2016 is going out with a bang, filled with not only our annual holiday favorites like Luminaries in the Winter Garden, and the New York Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show, but some installations that will bring us closer to nature, from Brooklyn and the Bronx to Staten Island. The art world continues to explore and enhance our urban environment in the ways we grow and eat our food, and how we design for play.

This month, you can explore the art of being a woman, as a kick-off to a permanent home to be named The Women’s Building. Pay homage to the men, women and children who succumbed to AIDS at a permanent Memorial site on World AIDS Day, and the doors will open to a permanent home for the GrowNYC’s Project Farmhouse. Here are 21 art installations, exhibits and projects not to miss in December, and on into the New Year.

21. AIDS Memorial Park Unveiled for World AIDS Day

The AIDS Memorial Park is located near the former St. Vincent’s Hospital, at the intersection of West 12th Street and Greenwich Avenue, a block from the LGBT Community Center. It will be completed in time for an unveiling coinciding with World AIDS Day, December 1st, with a Dedication from 11 am-1 pm.

Created by a coalition of artists, health care providers, and historians, and inspired by two young urban planners, New York City will finally have an AIDS Memorial. The AIDS Memorial Park will honor the more than 100,000 New York City men, women and children who succumbed to the disease. The project began with a design competition in November, 2011, launched by the NYC AIDS Memorial and chaired by Michael Arad, the designer of the National September 11 Memorial. Nearly 500 architects from around the world submitted. The winner was Studio a+, based in Brooklyn, with the Memorial’s granite pavers to be designed by visual artist Jenny Holzer, adding selections from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself.