Redwood City Awarded $25,000 Arts Grant

REDWOOD CITY, CA — The City of Redwood City announced the award of a $25,000 National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) grant to support a new public art installation called the Pirate Ship which will be locatedon the San Francisco Bay Trail and next to the Redwood Shores Library branch. The grant award will support community engagement activities and design planning for the public art installation.

The Pirate Ship was created by artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov and will be designed as a fully functioning art sculpture and a permanent feature offering an imaginative play space and library space next to the Redwood Shores library branch located at 399 Marine Parkway. The art installation will serve the community at large by encouraging fantasy, conversation, social interaction, and play. As part of the public art process, the artists will work directly with park designers and the community to fully integrate the structure into the site location.

The National Endowment of the Arts grant will be used to support the oversight, youth art competition and the development of the Pirate Ship shade sails. The grant award will be used to support a local effort with school children in Redwood City to illustrate and publish Ilya Kabakov's granddaughter's short story, which will feature local children's drawings.

The Pirate Ship public art installation is the first permanent art work of the local collaboration between the Bay Trail, Association of Bay Area Governments, City of Redwood City, Redwood City Civic Cultural Commission and Fung Collaboratives known as Migrations. Migrations, an ongoing public art initiative to support art along the Bay Trail seeks to provide temporary and permanent public art on the Bay Trail and partner with Cities in the region to activate local trail systems. The City of Redwood City was the first local government agency to support Migrations within San Mateo County. The City worked closely with Fung Collaboratives on both the acquisition of the Pirate Ship as well as the application for the NEA Grant. Fung Collaboratives is an arts organization that leads the development of curatorial, commercial, and educational events under a single organizational umbrella.

Ilya Kabakov is credited as the founder of the Installation Art movement which continues to thrive today. He works with his wife Emilia realizing major exhibitions and has work in major museum and private collections around the world. The Pirate Ship is Ilya and Emilia Kabakov's first permanent public artwork and park design in the United States. With the assistance of the NEA grant and following extensive community engagement through design meetings, the Pirate Ship installation is planned to open in 2019.

For more information about the City of Redwood City's public art program and the Civic Cultural Commission, go to www.redwoodcity.org/publicart and for more about the City of Redwood City Public Library go to www.redwoodcity.org/library.

— SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION BY: City of Redwood City / Patch file photo by Renee Schiavone