Some Triennial installations will stay, while one is headed by barge to NYC

Photo by Ginny Kropf: Mary Mattingly’s “Floating Garden” will be leaving Medina’s canal basin and traveling the Erie Canal to New York City, where it will become a permanent display, indicating it is “Medina’s Gift to New York City.”

MEDINA – Medina’s first-of-its-kind Triennial has ended a three-month visit, but its effects will linger far and beyond Medina for a very long time.

Exciting news is that the barge transformed by artist Mary Mattingly into a floating garden in the canal basin will be taken to New York City, where it will become a permanent exhibit.

“The barge will have a sign indicating it was made in Medina, and another which reads ‘Medina’s Gift to New York City’,” said Kari Conte, executive director and co-curator of the Medina Triennial. “Some of Medina’s dirt will forever be in New York City. How cool is that?”

Conte added it will take weeks to dismantle everything from the Triennial.

“Very little will go in the trash,” she said. “We sell or repurpose everything. After all, the Triennial’s motto was ‘All That Sustains Us’.”

Photo by Tom Rivers: Mary Mattingly is shown about a year ago on Sept. 17, 2025 when she was removing sludge from a barge that months later be teeming with vegetation.

The Floating Garden will stop at canal villages along the way to share Medina’s story, Conte said.

Conte has also shared news about at least two exhibits which will remain in Medina. One is “I traveled 66 million years to be with you and then you came,” Berlin-based artist Anne DukHee Jordan’s creation, which will remain in State Street Park. It is located between the pavilion and the canal.

 Photo by Tom Rivers: “I traveled 66 million years to be with you and then you came” is artist Anne DukHee Jordan’s creation, which will remain in State Street Park until the next Triennial. It features barnacles sculpted by the artist, and set atop a large rock with fossils and several slate boulders sourced from Western New York. This photo was taken during the Aug. 6 concert at State Street Park, where 900 people turned out to see the band Grosh.

This piece features Roman concrete mixed with biochar, locally sourced slate stones and fossils. It was first commissioned by UP PROJECTS in London. Like real barnacles, the sculpture’s parts filter rainwater through the natural properties of biochar, collecting it for local birds and insects to drink.

Photo by Ginny Kropf: Artist Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge created this exhibit at Medina Memorial Hospital titled “All the hours” for the first Medina Triennial. It is one of several exhibits which will remain until the next Triennial in three years.

The final news is that of artist Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge’s creation at Medina Memorial Hospital. It is titled “All the hours” and is installed on both sides of glass panels around the building near the main entrance.

More exciting news is the Triennial has made a donation to have a permanent space in Lee-Whedon Memorial Library dedicated to the Triennial. It will feature books and Triennial memorabilia. A full story will appear when the space is dedicated.