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The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation is pleased to announce the exhibition of Lina Puerta’s first public art project, soon to be on view at Manuel de Dios Unanue Park at the intersection of Roosevelt Avenue, 83^rd Street and Baxter Avenue in Queens. Puerta’s artwork, entitled Confesiones desde el Veintre, pays tribute to the powerful life stories of immigrant women from Central and South America.

Confesiones desde el Veintre, which translates as "confessions from the womb," originated from Puerta’s interviews with twelve women she met while teaching ceramics workshops at non-profit community organizations in Jackson Heights, Queens. Nestled in a busy triangle park adjacent to the elevated 7 train, Puerta’s seven teardrop-shaped sculptures will be lifted into the canopy of trees on 15-foot poles. Sewn from colorful synthetic fabric, the sculptures cradle small figures within blue plastic mesh. Each sculpture is further adorned with designs inspired by pre-Columbian symbols of power and other elements making specific reference to each woman’s story.

"I am interested in these women’s struggles as well as their dreams, their small and big victories, their fears and desires," says Puerta. "The project is named Confesiones desde el Veintre because of the solace and strength we find in the deepest part of ourselves—an intimate psychological place that I associate with our beginnings in the womb."

This project is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a grant program of the New York State Council on the Art, administered by the Queens Council on the Arts. Additional support was provided by Council Member Helen Sears, Independent Community Bank Foundation, Fairfield Processing Company, Terraza Café, Centro Educativo Bolivariano, and Art for Change.

Lina Puerta is a New York artist who retains strong ties to her Colombian heritage. Puerta studied art and ceramics at Queens College and Greenwich House Pottery in New York City and at Institute Lorenzo de Medici in Florence, Italy. Puerta’s clay and mixed media sculptures have been exhibited at the Colombian Consulate of New York, the Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center, the Novoarte Gallery in New York, the Dinnerware Gallery in Tuscon, Arizona, and in association with the Rockaway Artist Alliance in Queens and the Greenwich Pottery House.

Parks & Recreation’s temporary public art program has consistently fostered the creation and installation of temporary public art in parks throughout the five boroughs. Since 1967, collaborations with arts organizations and artists have produced hundreds of public art projects in City parks. Committed to the exhibition of art by emerging and established artists, Parks & Recreation has supported projects ranging from international exhibitions in flagship parks to local, community works in neighborhood parks and traffic islands.