A large part of my practice is done in community spaces. It is where I gather data to inform the work. I call the public facing aspect of my research, The Department for Natureculture Affairs and this space has been instrumental over the last few years in testing and embodying the ethics of climate justice as an artist but also as a human, living through the sixth extinction.
The Department for Natureculture Affairs is a fictitious institution operating alongside local policy and mutual-aid initiatives, wherever it lands. Since 2022, The Department for Natureculture Affairs has committed to building infrastructures for living with more-than-human worlds in North Brooklyn, New York specifically in the neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Driven by a series of artist-facilitated gatherings called Field Harvests, I invite my neighbors to establish relational forms of becoming-with the living world. These activities include Noticing Acts - prompts and instructions of seeing yourself as part of your environment, fermentation workshops, gardening, seed bomb and cyanotype making as well as simply gathering and dreaming, together. The goal of the Field Harvest is to collect community sentiment about topics such as community gardens or native plants and then further produce artworks, exhibitions and performances from that data.
Presently, The Department for Natureculture Affairs is researching native plant species in North Brooklyn and developing methodologies for building relationships with the native plants that have co-evolved to live and thrive in Brooklyn. The goal of this initiative is to make it an accessible resource for my neighbors in their efforts to feel closer to the urban ecology all around them; from our cities trees to native plants that pop up in the cracks of sidewalks.
FIELD HARVESTS
MY MOTHER’S PICKLES
In partnership with the McCarren Demo Garden
McCarren Park, Brooklyn
2022-2024
The McCarren Demo Garden is a space of learning and community stewardship that is year-round, dynamic, and accessible to every age group. Each year, in mid-summer when the cucumbers and dill ripen at the McCarren Demo Garden, My Mother’s Pickles returns to the community of McCarren’s Demo garden stewards. In this gathering, participants learn to ferment cucumbers using an ancestral family recipe.
In partnership with North Brooklyn Mutual Aid
McCarren Park, Brooklyn
2024
This field harvest was an open invitation to the North Brooklyn community on the occasion of the first annual McCarren Park block party. For the duration of the day, participants were invited to create their own cyanotype image; a camera-less technique using sunlight and iron to create beautiful plant silhouettes. The gathering was an opportunity for the public to learn the common name Latin name and ideal growing conditions for urban native plants found in the neighborhood.
In collaboration with the Library of Study
Prospect Park, Brooklyn
2022
Play as Naturecultures explored natureculture relations in the situated context of the Donald and Barbara Zucker Natural Exploration Area. Participants were sent off to explore and notice and “follow” the ecology of the area. After returning to a central spot the group gathered to tell stories of their relatings and created a collective map of their learnings.