"The Experience of Green" at the Dumbo Arts Center

Brooklyn’s Dumbo is known for its hyper-industrial, converted-warehouse condos, not for lush flora, but over the next few weeks the neighborhood is undergoing an environmental change. The Dumbo Arts Center’s current installation, “The Experience of Green,” immerses visitors in a fantastical forest of gnarled trees.

Despite the exhibition’s title, the trees are actually bright red—not jade, teal or kelly. Artists Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen fashioned the enormous constructions entirely from crimson crafting paper (that crinkly stuff kids use to make faux flowers). The floor-to-ceiling trees wind through the whole gallery space, creating small clearings in between. While they’re all composed of the same material, each tree has an individual aesthetic. One consists of tons of twisted spires that recall the whimsical illustrations of Dr. Seuss; another stretches to the ceiling in striated lines; and yet another coils straight up like a tissue-paper tornado.

The biggest treat for kids—especially those who like to hole up in dark spaces or build their own forts—are the trees’ openings. Children can actually walk inside the dark trunks of a few specimens and examine the complicated infrastructure. In one particularly cozy example, bunched streams of paper tickle the tops of their heads; another lets in a gorgeous ray of light through a distant aperture.

Upon leaving the gallery, visitors are finally supposed to see the “green”— according to the artists, the color should appear as an optical afterimage. Sadly, this didn’t happen to us; apparently it’s not so easy seeing green.—Julia Israel

"The Experience of Green" is on view at the Dumbo Arts Center through Nov 29. Children must be accompanied through the exhibition by a parent at all times. Small children must be guided by the hand.

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