Chance Ecologies at UnionDocs (2017)

On March 19th, 2017, the curators and artists of Chance Ecologies gave a special presentation of their work at UnionDocs, the documentary collective in Willamsburg, Brooklyn.  This event, titled Chance Ecologies: Artists and Post-Industrial Urban Wilderness, opened with an overview by curators Catherine Grau & Nathan Kensinger, tracing out the evolution of the work that Chance Ecologies has created since 2015, followed by presentations from several of the participating artists of Chance Ecologies. Edrex Fontanilla and Sarah Nelson Wright discussed their project Hidden Vistas, a virtual reality installation that cultivates empathy for places that no longer exist or are too hazardous to visit. Dillon de Give spoke about his Coyote Walks, a walking residency that traces the potential pathways that coyotes are using, as they enter New York City for the first time in their history. And Ellie Irons presented her work with the spontaneous plants that thrive in urban landscapes, which are often derided as weeds, including her projects Feral Landscape Typologies, The Next Epoch Seed Library, The Sanctuary for Weedy Species, and Invasive Pigments. The presentations were followed by a Q&A and discussion with audience members.

Chance Ecologies: Queens, opening at the Queens Museum (2016)

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We are thrilled to announce the opening of our exhibition, Chance Ecologies: Queens, at the Community Partnership Gallery of the Queens Museum.

Please join us for the opening reception on October 8th, 2016 from 2-4pm.

The exhibition will be on view October 8-30, 2016, and will include a day of participatory workshops and public performances on October 16th, and a day of artist film screening and panel discussions on October 23rd.

Chance Ecologies: Queens is an exhibit of new works, artistic gestures and research projects engaging with the undesigned and wild growing landscapes found in post-industrial sites, landfills and other liminal spaces around Queens. This exhibit brings together creative works from a large group of Queens and Brooklyn-based artists, who have explored three of these sites around the borough over the past two years: Hunter’s Point South, the Newtown Creek, and the Flushing River. Each of these places has its own unique history and landscape, but all three are united by a shared legacy of industrial pollution and human intervention.

Over the centuries, the Queens waterfront has been reshaped by successive waves of development and redevelopment, creating an entirely new urban coastline. Once a series of natural ecosystems, lined with streams and rivers, wetlands and forests, the shoreline is now home to power plants, highways, landfills, and new residential and commercial developments. However, several sections of this man-made waterfront have been temporarily reclaimed by nature, hovering between waves of development and real estate speculation, and have become unplanned green spaces. These unmanaged meadows, glens and marshes support a diversity of life not found in the city’s official parks, providing an important habitat for wild species of birds, insects, trees and flowers, and upending our assumptions of human dominance in the city.

Chance Ecologies: Queens opens up the complex dialogues about the importance of these spaces by inviting artists and community members to creatively engage with them, both in the museum and in person. The artists’ of Chance Ecologies extensive, ongoing research and fieldwork explores the varieties of life found in these sites, while also articulating a deeper understanding of how the environment has been and continues to be radically reshaped by human impacts, including globalization and climate change. By bringing members of the public to these remote areas, to creatively engage with these artistic responses, Chance Ecologies celebrates the resilience of urban nature, and asks community members to consider their own place in the larger sphere of life.

Chance Ecologies: Queens includes a diverse array of artworks, from video installation and new media to sculpture and drawing, the results of collaborations between archaeologists, architects, filmmakers, urbanists and naturalists with community members of all ages and backgrounds. To expand the dialogue around this exhibit, Chance Ecologies will present a day of participatory art projects and public performances along the Flushing River on October 16th, and a symposium of authors, artists, academics and community groups at the museum on October 23rd. More information on those events will be announced at the Queens Museum website.

Chance Ecologies: Queens is curated by artists Catherine Grau and Nathan Kensinger, and includes work by many of the artists and thinkers who have been a part of Chance Ecologies, including Joianne Bittle, Daniel Campo, Laura Chipley, Nate Dorr, Maya Edelman, Edrex Fontanilla, Dylan Gauthier, Dillon de Give, Ellie Irons, Chris Kennedy, Kristyna Milde, Marek Milde, Anne Percoco, Edmund Mooney, Matthias Neumann, Natalia Roumelioti (ntilit), Raphaele Shirley, Marisa Tesauro and Sarah Nelson Wright.

