By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
LOWER EAST SIDE — A group of middle-schoolers saw their artwork immortalized in a city park as part of a public exhibition in which students weighed in on social issues by creating colorful lunchroom tables.
Students from the Lower East Side's Island School gathered at the top of Sara D. Roosevelt Park on East Houston Street Thursday to discuss their design, which addresses violence and poverty in the form of a board game illustrating the choices people make in life.
The project is part of the Learning through an Expanded Arts Program (LeAp) involving students from 10 schools throughout the city. The designs were originally unveiled in Union Square last month, with artists like Christo and Milton Glaser helping the students explore their chosen topics through a creative medium.
For example, the Island School's table featured a "Monopoly"-like game that lets players move forward for making positive choices, like walking away from a fight, and penalizes them for harmful decisions, like using drugs.
"We felt like putting it on a table and showing it to the world — it's like the table is talking without a voice," said student Luna Hernandez, 14, of the Lower East Side. "I know that passing by this park and seeing people staring at it is going to put a smile on my face."
Josie Gonzalez, a LeAp teaching assistant who instructed the Island School students, noted that "there was nothing that was out of bounds" when it came to some of the heavier issues discussed by the class, including sex and domestic violence.
"I think the fact that we went so deep with the topic, we touched a nerve," she added.
The director of LeAp's public art program, Alexandra Leff, reminded the students of the impact of their work being displayed in such a public setting.
"You guys are making history. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to come here," she said of the table's location in a busy section of the park. "There are artists throughout the city who would die to have their art in the park."
