2025
The Annual Bridges and Connections Sculpture Symposium
brings global artists together to collaborate, learn and create.
Each Symposium adds new works to the hill.
2025
Symposium
Theme:
Decisive Piece
Through the energy of our curiosity, we make the decision to pursue the result of our actions.
Parastoo Ahovan
Iran; Connecticut
Robert Leverich
Olympia, Washington
Jorg Van Daele
Kalmthout, Belgium
Intervention is a sculpture that explores the tension between nature and human intrusion. The
stone represents the raw and enduring presence of nature, while the metal basket-like form
penetrates and appears to pass through it. This visual passage symbolizes how humans intervene
in nature through construction and design. Whether these interventions bring beauty or
disruption, they always leave a lasting mark on the natural world.
It’s not only a physical intervention but also a symbolic one; the moment when balance shifts,
and the natural and the artificial collide. This piece questions whether these human decisions
lead to creation or destruction, inviting viewers to reflect on the lasting consequences of our
interventions.
Parastoo Ahovan, 2025
Gnomon is an ancient Greek word that means “The One Who Knowsv.” Knowing comes from living. I
use meandering paths and edges in my work as visual and tactile metaphors for time and life passing, as does the continuous path in a Chinese landscape scroll. I like horizontal forms as well as verticals; they
encourage touch and physical engagement with the work. In Gnomon, the path extends from the earth
to the sky. The piece is particular to its site, where the path bends at the top of a steep rise in the trail.
It serves as both a sentinel and a resting point.
I’m an architect, a sculptor, and a craftsman from the Pacific Northwest, with roots in rural Wisconsin
and Upstate New York. In my public sculpture, I pay close attention to the locale – its landscape and
peoples. I like to use materials native to the place, that shape it and have narrative dimensions. I’ve
made extensive use of granite for its character and feel. I like carving as direct hands-on engagement
with the material. Stones generally have an inherent fullness of form from the start; I’m careful to work
with it. I’m very interested in the power of sculpture to express essential messages about both personal
and communally held emotions and ideals, and the ability of these forms to create a strong sense of
place, and become landmarks and reference points. In all my work, I aim for an economy of means and
shaping that’s akin to poetry, with both immediate and persisting allusive power.
Robert Leverich, 2025
Peace, Decisive Piece
Jorg Van Daele, 2025
Peace, Decisive Piece
The statue is constructed from a single block of
granite. A block in which sculptor John Weidman
started a new work but never completed it. I split
the granite block into 4 parts and then reassembled
them vertically into 1 stone/sculpture. The bottom
part is a block of red granite in which I made stairs
up to the statue. The stairs are the route to peace. A
part of the top part is missing, the “decisive piece”. I
attached this to the bottom block. One day, when
there is peace in the world, I will fit the piece back
in. The 4 blocks represent the 2 halves of the world
in search of peace. The letters STONE are to express
my adoration for stone.
Symposium Calendar
Please come back as the Symposium approaches and events are added.
Sept 13 1:00pm |
Opening Ceremony |
Welcome Center Public invited to attend – Free Event
|
Sept 13 5:15pm / 6:00pm |
Reception / Nick Spencer Band opens for Willie J. Laws Band, Blues Concert
|
Welcome Center, “Big Bear Lodge” Reception Free – Meet the Artists Fundraising Concert Tickets ($25): Willie J. Laws Band with Nick Spencer Band opening – Andres Institute of Art
|
Sept 18 6:00pm |
Artist ShowcaseThe Symposium artists will present their portfolios and processes. |
Welcome Center Public Invited, Free Event Please note date change to 9/18.
|
Sept 25 6-8pmSept 28 3:00pmOctober 5 1:00pm |
An Evening of Wine, Art and Community
Artist Panel Discussion
Closing Ceremony |
Guests will enjoy a curated tasting of at least eight different wines from France and the USA, paired with an assortment of plated small bites. Optional driving tour at 5:30pm. Funds raised support the AIA. Tickets and info here.
John Weidman, Nora Valdez and Greg Spitzer will share samples of their work and discuss My Art: Bridging the Personal to the Public, moderated by Mark Favermann. Free event, public invited. Bring food to share for continued discussion afterwards.
Meet at the kiosk at the base of the hill. (Subject to change based on the location of the new sculptures) Reception to follow with the artists in the Welcome Center. Public Invited – Free Events |
October 5 6:00pm |
Diplomats of Funk, Organ-Trio concert |
Welcome Center, “Big Bear Lodge” Fundraising Concert Tickets ($25): Diplomats of Funk Concert – Andres Institute of Art
|
2024
Symposium
Select each artist’s image to click through
samples of their work.
