Field Guide | Socrates Sculpture Park

About

Explore Socrates’ unique environment with a series of experimental workshops that combine art making with natural materials, gardening, experiments in sustainability, that celebrate the senses.

Workshops weave together planting, drawing, sound recording, plant and tree identification, learning about medicinal properties of indigenous plants, pickling, bookmaking, and experiments in bioplastics. These workshops will also explore mindfulness techniques, seeking to grow our shared awareness of the natural cycles of the park, and our senses.

The series will result in a book: Field Guide, A Community-made Book of Knowledge, that will be both a collaborative artwork and a guide to the ecology of the park.

These workshops are free, hands on, open to all ages, families and individuals, and any skill level.

RSVP required. Workshops are about 2 hours long. Masks are required, and space is limited to ensure social distancing is possible.

Workshops will be offered to visiting summer camps in July and August. If your camp is interested, please email Douglas Paulson.

All Ages Welcome • Pre-Registration Required • Free!

Field Guide 2023

Queens Green Day: Soil Jam 2023 ->

Saturday, April 23 • 11AM – 5PM

Planting Workshop –>

Saturday, May 6 • 11AM – 1PM • Pre-Registration Required • 20 Participants • All Ages Welcome • Free!

Planting workshop with Anna Poaster

Bioplastics Fashion Show –>

Saturday, May 13 • 11AM – 1PM • Pre-Registration Required • 20 Participants • All Ages Welcome • Free!

Bioplastic Fashion Show with Douglas Paulson and Jeannette Rodríguez Píneda

Planting Workshop 2 –>

Saturday, June 3 • 11AM – 1PM • Pre-Registration Required • 20 Participants • All Ages Welcome • Free!

Planting workshop with Anna Poaster

Tree Rings Reading & Workshop –>

Saturday, June 10 • 11AM – 1PM • Pre-Registration Required • 20 Participants • All Ages Welcome • Free!

Tree Rings Readings and Workshop with Heidi Neilson of SP Weather Station

Vessels – From Residing Lands –>

Saturday, July 8 • 11AM – 1PM • Pre-Registration Required • 20 Participants • All Ages Welcome • Free!

Vessels – From Residing Lands with Marcela Torres

Water-mania! Are you Hydrophilic or Hydrophobic? –>

Saturday, July 22 • 11AM – 1PM • Pre-Registration Required • 20 Participants • All Ages Welcome • Free!

Water-mania!: Are you Hydrophilic or Hydrophobic? with with Christina Delfico of IDig2Learn

Seedbanking Workshop –>

Saturday, August 5 • 11AM – 1PM • Pre-Registration Required • 20 Participants • All Ages Welcome • Free!

Seedbanking workshop with Anna Poaster

Deep Listening: Sonic Connections –>

Saturday, August 12 • 11AM – 1PM • Pre-Registration Required • 20 Participants • All Ages Welcome • Free!

Deep Listening: Sonic Connections with Pam Reyes

Nature Team Ups: Interspecies Dependencies –>

Saturday, September 9 • 11AM – 1PM • Pre-Registration Required • 20 Participants • All Ages Welcome • Free!

Nature Team Ups: Interspecies Dependencies with Christina Delfico

Harvest Fire Feast –>

Saturday, September 23 • 11AM – 1PM • Pre-Registration Required • 20 Participants • All Ages Welcome • Free!

Harvest Fire Feast with Marcela Torres

Field Guide Educators

Kim Calichio

Kim Calichio is the Co-Founder and Director of The Connected Chef. The Connected Chef is a grass-roots, community organization re-envisioning food access to ensure that every household has local, nutritious food. Through their sliding scale Lifeline Grocery program, they source fresh ingredients from farms in NY/NJ/PA and deliver weekly groceries to over 700 households across Queens.

Christina Delfico

Christina Delfico is the founder of iDig2Learn, which allows children and their families to explore science and the origin of food through plant life. Plants serve as the gateway to lifelong discovery of all the living things in our water, sky, and land. When one stops and truly sees the marvels of all things, big and small, one can better protect them recognizing how vital they are to our life on earth.

Christina’s early career was dedicated to creating and producing children’s media with Sesame Workshop which helped her recognize the joy of learning at every age. iDig2Learn is a project of Open Space Institute, Inc. a nonprofit 501(c)3 public charity.

Heidi Neilson

Heidi Neilson is a Queens-based interdisciplinary artist working in multiple mediums including radio transmissions, sound, prints, books, sculpture, electronics and video. Her recent work includes Moon Arrow, an electronic arrow which continually points at the moon (and was seen at Socrates in recent years), and Here GOES Radiotelescope, a sculptural seat-like radio station for receiving images of the earth from a weather satellite. www.heidineilson.com

Douglas Paulson

Socrates’ Director of Education Douglas Paulson is a Queens-based artist who loves the sounds of spring. Doug’s practice is expansive, weaving together sprawling social projects in public space; to intimate drawings, books, and sound experiments. www.douglaspaulson.com

Anna Poaster

Anna Poaster is one of the farmers at Hellgate Farm. Hellgate is a network of residential gardens in Queens, NYC a site in Canaan, NY. The organization promotes urban gardening, responsible land stewardship, and a permaculture lifestyle within their community. The Farm aims to provide opportunities for people interested in these practices to connect and learn, as well as to share in the abundance of the harvest.

As a Queens resident, Anna manages Hellgate’s nursery and compost operations and is excited about all things agricultural.

Pamela Reyes

Pam Reyes is an artist, musician and art educator based in Austin, Texas by way of Queens, New York. Pam has taught art at The Noguchi Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, The New Museum, and a K-8 private school. Pam is currently pursuing her Masters in Art Education at The University of Texas at Austin. One of her favorite pastimes is writing songs on long walks with her two rescue dogs.

Jeannette Rodriguez-Pineda

Jeannette Rodríguez Píneda is a Dominican-American mixed media artist and educator using antiquarian emulsion-based processes as a means of remembering soils called home. They have an intergenerational teaching practice rooted in love ethic as liberation that spans across the five boroughs of New York City.

Marcela Torres

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, living in transit between Chicago and Brooklyn. Torres received a BA in Sculpture Intermedia and a BFA in Art History from the University of Utah, continuing their studies in MFA in Performance form School of the Art Institute Chicago. Torres has performed at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, NE), The Momentary (Bentonville, AK), Fringe Festival (Detroit, MI), Experimental Actions (Houston, TX) and Time Based Arts (Portland, Oregon). Torres has exhibited work at Recess (Brooklyn, NY), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL) UW-Parkside University (Kenosha, WI), Tropical Contemporary (Eugene, OR), Petzel Gallery (NYC, NY) In 2021 Torres will be a resident at Creative Exchange Lab at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts.

SUPPORT

Free education programs at Socrates Sculpture Park are made possible with generous support from Con Edison, The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, The Pinkerton Foundation, and Stavros Niarchos Foundation with additional support provided, in part, by public funds from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.