East Brooklyn, something exciting is coming
The East Flatbush
People’s Museum of
Love and Wonder
Opening in autumn of 2025 for you to wonder as you wander
About
the Museum
The East Flatbush People’s Museum of Love and Wonder Is a co-created community museum inspired and activated by and through the voices, lives and stories of the people of East Flatbush, Brooklyn.
The East Flatbush People’s Museum of Love and Wonder will occupy multiple spaces within the interior and exterior of the Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center. The museum celebrates art and creativity as a vital ingredient of wholeness and wellness.
Why Love
& Wonder?
Love and wonder shapes the substance of our lives, memories and stories. too often our stories are told to the world through the lens of pain and trauma—but we know that are love, care, joy and creativity enlivening the living fabric of our lives and the world around us. we choose to celebrate our places of love in the wonder of our lives and communities.
Unbought & Unbossed!
The Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center in East Flatbush, Brooklyn will honor Brooklyn-born Congress Member Shirley Chisholm for her trail-blazing career as the first African American woman to serve in the House of Representatives and as the first woman and African American to seek the presidential nomination. The center is designed to serve as a hub for community events and outreach programs, providing a safe and welcoming space for the community to come together and engage with one another.
Upon its completion, the state-of the art recreation center will offer a host of programming offerings and amenities to encourage learning, recreation, and community and civic engagement. The center's features will include multipurpose rooms; a gymnasium; a walking track; an indoor swimming pool; fitness, strength, and cardio rooms; and a teaching kitchen. The center will also include a media lab named in honor of Dr. Roy A. Hastick, Sr. A Grenadian emigrant and community stalwart, Dr. Hastick founded the Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry and served on a number of economic development and community boards to advocate on behalf of the East Flatbush community.
Meet the Community
Artist Facilitator
vanessa german is a self-taught citizen artist working across sculpture, performance, communal rituals, immersive installation, and photography. Her practice proposes new models for social healing, utilizing creativity, tenderness, and connection as vital forces of reckoning, redemption, and transformation. As a citizen artist, vanessa german’s artistic practice is centered in the power of art, love, and the collective creative power of human beings. She is the founder of THE ARTHOUSE and Love Front Porch, which offered open communal creative space for the residents of Homewood, Pittsburgh, PA.
german’s public art works include THE MUSEUM OF EMANCIPATORY OBJECTS, a co-created, experientially devised museum of objects and performance at Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in 2022, and THE SPIRIT HOUSE for Hazelwood Green, a community co-created structure in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2022, and OF THEE WE SING, part of Monument Lab and Beyond Granite’s inaugural art exhibition on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
In the spring of 2023 vanessa german was selected as the NYC Percent for Art Artist for the Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center. Established to support artists and enrich the cultural landscape, the NYC Percent for Art program ensures that art is accessible to all New Yorkers, transforming everyday environments into vibrant, inspiring spaces.
Engage
with us!
Check our calendar for activations within the community! Tell us the neighborhood places, people, and memories that inspire you!
Be part of our community quilt-making workshops! location tba!
This activity is perfect for families and people of all ages. You will have the opportunity to be a small artifact/object to contribute to the quilt, to make a new small ceramic artifact, to bring in words, images and your own creativity into this stunning work of art that will live in the East Flatbush people’s museum of love and wonder!
Share your voice
be apart of the artwork
Want to see your prompts come to life? You can !
The East Flatbush People’s Museum of Love and Wonder will occupy multiple spaces within the interior and exterior of the Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center and are accessible with center membership.