Pittsburgh Children’s Museum - Tough Art Residency
The Tough Art Residency is an annual artist residency and exhibition hosted by the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh that invites artists from around the world to design and develop interactive artworks capable of withstanding the vigorous hands-on engagement of children and families. Founded in 2007, Tough Art challenges participating artists to reconsider how contemporary art functions within a highly active public environment, emphasizing durability, play-based learning, iterative prototyping, and close collaboration with museum educators, designers, and fabricators. The program provides artists with access to fabrication facilities, professional support, and the opportunity to present work to a broad and diverse audience within the museum context.
For Tough Art 2025, Britt Ransom created Feed the Frog, an interactive sculpture installed just outside the museum’s nursery area, a dedicated space for children ages 2–5. The development of the piece involved several weeks of on-site prototyping, during which individual elements of the design were tested directly on the museum floor with young visitors. This process allowed the work’s scale, mechanics, and modes of interaction to be refined through observation and play, ensuring accessibility and durability for early learners.
Feed the Frog invites children to turn a hand crank to animate a frog’s tongue and feed it oversized spotted lanternflies. The piece was developed using 3D modeling and digital fabrication techniques, including 3D printing and CNC machining. Custom 3D-printed lanternflies were produced and then cast in durable foam to withstand repeated handling. The primary structure of the work was fabricated using CNC and laser cutting machines, while additional components incorporate recycled materials and mechanical elements sourced from the museum’s storage, foregrounding reuse and adaptability within the fabrication process. Through simple, intuitive interaction, the work encourages physical coordination, cause-and-effect discovery, and imaginative play while introducing young audiences to ecological relationships and local environmental narratives.
All images and video taken Kristi Jan Hoover
