Prospect Park Alliance and NYC Parks have unveiled a new sculpture by artist and activist Molly Gochman at the Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park as part of NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks program. A work from the artist’s Monuments to Motherhood series, the fifteen-foot-tall bronze sculpture honors caregiving in all its forms, recognizing those who nurture, sustain, and support their communities—often in ways that go unseen. Across the country, public statuary rarely reflects these essential contributions, and the role of care remains largely overlooked in civic spaces. This sculpture offers a powerful acknowledgment of those whose labor holds society together and stands as a testament to the generations that came before us. The sculpture will be on view near the Grand Army Plaza Entrance for 1 year until May 2026.

The installation is accompanied by a season of programming at various sites, including family-friendly events in the spring and summer and a special gathering on Mother’s Day in Prospect Park, designed to engage the public in conversations about motherhood, caregiving, and how we honor our collective histories.

“This work is a monument to all of us, including the millions of people—parents, nurses, childcare workers, home health aides—who perform acts of care every day, often without recognition,” Molly Gochman shared. “It feels deeply resonant to bring this sculpture to Grand Army Plaza, a site of both public commemoration and everyday movement. My hope is that by engaging in dialogue about caregiving, we can illuminate its vital role and celebrate this universal and essential act.”

“Caregiving is truly an act of love—whether it’s tending to the soil to help plants grow, nurturing a little one taking their first steps, or sitting on a bench taking in the sun. We’re honored that Prospect Park is where Brooklynites come to care for themselves and each other—the park is truly a backbone that we all rely on for comfort and connection,” said Prospect Park Alliance President, Morgan Monaco. “The park is a natural fit as home to Monuments to Motherhood, as caregiving is embedded in so much of what we do at the Alliance through our work sustaining natural areas, fostering community, providing opportunities for wellness and more. Molly’s work is a powerful addition to Brooklyn’s monument landscape, and a step to ensure monuments reflect and honor the people who shape our communities through care and love.”

“It is so fitting that Monuments to Motherhood is taking its place in Prospect Park. Just as caregivers do, our public greenspaces make communities safer and stronger, helping New Yorkers connect with one another and find inspiration in the great outdoors. In turn, we care for our public parks through stewardship, ensuring these vital living resources remain resilient and healthy for generations to come,” said NYC Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue. “We’re proud to enhance our public spaces with world-class art installations like this, sparking moments of delight and reflection for New Yorkers and visitors alike. We’re grateful to the artist and our partners at the Prospect Park Alliance for bringing this thought-provoking piece to Brooklyn’s backyard.”

This series emerged from Gochman’s investigation into the public monument landscape, where she sought to challenge some of the prevailing narratives she discovered—dominated mostly by depictions of white men and glorifications of acts of war—and instead create a monument to the immaterial and essential act of care. Through this installation, Gochman continues her work of reshaping commemoration, offering a powerful reflection on caregiving, community and the narratives we choose to elevate in public space.

Gochman created the sculptures in the Monuments to Motherhood series using armatures built from repurposed household items, such as bowls, plastic wrap, and aluminum foil, that symbolize the hidden labor of care. These temporary structures served as the foundation for looping layers of epoxy clay coils, reflecting an interconnected network of relationships and mutual support. She then cast the sculptures at a large scale in bronze, a valuable material chosen for its association with high art and the traditional language of monuments, as well as for its ability to last longer than other metals while still holding the potential for alchemical changes. Participation is a central feature in Gochman’s artistic practice. When visitors touch these sculptures, the natural oils from their hands will, over time, subtly alter the patina. That evolving surface echoes the unpredictable, ongoing, and enduring imprint of care in all of our lives through an act of collective creation.

The Monuments to Motherhood project also includes a podcast series of the same name, exploring themes of caregiving, motherhood, artmaking, and monumentalization. 

Prospect Park Alliance and Art For Change, which connects socially conscious art collectors with in-demand contemporary artists and their work, have unveiled a large-scale public art exhibition in Grand Army Plaza: Park Of Dreams, on view through Spring 2024. The project is installed on the construction fencing of the iconic Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch, which is currently being restored, along with the Plaza and Berms, by Prospect Park Alliance through $8.9M in Mayoral funding. 

Park Of Dreams was made possible in part through a $25,000 grant from Assembly Member Brian Cunningham, with additional funding from Council Member Crystal Hudson. The project was undertaken through the City Canvas initiative of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and in partnership with NYC Parks. 

“The beloved Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch at Grand Army Plaza is a Brooklyn icon and its plaza is an important space for community dialogue and gathering. Art and creative expression is part of what makes Prospect Park so special, and we are honored to partner with Art For Change to present a new generation of artists in Brooklyn’s premier civic space while restoration is underway,” said Morgan Monaco, Prospect Park Alliance President.

