By Karen Klinger

It was at the Cambridge River Festival in June that artist Ralph Brancaccio’s 10-foot-tall “Y” sculptures first prompted Cantrabrigians to ask an obvious question: Why?

Why had these four brightly-colored artworks been installed along the festival grounds, and why were the words “AIDS,” “Discriminate,” “Care” and “Think” written on one each of the sculptures?

After the festival, visitors to four of the city’s parks—as well as nearby residents—also had reason to wonder why the “Y’s” had been moved there and how long they were going to stay.

To answer the last questions: the sculptures are a temporary art project funded partially by the Cambridge Arts Council and they are slated to be gone by Thanksgiving. “The grounds crew has to get them out before winter” so new grass can start sprouting by spring, said Jason Weeks, executive director of the arts council.

Weeks called the “Y Project,” for which the arts council provided a $2,250 grant, a “great success,” although he conceded that not everyone was enamored with it. “People reacted strongly to it—they were either strongly for it or strongly against it,” he said.

That mixed reception seemed to suit Brancaccio just fine. As he explained at a recent public forum to discuss the project, he likes his works to be provocative—to provoke discussion, controversy, bemusement and thought. “I understand that not everyone likes my work,” he said. “But I like the fact that they are talking about it.”

Following the festival, where they were seen by a crowd that Weeks estimated at well over 100,000 people, the “Y’s” were moved to Corporal Burns, Clement Morgan and Sennott parks and Donnelly Field. Weeks said the arts council and the artist agreed to add an element of surprise to public reaction by waiting until after the sculptures had been relocated before sending out a press release about it.

Their hope was that people coming upon the sculptures might stop, look and just think about them: what did it mean, for instance, that the big “Y” in Corporal Burns Park had the word “AIDS” written vertically on its trunk?

To further engage the community, the “Y Project” formed a partnership with Cambridge Cares About AIDS (CCAC) to promote the message of AIDS prevention. In addition, the artist worked over the summer with participants of the “Teen Media Program” at the Community Arts Center on Windsor Street. The teens produced several short documentary videos related to the “Y’s” which were entered in a recent youth video and film festival.

Brancaccio said working with the teenagers was one of the highlights of the time he spent in Cambridge. The city is the third place he has brought the steel sculptures over the last decade and he hopes to create additional “Y’s” with new questions and take them to other cities.

For those who can’t make it to the parks to see the sculptures before they are removed, there may be an alternative: Brancaccio said he and the Community Arts Center hope to get the teen videos of the project screened on CCTV.

So, stay tuned.