in the lake park. We will get permission to work in the park, from the department that is in charge of the park. We would like to create an initial abstract sculpture using some materials like brass or other metal to provide an outline of where to add trash to in an artistic way. Our idea for this project was inspired by the lecture that Daniel Tucker gave to us in class, in which he told us about how he gathered community members in Chicago and used the warehouse as the headquarters in order to regain public space. The goal of this project is not only to physically clean the trash from the lake and highlight the various pollution problems surrounding the lake, but also to incorporate as many community members as possible. The success of this sculpture will be dependent on the interaction of the community, and will be measured by how much interaction and attention/publicity the sculpture achieves, and by how effectively it promotes lake clean-up awareness.