“Park Of Dreams is one of Art For Change’s most exciting projects to date and we are thrilled to be working with Marcus Brutus, Kelly Beeman, Amy Lincoln, Jules de Balincourt, and Danielle Orchard amongst others,” says Art For Change Founder, Jeanne Masel. “Parks are a crucial part of any community and Prospect Park in particular holds a special place in my heart as a Brooklynite. Parks not only connect city dwellers to nature and offer a respite from the hustle and bustle, they support an incredible ecosystem of flora and fauna. Environmental conservation is a central tenet of Art For Change’s mission. Curating and producing this project enables us to leverage our deep relationships with artists and, in turn, show our respect for a park that is both a vital aspect of the Brooklyn community and an important ecosystem in itself.”

Park Of Dreams is a curated presentation of contemporary artworks by Marcus Brutus, Kelly Beeman, Alyssa Klauer, Danielle Orchard, Cydne Coleby, Jules De Balincourt, Amy Lincoln, Bianca Nemelc, Maria Calandra, Jon Key, Kirsten Deirup, and Na’ye Perez, which celebrates and supports Brooklyn’s beloved Prospect Park. The installation is accompanied by limited edition prints of each image available for purchase on the Art For Change website, with a portion of proceeds benefiting Prospect Park Alliance.

“The restoration of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch at Grand Army Plaza spotlights the majesty of Prospect Park, enabling all visitors to be in touch with nature and take in the art that permeates these vital public spaces. I am proud to allocate $25,000 to Prospect Park Alliance’s Park Of Dreams exhibit, which showcases Grand Army Plaza’s revival, highlighting some of New York’s most talented, local artists that inspire creativity among the thousands of visitors who pass by each week,” said Assembly member Brian Cunningham. 

“The social good that the arts and public parks bring to our communities is indisputable,” said Council Member Crystal Hudson. “The partnership between the Prospect Park Alliance and Art For Change is an ambitious project that will combine these civic goods and allow our neighbors to not only engage with their built environment in a special way but experience the work of renowned and burgeoning artists in an equally innovative way.”

Visit the Art for Change website for more information on this exciting project.

BRIC and Prospect Park Alliance in partnership with NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks program present a new installation by Sarah E. Brook at the Lena Horne Bandshell at Prospect Park. The Need You Know It Is A Letting Light is a set of three abstract wooden sculptures and an accompanying mural that expand the artist’s exploration of communication between external and internal psychic space. This is the first time sculpture will be present alongside a mural at the bandshell. The installation will be on view from Saturday, October 15, 2022 – Friday, May 5, 2023 with an opening celebration on Sunday, October 16 from 11am – 1pm. RSVP encouraged.

“Prospect Park Alliance is honored to once again partner with BRIC and the NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks program to bring this monumental multimedia work to Brooklyn’s Backyard,” said James Snow, Interim President of Prospect Park Alliance. “It is wonderful to have the opportunity to bring art to our community year-round at the Lena Horne Bandshell, and we look forward to experiencing this piece throughout the coming season with our neighbors and visitors.”

“Sarah E Brook’s bandshell installation will be the largest commission so far for the artist and, like the two installations that came before it, engages with the social and political issues of the moment,” said Jenny Gerow, Curator of the mural and Contemporary Art Curator at BRIC. “A refreshing take on identity, the piece is less of a declaration of one’s self through figuration and instead a deep desire through form to engage and open up a discussion about how one’s identity is formed, such as through society and one’s environment. Brooks’ work is quiet and introspective and, in that quietness, a real sense of possibility.”

The mural’s colors of red, yellow, and green are sourced from the natural beauty of Prospect Park, and both draws viewers in from the park and radiates out from the Bandshell and stage into the park, reflecting the function of a bandshell to expand voices. The repurposed wood sculptures respond to the mural’s colors, expressing warm-hued shadows that appear to be held within. The sculptures’ material communicate their singularity through wear – a crooked nail, an empty hole, a worn edge – and in their gentle leaning formation, the sculptures can be read as bodies supporting one another.

Sculptural abstraction, for Brook, is based on a commitment to creating spaces for queer, gender nonconforming, and trans folks to experiment with embodied perception, encouraging and affirming a multisensory experience of being whole in the world. Brook’s geometric sculptural forms utilize salvaged wood that both contains the history and identity of each particular piece and expands that singularity outward through painted gradients. They communicate the possibility of a selfhood that can be known and shared, and is, in fact, capable of moving beyond the confines of a body and environment.

Specificity for Brook is key to the possibility of vastness – it is not by leaving the particular self behind, but by moving deeply into the exact needs, desires, and knowings of that self that creates a path toward perceiving a wider world of creatively expanded possibilities. The specific and the infinite are intimately entwined. Brook’s relationship to expanding space is both personal and contextual, formed by the world around us. Nature, for Brook, is often a muse for testing out these possibilities, and the New York City park system has become a site for many of their interventions in space. Their understanding of expansiveness is influenced by their childhood in the Nevada desert as well as pioneering land and light artists of the Western United States Nancy Holt, Larry Bell, and Agnes Martin.

Brook is a longtime collaborator of BRIC; they were a BRIClab Artist-in-Residence in 2018 and a part of the 2019 BRIC Biennial in 2019.

Learn more about Brook and The Need You Know It Is A Letting Light