Scroll further to view the
artists from 2023 and symposium history.
Morton Burke
Alberta, Canada
Jim Larson
Portland, Maine
Adrian Wall
Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico
2023
Symposium
Theme:
TIME
Select each artist’s image to click through
samples of their work.
Scroll further to view the
artists from 2022 and symposium history.
Ivona Biocic Mandic
Croatia
Finn Cossar
Australia
Ted Castro
Massachusetts
2023
Symposium Sculptures
Each of the 2022 Symposium artists was interviewed at the end of the process.
View each interview using the buttons.
Symposium t-shirts and a new AIA shirt are now available with proceeds supporting the AIA.
The shirts were selected with fair-trade and eco-friendly production in mind, reflecting the AIA’s commitment to the environment.
The off-white shirt has the symposium logo on the front and is $20. The other shirts have the AIA logo on the left-chest and the main design on the back and are $30. The blue shirts feature men’s and women’s styles.
The shirts and AIA Stickers are now available in the online store! Click HERE or use the STORE tab in the menu above.
2022 Symposium Artists
Dankha Zomaya
was born in Syria where he earned a degree in fine arts from the University of Damascus. Before moving to Chicago, Zomaya taught at different schools and colleges for over twenty years.
He has displayed his work in over twenty-two solo exhibitions and many other joint exhibitions in Canada, United States, Bulgaria, Sweden, and the Middle East. His work is obtained by private collectors, the National Museum of Damascus (The Modern Art Gallery of Damascus), the Syrian Department of Culture, and many galleries in different countries. Zomaya’s research in art was followed by many plastic art students and researchers inside and outside of Syria.
Dankha Zomay stone faces
Dankha Zomaya bronze figure
Dankha Zomaya stone
Dankha Zomaya wood
Lee Wright
is a fearless printmaker and painter based in the Brecon Beacons in South Wales.
After a long career in IT in London he made a change to study printmaking at Putney School of Art,
His Lino prints are aimed in capturing the beauty and tranquility of the landscape too. He works out of a studio in Cwmdu in a converted Victorian school alongside other gifted artists.
“Every moment of every day the light and the effect it has on the scenery changes. I try to capture some of these moments in my Lino prints.”
He moved to South Wales in 2009 where he was inspired by his new surroundings to paint the landscape.
He trained in oil painting at The Welsh Academy of Art. In his artwork, Lee paints using techniques handed down from the masters such as Rembrandt, whilst his Lino prints have an essence of the delicate and beautiful Japanese woodblock prints of the past with a nod of the ever-popular Vintage Railway Prints.
He works and teaches in his studios near Crickhowell in a converted Victorian School. View more of his work.
Sugarloaf from the Ffawyddog Linotype Lee Wright
Pink Roses Lee Wright
Lee Wright at work
Sam Finkelstein
Sam Finkelstein
Installation in Nashua
finkelstein_citywalk_1
The Symposium
The Andres Institute of Art was founded in 1998 by sculptor John Weidman and philanthropist Paul Andres. The first symposium was held in 1999. Seven artists were invited to come to Brookline for two weeks to create sculptures which would be placed on permanent display on the mountain. Sculptors from Lithuania, Latvia, England, Czech Republic, Ukraine, New Hampshire and Vermont attended this first symposium and stayed with local volunteer families.
As the sculptures were completed, volunteers moved them from the studio to the sites using heavy equipment. When the sculptors headed home, seven new sculptures had been placed on the mountain. One of them, Phoenix, is to this day the largest work in the sculpture park; it is 15 feet tall and weighs about 11 tons.
The symposium format proved a great success. Since that time, the Institute has held the event annually, welcoming three to five artists to work their craft within a new theme selected for each symposium. The sculptors continue to stay with local hosts and share meals provided by volunteers. They receive a small stipend for participation but the real rewards are to create as they choose, to learn from other sculptors and to choose the location for their work to be enjoyed. As a result of the collective effort from these gifted artists, we now have over 100 thought-provoking original works of art nestled along walking trails on the mountain in our 140 acre sculpture park.
After a two-year hiatus the Symposium will return in 2022 with the theme of: “Catch ’22”. We invite you to attend over the symposium period to meet the artists and watch them at work to follow the evolution of raw material to sculptural works.
Symposium 2022
The
Symposium
Gallery
Sculpture Park Entrance &
Welcome Center
106 Route 13, Brookline, NH 03033
Call or Mail
(603) 732-0216
Andres Institute of Art, PO Box 226, Brookline, NH 03033-0226