Rob Montenegro Art Piece at Oculus for Illumination NYC

Hello friends and art lovers!

As some of you know, some friends and I started The Illumination Light Art Festival several years ago in order to bring the spectacular installations and magic that I love so much from my years of participating at Burning Man to the NYC community at large. Our first year, we got to see this vision come to life at Under the K Bridge Park in 2021 where I exhibited one of my own creations called Chrysalis - an immersive projection mapped pyramid. Then we got to bring it back for Illumination Year 2 in Battery Park City in 2023. We are proud to now be on year 3 with a truly wonderful festival, free to the public, the first week of May!

This year I have the unique and incredible opportunity to create one of my artworks in the heart of Lower Manhattan - a large scale projection mapped project on the iconic Oculus transit terminal. The piece will run for 3 nights from sunset till 11pm May 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, in concert with the Illumination Light Art Festival which will be occurring on the same nights across the street in Battery Park.

The western facade of the building will be covered with an original animated art piece I created with help from Ksenia, Ryan McLendon, and Joji Otani-Hansen. It is a piece that explores the interconnectedness of humans and nature, and captures the essence of the coming of Spring... celebrating Beltane by setting a large flourish of color and beauty against the backdrop of the urban jungle. The piece will center around a few of the powerful women in my life who were (and are) the mother figures in my life, portraying them in their roles as Mother Nature, the way the each birthed me in their own ways. The fact that this piece is coming together around May 1st and the amount of help and collaboration that is responsible for bringing it to life is in a way making this my own May pole.

The Illumination team and I have spent months planning, permitting and organizing with the various entities that facilitate these projects on this amazing structure, and have the generous support of incredible sponsors such as FUSE Technical Group and a couple of private donors... we are SO close to achieving our fundraising goal to make this a reality. The money we have left to raise will go towards the costs of assembling the physical structure needed to house the projection units, engineering drawings, and power generators needed for the installation.

This will be the largest art piece I have ever led, and I humbly ask for your help in helping us make it happen. Not only will this piece be a wonder to witness, but because it is attached to the Illumination Light Art Festival, we believe that it will help us accelerate our mission in bringing these free to the public art works on a larger scale, and make NYC a destination for more festivals of this kind.

Please donate today to help me/us reach our goal. Thank you so very much!

/RM

More information about Illumination NYC: Our mission is to create large scale, free to the public art experiences that celebrate the medium of light for the New York City community.

www.illumination.nyc