Help Build The TELL: A Living Sculpture for the Art Triennial

A towering fifteen-foot pyramid of clear champagne glasses rises from the gallery floor. A mechanical change-machine invites viewers to insert dollar bills; inside, faux quarters made of a gallium alloy — which melts just above room temperature — are transported by conveyor belts to the top glass.

Help build a new media sculpture that comes to life with a single drop of water. 

Project description

Are you interested in working on a large-scale sculptural installation that combines art, science, geology, and living systems? Then this project is for you!

The TELL is a new artwork for the 2026 Art Triennial that reimagines a champagne tower using glass, Medina sandstone, and roses of Jericho—plants that spring back to life with just a few drops of water. A custom Atmospheric Water Generator suspended above the tower pulls moisture from the air and releases it unpredictably, creating a fragile system where renewal happens only rarely.

You’ll work directly with artist and professor Matt Kenyon to help prototype glass structures, test materials, prepare components, and support documentation and installation planning. The TELL connects Western New York’s industrial history, environmental precarity, and ideas of resilience, giving you hands-on experience with a major public art commission. 

Project outcome

  • You will help create working prototypes of the glass tower components and material systems used in The TELL.

  • You will learn how to combine sculpture, engineering, 3D scanning, and digital fabrication to support the build of a complex, large-scale installation.

  • You will gain experience collaborating across disciplines, working with an artist whose practice bridges installation, technology, geology, and living systems.

  • You will learn how to 3D scan and digitally model Medina sandstone fragments, and how to prepare and test roses of Jericho within a fragile, layered structure.

  • You will learn how large-scale public artworks are designed, fabricated, and installed, gaining insight into how art can communicate layered ideas about history, place, and resilience to a broad public audience. 

Project details

Timing, eligibility and other details
Length of commitment About a semester
Start time Spring
In-person, remote, or hybrid? In-person
Level of collaboration Individual student project
Benefits Stipend
Who is eligible All undergraduate students who are comfortable with hands-on building and materials and with using a Mac computer. 3D modeling experience is a bonus.

Core partners

Matt Kenyon is a Buffalo-based artist + designer whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in such venues as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, MOCAD Detroit, Science Gallery Dublin, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, and the International Print Center. He is a TED Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, and his work has been awarded the FILE Prix Lux. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Wired, and Gizmodo, and has also appeared in edited volumes such as A Touch of Code (Gestalten Press) and Adversarial Design (MIT Press).

He lives and works in Buffalo, New York, where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University at Buffalo, Art and Technology Program Director, and part of PLATFORM, UB's socially engaged design studio.

Kenyon has participated in numerous past collaborations with artists, architects, and technologists, including Doug Easterly, McLain Clutter, Adam Fure, Tiago Rorke and Wafaa Bilal. He is currently collaborating with Nick Bontrager.

Project mentor

Matt Kenyon

Director of Undergraduate Studies, Associate Professor

Art

Phone: (716) 645-0535

Email: mkenyon@buffalo.edu

Start the project

  1. Email the project mentor using the contact information above to express your interest and get approval to work on the project. (Here are helpful tips on how to contact a project mentor.)
  2. After you receive approval from the mentor to start this project, click the button to start the digital badge. (Learn more about ELN's digital badge options.) 
Start the Digital Badge

Preparation activities

Once you begin the digital badge series, you will have access to all the necessary activities and instructions. Your mentor has indicated they would like you to also complete the specific preparation activities below. Please reference this when you get to Step 2 of the Preparation Phase. 

  1. Review selected SWAMP projects.
    Students should spend time looking at previous works on the SWAMP website (e.g., Giant Pool of Money, Tide, Lock Set). This will help them understand how material, concept, and structure intersect in the practice.
  2. Read brief background materials.
    Students should read a short article on Medina sandstone and a short overview of the Rose of Jericho to gain basic context for the project’s materials.
  3. Email the project mentor.
    After completing the above, students will email Matt Kenyon with a short paragraph summarizing what interests them about The TELL and what skills or experiences they hope to bring to the project. 

Keywords

art, design, sculpture, digital fabrication, 3d modeling, architecture, creative, gallery, media, technology