Chance Ecologies was created in 2015 by Catherine Grau, Nathan Kensinger and Stephen Zacks, and has been supported by the Queens Museum, ArtBuilt Mobile Studios and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation with a residency at the Studio In The Park program, and has worked in partnership with Amplifier Inc., RadiatorArts, and the Newtown Creek Alliance. 

For museum hours and visitor information, visit www.queensmuseum.org

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If you visited the Queens Museum between Oct.8th-30th, 2016 to view Chance Ecologies: Queens at the Community Partnership Gallery, be sure to check out a copy of artist Christopher Lee Kennedy’s broadsheet hiway/hiway.

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hiway/hiway is a site-specific investigation of the Flushing Creek at the intersection of the Long Island and Van Wyck Expressway in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. The project explores the value of unmediated weedy landscapes that surround highway interchanges and on-ramps, and considers how transit systems act as habitat, repository, and conveyance for seeds, pollutants, water and multi-species interaction.

As amateur ecologist and artist, Christopher Lee Kennedy conducted 5 field studies in July and August 2016. He was drawn particularly to a site under the tangle of highway infrastructure at the southeast corner of the park, noting a diversity of native, introduced, and so called “invasive” organisms, which seemed to thrive despite unfavorable conditions (eg. salt from snow plows, car exhaust, stormwater runoff etc). As a stark contrast to the maintained spaces in nearby parklands, these “hiway” ecologies unfold as open borders and hybridized ecotones that mirror a trans-global urban commons emblematic of the surrounding neighborhoods of Flushing and Corona, Queens. This broadsheet shares research and documentation of this unique site, while speculating on new conceptions of urban wilderness or ‘marginal nature’.

Download the PDF version of hiway/hiway here!

Chance Ecologies: Newtown Creek (2016)

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On August 6th, 2016, Chance Ecologies launched a day of artist-led actions along the wild edges of the Newtown Creek. This program of participatory public art events, titled Chance Ecologies: Newtown Creek, was created for the Queens Museum as part of Nonstop Metropolis: The Remix, the launch of Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro’s New York atlas Nonstop Metropolis at the Queens Museum, which will take place in November 2016.

Curated by Catherine Grau and Nathan Kensinger, in response to an essay by Rebecca Solnit from the Atlas, the days events began with an introduction to the Newtown Creek as a source of artistic creativity and a haven for wildlife. The introduction included a talk by the Newtown Creek Alliance, Chance Ecologies community partner for the day, from Willis Elkins, who gave an overview of the work being done at Plank Road, the site of the day’s events. The public was then invited to explore the wild-growing waterfront and participate in a series of overlapping artist-led events taking place at the edges of the creek, a Federal Superfund Site, including walks, workshops, performances, and video installations.

During the course of the day, an enthusiastic group of families, local residents, artists, students, and curious visitors joined in with the artists of Chance Ecologies to creatively explore Plank Road. New media artist Edrex Fontanilla guided visitors through the virtual landscape of Hunter’s Point South; the artists of the Newtown Creek Armada (Laura Chipley, Nathan Kensinger & Sarah Nelson Wright) installed a video porthole transporting viewers underneath the waters of the Newtown Creek; choreographer Lise Brenner led a group in creating a danceable map of the vegetation onsite; walking artist Dillon de Give facilitated paired walks and conversations, Edmund Mooney & Dylan Gauthier rowed out onto the creek in a handmade boat to create a sonic bridge sound performance, Ellie Irons & Anne Percoco assisted visitors in identifying and collecting seeds from weedy species, Natalia Roumelioti (ntilit) organized a performance by sound artist Tamio Shiraishi, and curator Catherine Grau ended the day with a wild call to the various species that call this chance ecological landscape home.

Chance Ecologies: Newtown Creek will be included in an exhibit at the Queens Museum in October 2016.

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Chance Ecologies: Flushing River – Pavilion Walk with Marisa Tesauro

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On July 2nd, 2016, Chance Ecologies launched its six-week-long Studio In The Park residency, moving into a mobile studio space located outside the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park to begin work on Chance Ecologies: Flushing River. Curated by Catherine Grau and Nathan Kensinger, this project includes a series of week-long mini-residencies by the artists of Chance Ecologies.

