During the year of 2019 I worked as an artist in residence with the USDA Forest Service’s New York City Urban Field Station in Queens to create a body of work called Undiscovered City. For this project, I spoke to nearly 40 stewards of NYC’s parks and natural areas about their reflections on the future of the city, especially in regard to nature and climate change. Using STEW-MAP, a database of stewardship groups in New York, as a resource, I connected with a wide range of stewards, including volunteers, scientists, park rangers, gardeners, beekeepers and educators. Some of the reflections that stewards shared were utopian; others were less optimistic.

To make these images, I took 360-degree photos at sites of interest throughout the city. Rather than using a 360-degree camera that can capture these sorts of images in a single shot, I manually created the images by using my micro 4/3 camera and turning in slow circles, documenting every piece of landscape systematically, and digitally stitching the images together. Each 360-degree photo was very different depending on the substrate on which I was standing, whether it was soft or mushy, and how thoroughly I manually captured each part of the landscape. Some of the images ended up being very glitchy, while others were close to perfect when stitched together. Using these 360-degree photos as a starting point, I digitally altered the photos and add visual elements such as satellite images, drawings and and found photos to create a narrative based on my conversations with city stewards. The resulting artwork presents an amalgamated vision of the future of New York City inspired by the people who are most intimately connected with its wilderness.

Being at the Urban Field Station in Queens was crucial for this project; being able to relocate to Queens for 3 months this year allowed me to have access to research sites to photograph them, and to the myriad stewards who helped me to learn about the ecological complexities of New York City.

The Weird In-Between

In “The Weird In-Between” (2019), you see a 360-degree photo of a small wetland that is encircled by a satellite map image of a highway cloverleaf in Alley Pond Park in Queens. This little wetland, which is full of frogs, fish, insects and birds, represents the rich possibility of the pieces of undeveloped land that run alongside highways and ramps. I spoke to scientists with the Natural Areas Conservancy and the Urban Field Station who suggested that these natural areas could potentially be oases for pollinators and migratory birds in the city if they are nurtured and allowed to become wildernesses and wetlands rather than patches of mown grass. Spaces like this one are also valuable for wildlife because they are less likely to be disturbed by humans, since they are not as readily accessible or desirable to visit.

The Gowanus Canal as Test Site for Iron Fertilization

The Gowanus Canal is an extremely polluted waterway in Brooklyn, NY that is currently a Superfund Site. There are about 10 feet of oily, toxic sludge at the bottom of the canal that accumulated from decades of industrial runoff, and this sludge is locally referred to as “black mayo.” I spoke to residents of Gowanus and members of the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, and was interested in the conflicting desires of residents who would like to see the canal beautified and cleaned up, and those who worry about gentrification and getting priced out of their neighborhood if the canal is improved. One resident who is involved with preserving the history and character of the area through commissioned art projects expressed a local wish for Gowanus to remain “ugly, polluted and affordable.”

Taking the suggestion of keeping Gowanus “ugly, polluted and affordable” as a starting point, I imagined the Gowanus Canal as a test site for feeding iron to phytoplankton colonies to make them bloom. Phytoplankton has the ability to capture carbon dioxide and fix it in tiny shells called “diatoms”, which eventually sink to the bottom of the water and stay there. Iron fertilization of phytoplankton is a potential strategy for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to reduce the effects of global warming. This would be done over huge expanses of ocean — and the effect on the ocean ecosystem that this would have is not entirely known at this point. The Gowanus, which is already a very compromised body of water, could be a good place to do some testing of this strategy.

Beaver Village

In the historical town of Richmond in Staten Island, there is a pretty neighborhood where a stream flows behind the houses. Recently a family of beavers moved into the area, dammed up the Richmond Creek, took down dozens of trees, and flooded en entire block. Beavers are very beneficial creatures who create wetlands that support amazing biodiversity, but their activity can also cause damage to property and structures. I spoke to scientists and stewards about the issue of urban beavers, and learned that there are a number of ways to manage their activities without removing them. One management plan involves installing culverts beneath their dams and below the water level that allow the water to flow through without it creating the riffling noise that urges beavers to repair and rebuild. These culverts are, rather hilariously, called “Beaver Deceivers.”

An urban ranger I spoke to about the beavers suggested that one way residents could coexist with the beavers would be to create elevated housing on stilts in beaver wetlands. There is currently a wetland mitigation program in New York City that allows developers to invest in certain wetland areas to receive offset credits that allow them to develop others. I imagined a “beaver wetland mitigation program” that would offer government subsidies to homeowners in beaver territory to rebuild their homes on stilts into “Beaver Villages” in order to preserve these wetlands and benefit financially from doing so.