Share Your Story
Experience the transformative power of community and art at our new exhibit, Share Your Story: Multisensory Storytelling for Transformative Healing, presented by Brooklyn FAM: Festival of Arts and Music. On view at Brooklyn Children’s Museum from December 6, 2023 to March 31, 2024, this exhibition showcases three participatory public art projects that weave together the diverse voices of Brooklyn.
Collectively, these projects are the culmination of a year-long process of community engagement and artistic expression. Share Your Story is both a showcase and an example of how art and personal stories intersect, fostering understanding and connection among the artists, participants, and you—the viewer. We invite you to join us in celebrating the spirit of community, the process of healing, and the impactful nature of participatory public art.
Patchwork Quilt
Discover Patchwork Quilt by master quilter Sylvia Hernandez, intricately stitched from 120 squares created by Brooklyn children and adults across 8 Brooklyn FAM events. Each square narrates a personal story of growth, healing, and joy. As a whole, the squares collectively form the shape of Brooklyn, overlaid atop a tree with exposed roots, honoring our individual voices while symbolizing our interconnectedness and mutuality. On view on BCM’s 2nd floor, between ColorLab and the café.
Shine Your Light
Shine Your Light is a 6×6-foot mobile structure that expresses Brooklyn community members’ personal stories of hope, joy, love, and light shining through the darkness. Designed and created by Flatbush-based folk artist Ellie d’Eustachio, the knit frame features a radiating sun, cloud, bird in flight, and, in the upper left corner, a special NYC peace bird, a symbolic wish for all, both here and abroad. The project was activated with the community by Ellie and fashion and textile designer Hekima Hapa at Brooklyn FAM’s 3rd annual flagship festival in October at the Prospect Park Boathouse. On view in BCM’s lobby.
A Tree Comes Alive in Brooklyn
In A Tree Comes Alive in Brooklyn, children and high schoolers worked together to attach fabric flags, leaves, flowers, and insects to a tree structure designed and created by integrative healing artist Magalí Wilensky. The piece aims to raise awareness about hate crimes among Brooklyn’s youth and to honor personal stories about our roots, aspirations, and joys. On view on BCM’s lower level, in the Oyster City exhibit / beach area.
About Brooklyn FAM
Brooklyn FAM is a 501(c)(3) arts nonprofit that holds safe, welcoming space for the borough’s diverse communities to come together to share, listen, connect, create, and, in creating, build new understandings and relationships. Their vision is a borough where difference draws us towards one another.