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Youth Educational Spaceship Project Lands at Learning Village in Downtown Las Vegas Nov. 15-Dec. 8

Youth Educational Spaceship Project Lands at Learning Village in Downtown Las Vegas Nov. 15-Dec. 8

Youth Educational Spaceship Project Lands at Learning Village in Downtown Las Vegas Nov. 15-Dec. 8
Youth Educational Spaceship (Y.E.S.) project is landing in downtown Las Vegas! Y.E.S. is a mobile spaceship classroom built from repurposed and found objects by artist Dana Albany, together with kids from San Francisco’s Tenderloin and Hunters Point neighborhoods. 

Y.E.S. is opening with an “Alien Welcome Home Party” tomorrow night (Friday) from 6 to 9 p.m. It’s family-friendly and guests are encouraged to come in costume for spaceship tours, demos and a robotic BBQ serving alien-themed food and drink. Artist Kal Spelletich and Dana Albany will be there as well.

Y.E.S. delivers a collaborative art program for youth that gives them time and space to create, participate, and then exhibit their work, while engaging in a hands-on experience focusing on art and technology. The program’s arrival in Las Vegas is a collaboration between Burning Man Project and Las Vegas’ Downtown Project.

Y.E.S. will land in at the Learning Village, located at 727 Fremont Street, on Friday, November 15 and remain docked in downtown Las Vegas through December 8, before taking off to its next stop in a country-wide tour. The interactive art installation is a whimsically crafted, 11’ tall by 12’ in diameter spaceship adorned with mosaics that doubles as an immersive learning experience, encouraging kids to learn through play as they hop inside the hatch and step out of this world. The life-size spacecraft is complete with a fog machine, soundscape, vibration interface, robotic voice adaptation system and interactive TV monitor/camera streaming educational content. A unique LED light installation has the capacity to run 130 different light sequences. Children can explore art, science and technology through a variety of family-friendly programming including spaceship tours, mosaic workshops using recycled materials, wiring demos and interactive robotic demos.

Y.E.S. will offer free, public tours and experiential programming for youth at designated times throughout its stay at the Learning Village. To demonstrate the spacecraft’s collective creation process, each child and adult will have the opportunity to make their own star or planet during the mosaic workshops. On December 8, Y.E.S. will culminate in a closing ceremony and children’s art show.

For more information about programming and to reserve passes for community tour dates, please visit: https://ticketcake.com/venue/learning-village/las-vegas.

PUBLIC VIEWING TIMES

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DECEMBER

The Y.E.S. Project began with the construction of a beautifully crafted steel frame, 12’ in diameter and 11’ tall with an acrylic observation dome on top. Then a mesh and fiberglass shell created a blank canvas for children and community members to collectively create a mosaic, spaceship shell out of repurposed materials. There is a hatch that opens and whimsical stairs that allow visitors to enter the spacecraft’s interior. Inside, a TV monitor is installed with interchanging videos of space education, travel and a film directed by youth that captures “what life is like on Earth” from a child’s perspective. There is a fog machine, soundscape, vibration interface and an LED light installation with the capacity to run 130 different light sequences, as well as an interactive monitor/camera, a robotic microphone voice adaptation and a unique, interactive space control panel.

Children from the Tenderloin, Bayview/Hunter’s Point Boys & Girls Club of San Francisco were given the opportunity to help create a spacecraft under the guidance of many artists skilled in several disciplines. During the course of three months, the children made model spaceships and created mosaic stars and imaginary planets out of recycled glass, mirror, tiles, and repurposed objects collected at Recology and Building Resources. Their work adorns the exterior of the spacecraft. At the Crucible, the kids learned how to make fused glass tiles and the art of glass sand-casting, which has been installed in the interior. During the formation of the spacecraft they were engaged in discussions about recycling, creative reuse, environmentalism, solar energy, LED lighting, photography, soundscape creation, robotics, space travel and astronomy.

Y.E.S. will continue to travel serving as a future model of a mobile classroom for science and art education. It will dock at schools, art and science centers, museums and playgrounds. The project has been made possible by the generous support, funding and sponsorship from Burning Man Project, Black Rock Arts Foundation, Black Rock City, LLC, the Exploratorium, Maker’s Faire, the Crucible and private donors.

For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/YouthEducationalSpacecraftProject.

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