The Tempestry Project is a global climate data visualization project through fiber arts. Tempestries (also temperature tapestries) use colored yarn and temperature data for creating a recognizable and globally comparable mosaic. With the help of 38 volunteer knitters and crocheters, in 2019 a collection of Tempestries for Philadelphia was created for the period from 1875 to 2018. Each Tempestry shows the daily high temperatures for a given year, representing the shifting temperatures over time.

In conjunction with the exhibition “We All Fall Down: Artists Respond to the Emerald Ash Borer” Anthony Heinz May sculpted Buprestid Insulae. The artwork grows out of the trunk out of a dying ash tree and appears to become pixelated, even eventually to dissolve into the air.

As part of the Schuylkill Center’s first LandLab residents, Jake Beckman explored the soil cycle. Unpacking the various components of soil – including stone, wood, leaves, and soil organisms – Future Non-Object #1 is a testimony to natural formation and decay.

Rain Yard is an interactive artwork in the Schuylkill Center’s Sensory Garden since 2013. The installation serves both a practical functions mitigating stormwater runoff from our buildings and an interpretive functions highlighting the critical role that soil and plants play in the water cycle. The renown environmental artist, Stacy Levy, created the artwork in collaboration with ecologists, engineers, designers, educators and horticulturists.

Along with the installation the Schuylkill Center developed an engaging graphic book about water, stormwater runoff, and the project.

Installed by the artist with the support of staff and volunteers, Welcome Home is Schuylkill Center’s first explorations in the intersection of art and land restoration. The installation creates a literal home for native plants while serving as a visual education tool by demarcating the differences between protected native plant communities and unprotected, highly invaded landscapes.