On the Waterfront: A View from the Coast (Line)

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On the Waterfront: A View from the Coast (Line)

From its founding in 2009 by Maddy Rosenberg, CENTRAL BOOKING has focused on the exploration between art and science with emphasis on aspects of the environment and social justice issues. In many collaborative projects with organizations such as the New York Academy of Medicine and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, artists researched their work in the collections, libraries and grounds of these institutions and exhibited the resulting work in several venues. Rosenberg says that after years of living along the Brooklyn waterfront of Buttermilk Channel and incorporating the imagery into her own work, she sensed it was time to take a deeper dive into the ecosystems of the Brooklyn waterfront and the last surviving section of functioning port within New York City’s boundaries. The life along the harbor integrates the wildlife, land and neighborhoods of human-made architectural elements seemed to her like “a perfect barometer for exploring climate change”. A collaboration with the New-York Historical Society was a natural step, as their collections preserve many of the earlier roots along the way to the transformations we live with today. Rosenberg says that in addition, by forging partnerships with other area organizations such as Kentler International Drawing Space, Pioneer Works and the RETI Center, the project became truly emblematic of the Brooklyn Waterfront.

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Interview with Izabela Gola on ECO Solidarity

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©ECO Solidarity 2023 designers team. Courtesy of Dalia Stoniene and WantedDesign

Izabela Gola is an artist, curator of visual arts and design, and climate activist through her cultural programs. She was born in Poland and her background is visual arts, art history, and interior design. She came to the US to study art, and graduated with an MFA Degree from Hunter College in New York. She joined the Polish Cultural Institute New York in 2016 and has collaborated with Wanted Design since 2017. Her own art practice is multidisciplinary and she says this approach is important also in her curatorial capacity. She investigates structures of memory and identity as mediated through porcelain sculpture, video, and installation art. She also co-hosts a podcast called I Art New York on Radio Free Brooklyn.

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Bay Ridge Through an Ecological Lens: Christopher Lin

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Photo courtesy Adam Golfer

Bay Ridge through an Ecological Lens is a multi-faceted public art exhibition hosted by Stand4 Gallery and presented in collaboration with ecoartspace

This interactive, public, community arts exhibition is curated by Jennifer McGregor, featuring artists  Rebecca AllanAaron AsisChris CostanKate DoddPeter Edlund, Kristin Reiber-HarrisEllen Coleman-IzzoSergey JivetinNathan Kensinger, Rita LeducChristopher Lin, Nikki LindtE.J. McAdamsJimbo Blachly Nancy Nowacek in collaboration with Carla Kihlstedt and Carlos AlomarBenjamin Swett and filmmakers:  Aaron Assis, Nate DorrSean Hanley, Nathan Kensinger, Nikki Lindt, Emily Packer and Lesley Steele, and Kristin Reiber-Harris

It consists of nature walks and community interventions in the gallery and various locations throughout the Bay Ridge community from April 15 through June 17, 2023. Art Spiel will feature a series of interviews related to this project throughout its duration, here with artist Christopher Lin.

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Bay Ridge Through an Ecological Lens: Rita Leduc

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A picture containing person, outdoor, ground, blue

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Leduc installing Field Mark (Narrows Botanical Garden). Photo courtesy of the artist.

Bay Ridge through an Ecological Lens is a multi-faceted public art exhibition hosted by Stand4 Gallery and presented in collaboration with ecoartspace.

This interactive, public, community arts exhibition is curated by Jennifer McGregor, featuring artists  Rebecca AllanAaron AsisChris CostanKate DoddPeter Edlund, Kristin Reiber-HarrisEllen Coleman-IzzoSergey JivetinNathan Kensinger, Rita LeducChristopher Lin, Nikki LindtE.J. McAdamsJimbo Blachly Nancy Nowacek in collaboration with Carla Kihlstedt and Carlos AlomarBenjamin Swett and filmmakers:  Aaron Assis, Nate DorrSean Hanley, Nathan Kensinger, Nikki Lindt, Emily Packer and Lesley Steele, and Kristin Reiber-Harris

It consists of nature walks and community interventions in the gallery and various locations throughout the Bay Ridge community from April 15 through June 17, 2023. Art Spiel will feature a series of interviews related to this project throughout its duration, here with artist Rita Leduc.

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Susan Hoffman Fishman in Burning Worlds

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Susan Hoffman Fishman, The Earth is Breaking, Beautifully VII: Dead Sea Sinkholes, acrylic, oil pigment stick, cyanotype and mixed media on paper, 51” x 51,” 2023

Susan Hoffman Fishman is an artist who has addressed climate change for many years both in context of her own work as an artist and in her writing on other artists’ work in that arena. Hoffman was first interviewed with Burning Worlds about four years ago and has recently been interviewed there again on her latest series of paintings depicting coastline sink holes and other landscapes impacted by climate change,

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Eva Davidova: Re-coding Our Paradox

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Garden for Drowning Descendant/Garden Sequence from “Flying and Drowning Dream,“ interactive mixed reality installation, 2022, with performer Danielle McPhatter.

Eva Davidova makes new media works that focus on ecological disaster, our interdependence as a species, and the political implications of technology which she unpacks with performative works rooted in the absurd. She imagines the paradox that one day our descendants–human or cyborg–will be constructing our reality as a simulation, and asks: “If we are the games our children will program one day, can we influence the code they are writing?”

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Once She Dries: An Ode to Coral

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Nancy Cohen, Segment of handmade paper loop that circles the gallery. Wire, thread and handmade paper, 80” x 140” x 46,” 2022. Photo credit: Maddie Orton

In the fall of 2019, Meagan Woods, an interdisciplinary artist working in dance, theatre and costume design, attended an arts/science event at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada where she was an MFA student. She was both alarmed and inspired by what she learned about the critical condition of coral reefs around the world caused by climate change. In response, she assembled a team consisting of four colleagues in the MFA Interdisciplinary Arts program and a New-Jersey based visual artist to create what eventually became an innovative, experimental opera/installation called Once She Dries. Besides Woods, the collaborative includes pianist and composer, Casper Leerink; filmmaker, photographer and installation artist, Xinyue Liu; violinist and composer, Kourosh Ghamsari-Esfahani; musician and actress, Amanda Sum; and sculptor and installation artist, Nancy Cohen.

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