For The Green, A Green Light (Project)

The New Haven Green wasn’t one of the factors that first drew Chris Stedman to New Haven. But as a certain spatial — and spiritual — anchor of the city, it’s part of what has kept him here.

“December 2014 I was walking across the Green, and I noticed the menorah, and the nativity scene, and the Christmas tree — I guess they technically call it a ​‘holiday tree,’” Stedman, executive director of the Yale Humanist Community, said in an interview. ​“It occurred to me that this is a space where during this time of year, people from various communities offer gifts to the community and share something of their identity and their values. That this is something our [humanist] community could participate in.”

The wheels in his head haven’t stopped turning since. The result is the Green Light Project, a new 12-month initiative Stedman and other Yale Humanists — who are affiliated with the university but see themselves as focused on the broader New Haven community — launched last month with a winter solstice celebration on the upper Green and call for artists to build a light-based, non-religious installation art piece on the Green. The piece is to be finished and mounted by early to mid – December of this year. The call ends Sunday at midnight; specifications are here. 

The biggest regulation for the project? It should ​“represent the beauty of the human spirit,” said Stedman.

Humanists are part of a movement that doesn’t subscribe to the existence of a deity but promotes spiritual and community values.

For Stedman, there’s no place quite like the Green — and no time quite like December — for the project.

“Part of why I felt like this would be valuable for us to participate in is that our community is so often defined by a lack of belief — by what we don’t believe or what we’re not,” he said of the installation he has in mind. ​“This would be a great opportunity for us to say something about who we are, to offer something positive and to contribute something to the community. Really, if we could offer something to the city, a work of public art that was non-religious, it would be something that everyone could enjoy and benefit from.”

“Winter is this really dark and cold season — it’s the darkest, coldest time of the year,” he added. ​“As human beings we can come together to create light, and to create warmth. That’s one of the things that makes not only winter bearable but special in some ways.”

While Stedman was initially worried he would run into complications because the Green is ​“an unusual hybrid of public and private land” — it’s owned and overseen by the five-member Committee of the Proprietors of Common and Undivided Lands at New Haven — he’s since found that members are generally enthusiastic about efforts to beautify the space, particularly in the dark winter months. That’s good news for the project, the funding for which he and others expect will be crowdsourced. In addition to the public art installation, the Yale Humanist Community has proposed monthly gatherings for the New Haven community on and off the Green, and a bronze-cast time capsule holding Elm Citizens’ wishes for the future of humanity, to be opened in the year 2116. 

The Green Light Project will join existing humanist projects in the community like Needs of New Haven, held once monthly at The Grove coworking space on Chapel Street; weekly SMART addiction recovery support meetings; and a STEAMMM mentorship program at Clemente Leadership Academy. Ultimately, ​“we want it to be something for the community, by the community, that everyone can enjoy and engaged with,” Stedman said.