A HARTS & VAL Project  (The Healing Arts Club of UMDNJ-RWJMS)

This fantastic plastic sculpture is from the Allenvale School in Christchurch, New Zealand. It has found a resting place from its travels outside Woody's at the University of Medicine and Dentistry-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ.

The piece was created by Tony King, (teacher) and the students of the Allenvale School (a school for children with special needs.) It is part of the project "THE GREAT PIPE DREAM" begun by New Zealand artist Henry Sunderland during the year 2002. Seven plastic piping sculptures were sent from participating schools to merge with Pipe Dreams, New Jersey, spearheaded by New Jersey artist, Judith Wray

The amazing botanical sculptures were selected from the KidsFest exhibition held in the Botanic Gardens in June and July 2002. They are made from discards donated to the schools from GE Electric Company. ("GE Brings Good things to Life!") Using PVC piping and recycled plastic soda and other small bottles, twenty Canterbury schools transformed waste into a forest of purple plastic piping, featuring fabulous names like Utilis, Tubulus, Plasticus, each sculpture was taken apart and packed in sturdy boxes and shipped on a journey to continue a dream..a merging of dreams.

Visual Arts League invited a merger of projects:

"PIPE DREAMS" NJ Merges With THE GREAT PIPE DREAM" NZ launched at the Cork Gallery, Lincoln Center, New York show in 2003.

The Pipe Dreams project is just the beginning of an on-going international relationship with other artists and children in America and elsewhere," said Henry Sunderland, conceptualist for the New Zealand project. Henry Sunderland discovered the Pipe Dream connection through a search engine on the internet.

The New Zealand pieces will tour galleries and schools on the eastern seaboard after the New York season closes and will eventually be donated to schools in the area. We hope to make connections between the children in Christchurch and children in the US schools so that these creative decision makers of tomorrow will, to quote Judith Wray, the Visual Arts League director, experience

"thinking globally, working locally."