Twenty-four endangered moths flit about in the skies above Discovery Green. Some of them aren’t even indigenous to the region, like the California velda pine moth or Hawaii's fabulous green sphinx moth. Don’t fret, fans of local flora and fauna. They aren’t invasive species. They aren’t migrating through on the way south to warmer climes, either. But they will light up in a flurry of warm, bright colors and music, adding liveliness to a dark evening thanks to the motion sensors embedded in their thoraxes and abdomens.

And thanks to artist and engineer Jen Lewin, too. No mad scientist tinkering with the ethics of cybernetic enhancements to living beings, she instead hand-painted these whimsical moths herself as part of the installation ATLAS, on view at Discovery Green’s Brown Promenade until February 16.

Lewin is the first lead mentor in the park’s Art Lab initiative. The pilot program, launched in 2024, is designed to encourage more local artists to participate in public and civic art installations, and open up more opportunities for them to actually show their work in Houston. The inaugural mentees working under Lewin’s tutelage are Houston-based artists Karen Navarro and Gerardo Rosales, who each received a $4,500 practicum and honorarium and intensive training from Lewin and other creatives.

“There are some incredible artists here, and we work with them frequently on projects like murals or other kinds of projects, but the interactivity and the light-based work that Houstonians really respond to in the winter…not that many artists in Houston have the experience or the track record to produce large scale works that can withstand being outdoors in the elements,” says Susanne Theis, artistic director at Discovery Green.

Navarro and Rosales traveled to Lewin’s Brooklyn studio in September to observe her at work on ATLAS before it opened on November 15. While there, they had to keep a few questions in mind regarding what makes a piece of public art appealing, specifically for a Houston audience’s tastes, as well as how to construct a work that stands up to frequently inclement weather.

“What are the elements that make it interactive? How do you put together work that can withstand being outdoors, in the elements for long periods of time? What are the kind of issues that you need to deal with?” Theis says.

By her estimation, about 62 artists responded to the open call for Lewin’s fellows. The Discovery Green committee assigned to select the finalists looked for a few different traits: an established professional arts practice, an interest in translating two-dimensional art into three dimensions, and a desire to make public art. Theis says that Rosales and Navarro were chosen because the committee felt they had the most to gain from the experience and were likely to prove the most successful.

Public and civic art appeals to Navarro because she wants her work to reach a wider audience than more traditional spaces allow. She notes that, for the most part, her multidisciplinary works are only known to “people who follow art or who go to galleries,” but that the socially critical themes of her work should be conveyed to as many people as possible.

“A lot of my work is about identity, diversity, sense of belonging. Mostly, I do portraiture to celebrate identities that have been historically not celebrated, that haven’t taken that space of protagonism,” Navarro says. “For me, it’s very important to bring that conversation to the general public, because sometimes...it’s not accessible to everyone.”

Working with Lewin provided her with valuable lessons in how to best organize a project, and ensure that each pitch and vision adheres closely to the calls and the unique restrictions and requirements of the spaces. Navarro is now working on designing her first public art piece, one that takes into consideration how fascinated Houstonians are by haptic inputs and outputs.

“My work is a lot of fragmented images. Especially for this particular proposal, it’s going to be interactive in a way that some pieces could be moved and people can participate. That’s what I like,” she says. “That’s what I was attracted to, a public art project that I could share my message to a bigger audience [with], but I can also integrate people to participate and be part of the work.”

In addition to lessons on budgeting and the administrative side of professional artistry, Lewin also invited Rosales and Navarro to gain some hands-on experience by assisting her with crafting ATLAS. They attended the installation sessions at Discovery Green and used the knowledge they picked up during their lessons to then design their own future public art projects. Lewin met with them as a pair and individually to address the unique concerns of each fellow. Being able to blend education into her own professional obligations is a major reason why Discovery Green honored Lewin with the inaugural mentorship opportunity, with Theis referring to her as “a very generous teacher.”

Named for one of nature’s most dramatic—and massive—lepidopterans, ATLAS’s flock of exquisite moths celebrates the butterfly’s unfairly dismissed cousins and their contributions to the environment. As pollinators, they’re essential. But with a reputation (unfounded, by the way) as drab, boring puffs flickering in and out of sight on warm evenings, few people consider them as worthy of being pulled back from the brink.

By blowing these endangered insects up to larger scales, and imbuing them with sound and light responding to visitor movement, Lewin forces people to pay attention to critical indicator species—the term scientists use for an organism that can be used to gauge an environment’s overarching health. It reframes perspectives on an animal we take for granted daily, which in turn points out the importance of civic art.

“When done really successfully, [public art] can have the power to really activate space and to engage community within their space in a much more dynamic and connected way,” Lewin says.

ATLAS is always free to view for Discovery Green patrons. It relays necessary information to a much broader segment of the population than artwork confined to a museum or gallery, providing communication and education alongside entertainment.

Applications for the next round of public artists are now open, offering an $80,000 budget for individuals or groups wanting a four-to-six-week fall show at Discovery Green’s Sarofim Picnic Lawn. Navarro and Rosales are given special consideration this time, and artists can submit to secure fellowships like theirs later in the year. As with the journey from egg to fully formed moth, Art Lab promises a cycle of talent adding beauty, interactivity, and thought-provoking concepts to Houstonians, located right in the middle of one of the city’s most cherished parks.