JUSTIN WOOD:
Superfund
November 8th - December 15th, 2018
On View Tue - Sat 12 PM - 7 PM
Thursday 12PM - 9PM
325 Canal Street, New York City
Justin Wood is creating a site specific video projection mapped installation that draws on the history of Canal Street and connects it to similar events taking place in present day NYC. Canal Street exists due to failed environmental remediation strategies that had a tremendous impact on the development of Lower Manhattan. Today, New York City has 3 EPA designated Superfund sites that are undergoing transformation and environmental clean up, Newtown Creek, the Gowanus Canal and the Wolff-Alport Chemical building site. We hope that current remediation strategies and technologies will result in a better future for the city and we learn from past mistakes in both allowing the rogue contamination of our environment and by avoiding short-term fixes that will result in more money spent in the future.
At the core of the installation is a science experiment, testing the viability of utilizing the contaminated brackish waters of Newtown Creek and the Gowanus Canal in growing various plants and vegetables hydroponically. The scarcity of freshwater worldwide has lead to the use of brackish water and sometimes contaminated waters in agriculture and it has been shown that hydroponically grown crops fair better with these kinds of waters than plants grown in soil. Wood is looking to observe if anything can be grown at all in the water from Newtown Creek and the Gowanus, while illuminating the history and current state of each site through the sculpture, video projections and video. Please follow the progress of the experiment at www.superfund.world and I hope to see you at the opening.
For more information contact oncanal@wallplay.com
@justinrobbiewood #oncanal