By Kathianne Boniello
Days after the Sept. 11 attack on the Twin Towers, MS 67 fine arts teacher Anthony Ingoglia asked the students to do special projects in which they coupled images from newspapers and magazines with their own work to express their emotions.
The result of their work was a stunning collection of art that reflects the intensity of the students’ feelings about how the devastation of the terrorist attacks affected themselves and their city.
“Kids feel just as deeply as adults,” Ingoglia said.
While Ingoglia and Principal Mae Fong said the work helped the students to heal, they want to share that healing with the community.
To do so, the Little Neck school is hosting a two-hour dedication ceremony Wednesday, March 20, for its Twin Towers Memorial Walkway. A number of public officials and high-ranking members of the city fire and police departments, as well as the EMS and the Port Authority, are expected to attended.
The goal of the dedication ceremony, Fong said, is to let members of the Douglaston and Little Neck community who suffered a loss from the trade center attack meet the student artists and, hopefully, begin to move forward.
“I think it’s compelling,” Fong said of the artwork. “As the weeks go by you see how they’re healing because the images become more positive.
“I wanted it for the community, really,” she said. “We’re such a large presence in the community, why not come and see what the children of MS 67 are like?”
The March 20 dedication ceremony, an event Fong hopes includes as much of the community as possible, is slated to be a multimedia presentation utilizing the talents of about 300 students.
The school’s eighth- and ninth-grade orchestras will provide music as a virtual tour of the memorial walkway plays on a video screen. Students will speak about their work and children in MS 67’s home and careers skills class, who made memorial quilts for those in the community who suffered a loss, will present their quilts during the ceremony.
Fong said she felt it was important for the community to come out to the school and see the students’ work.
“These are the kids who some people have nothing good to say about,” she said. “And yet look at the power of their work.”
The principal also said the school would seek funding to move the artwork — which is currently set up in the school’s lobby — to a more permanent display in one of the building’s hallways.
For more information on the dedication call the school at 423-8138.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
