As New York City continues to emerge from the dark days of the pandemic that sent it reeling well into the early spring of this year, a new effort has been put forth led by local artists and design studios to help the city’s eight million residents reconnect via a series of public installations spread throughout the five boroughs. 

The latest in this series will help turn a usually overlooked park in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City into an eye-catching space for community engagement thanks to a temporary installation from Hive Public Spaces and The Urban Conga.

Activated by the park’s mostly unwitting users, Ribbon attempts to intervene in their day-to-day pedestrian activity, offering play as an intervention through a network of malleable magenta “units” made of mirrored boxes which reveal the surrounding built environment while at the same time serving as guideposts that challenge the way in which space itself is perceived. 

Each unit contains a love note written to Long Island City by one of its denizens encased in a QR code and meant as conversation starters between members of the highly diverse community. 

The project was brought together thanks to a collaborative effort between the Long Island City Partnership and New York’s Parks and Recreation Department, with design help from Boyce Technologies and organizational support from several area businesses. Once completed, the units will be reinstalled in other parts of the city in the hopes they might spread a message of unity at a time when the renewal of human connection is so critical.