Michelle Segre, Celestial Triad, 2026, Glazed stoneware, aluminum, steel, acrylic polymer and canvas, PS @ 340, Queens ​

Celestial Triad is a site-specific artwork created by Michelle Segre for the lobby of the new PS @ 340, Queens. The installation features three large hanging sculptures in the bold primary hues of yellow, red and blue. Each sculpture is organized around a central ceramic sphere, surrounded by its own unique orbiting cosmic system, including vibrant forms resembling planets or moons, multicolored bands of beads, wide metal ribbons and dynamic flares. Playing with shifts in scale, the sculptures evoke massive celestial bodies while also reading as magnified cellular structures observed through a microscope.

Segre’s installation encourages exploration from multiple vantage points. The arrangement creates a striking and varied experience for students as they move through the lobby and along the upper mezzanine, where they can study the sculptures’ intricate details up close. Influenced by the hanging porcelain artworks of Lee Bontecou and the chandeliers of Hans Harald Rath, Celestial Triad shows how art and design can illuminate scientific ideas and draw attention to the marvels of the natural world. As Segre shared, “The astrophysicist Carl Sagan once wrote: ‘We are made of starstuff.’ Everything on our planet, all the elements within our bodies, came from the interiors of stars. I wanted this work to inspire people to think about space beyond our world and imagine how the fundamental origins of life on Earth are interconnected with the cosmology of the universe—three stars, each in a primary color, representing the building blocks of everything we know."