Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway

Rob Pirani, the Region Plan Association’s Director of Environmental Programs, presented at iLAND’s March symposium on plans for the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, which is a 14-mile bike and pedestrian path along Brooklyn’s waterfront that is being planned and conceived by the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative.

Rob’s presentation (Powerpoint) illustrates the connections between design, creativity, and the utilization of public space.  This map shows the proposed route for the greenway, which will run from Greenpoint to Sunset Park and connect four regional parks and numerous open spaces on Brooklyn’s waterfront.

Individuals can help build the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway by volunteering in a variety of ways.  And you can visit the Greenway team this coming Saturday: On May 31st, JJ Byrne Park and the Old Stone House will host the 1st Brooklyn Bicycle Jumble, New York’s only outdoor bicycle flea market and celebration of New York City bike culture.  Visit Brooklyn Greenway’s table at the Jumble, 10 AM to 2PM, at 336 3^rd Street in Brooklyn.

View Rob’s powerpoint presentation.

NYC From a Native Plant’s Perspective

iLAND Symposium attendees were treated to a presentation called NYC From a Native Plant’s Perspective: Mapping NYC as Native Flora. This was a collaboration between choreographer Lise Brenner, Brooklyn Botanical Garden Native Flora Curator Uri Lorimer, and landscape architect and visual artist Katrina Simon. These three individuals were the iLAB 2007 residents, who worked on their residency from July through October 2007 in NYC.

Here was the initial concept for their project: Plants, landscapes and people exist as and within physical structures that all move, all the time. So botany, design, and choreography should have points at which investigative methods, classification systems, and ideal outcomes will intersect, and possibly even strengthen one another.

As they worked, the following questions were kept in mind:

• Where are New York City native plant communities actually located?
• How does putting native plants at the center of my focus alter my perception of the city, especially ‘empty’ lots and waste areas? What does it do to my mental map of New York?
• How is the tracking of native plants also movement and choreographic research?
• How can choreography be understood as a form of map making?
• How is data collection integral to art making?
• What does making art bring to data collection?
• How can the combination of our disciplines be used to get people out in the city, enjoying and perhaps coming to value the natural resources on offer?

The two-part PowerPoint presentation that Lise and Uri presented can be viewed here and here. It should give you a sense of their fascinating collaboration and residency activities at Floyd Bennett Field and Coney Island.

Floyd Bennett Field summer 2007 

Opening Remarks from the Symposium

photo by Bob Braine

Last month’s symposium had a great turnout and a variety of thought-provoking presentations. Over the next few weeks, the presentations will be posted online so that they can be shared with a much wider audience. For starters, here are the opening remarks from artistic director Jennifer Monson. An excerpt is below:

“Both art and science are fundamentally creative fields where there is a strong desire to investigate the unknown. Often the only way we can develop our understanding of something is by making a creative leap that dislodges our assumptions of it. This is part of the nature of experimentation and innovation – to put things together in an unexpected alchemy.”

Stay tuned for the next post – on NYC from a native plant’s perspective.

Connecting to the Urban Environment

Connecting to the Urban Environment: Creating embodied and relational approaches to environmental awareness

Saturday, March 28, 2009

9:30am – 1 PM (no charge, registration opens at 9 AM)

Refreshments will be served

Hosted by the Eugene Lang College – The New School for Liberal Arts

6 East 16th Street, New York, NY

Room #D1009 (auditorium)

Connecting to the Urban Environment, iLAND’s first annual symposium, will address issues emanating from the creative collaborations of past iLAB residencies. iLAB alumni will be paired with representatives from environmental organizations who are actively designing new relationships to urban space. Presentations will share the results of grappling with the project of finding shared language and processes across the arts and sciences while centering dance and the body as the mediator and resource for experience, imagination and knowing. The symposium will include oral and media presentations, workshops, and small-group discussions.

Through the iLAB residency program, iLAND facilitates opportunities for movement-based artists, biologists, architects, geographers, acoustic ecologists, urban planers, visual artists, and other natural and social scientists to conceive, design, and explore a working collaboration that engages the built environment of New York City and the habitats, phenomenon, and systems it shares.

For reservations, more information, and a detailed schedule of events contact info@ilandart.org or call 917 860-8239.