After a week at the studio, investigating the return of nature to several man-made structures along the Flushing River, artist Marisa Tesauro concluded her mini-residency with a brainstorming workshop, imagining future ecologies for the ruined remnants of the Worlds Fair. Much of the natural landscape of the Flushing River has been reshaped by industry, architects, and artists in previous decades, leaving behind many unique structures, some of which have since been overtaken by the elements. Participants met at the Studio In The Park, before walking over to the remains of the New York State Pavilion, designed by Philip Johnson for the 1964-65 World’s Fair, to look at how nature has reclaimed parts of this evocative structure, including the Tent of Tomorrow and the iconic observation towers. A recent call for ideas may soon reshape the future of the pavilion, but Tesauro led a creative conversation on how to see nature’s role in repurposing these kinds of structures, instead of humans trying to impose structure onto nature. Participants returned to the studio to share notes, create drawings, and imagine what the future of these structures along the river could be. These sketches are now on display in the studio trailer.

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For more information on upcoming events at the Studio in the Park, visit Chance Ecologies events page.

(All photographs in this post are courtesy of Catherine Grau)

Chance Ecologies: Flushing River – Willow Lake Walk with Joianne Bittle & Hiway Safari with Chris Kennedy

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On July 2nd, 2016, Chance Ecologies launched its six-week-long Studio In The Park residency, moving into a mobile studio space located outside the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park to begin work on Chance Ecologies: Flushing River. Curated by Catherine Grau and Nathan Kensinger, this project includes a series of week-long mini-residencies by the artists of Chance Ecologies.

During the second week of Chance Ecologies: Flushing River, artists Joianne Bittle and Chris Kennedy and Joianne Bittle conducted their week-long residencies along the Flushing River.

Artist Joianne Bittle spent the week privately mapping the park’s ecology through a series of walks, weaving in and out of observing and sampling biological life, with a focus on plankton samples, and reciting from a selection of literary readings, including Samuel Beckett’s The Lost Ones (1971) and Guy Debord’s Theory of the Dérive (1958). Bittle’s mapping process resulted in a series of five booklets, called “Chance Proverbs in 5 Acts.” On Saturday July 16th, the public was invited to join Joianne Bittle and naturalist Mike Feller for a public walk through Flushing Meadows Corona Park, as they discussed the geological history of the landscape, as well as the complex ecological consequences of the man-made urban park environment.

Teaching artist Chris Kennedy spent the residency exploring the flora and fauna around a unique liminal space of the park, where the hidden Flushing River runs through a myriad of highway overpasses. Here, runoff water from the highways is funneled to the creek, or to biological catch basins. During the public event Chris Kennedy took visitors on a Hiway Safari that lead into the the highway underpass overgrowth in a performative expedition featuring landscape sketching, plant pressing techniques, and surface samples in test tubes.

Joiann Bittle / Willow Lake Walk

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Chris Kennedy / Hiway Safari

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For more information on upcoming events at the Studio in the Park, visit Chance Ecologies events page.

(All photographs in this post are courtesy of Joianne Bittle and Catherine Grau)

Chance Ecologies: Flushing River – Artists Nate Dorr and Maya Edelman

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On July 2nd, 2016, Chance Ecologies launched its six-week-long Studio In The Park residency, moving into a mobile studio space located outside the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park to begin work on Chance Ecologies: Flushing River. Curated by Catherine Grau and Nathan Kensinger, this project includes a series of week-long mini-residencies by the artists of Chance Ecologies.

During the first week of Chance Ecologies: Flushing River, artists Nate Dorr and Maya Edelman were invited to continue their collaborative work along the Flushing River. The artists alternated days at the Studio in the Park, developing their respective sides of an ongoing project investigating the northern stretches of the Flushing River.

Nate Dorr, a photographer, filmmaker, neuroscientist, and film programmer for the Imagine Science Film Festival, focused on photographing and filming near Willets Point, a neighborhood he has been documenting for an upcoming film project. During his residency, he met with local workers and filmed the newly desolate southern end of the neighborhood, where several whole blocks have been closed off for demolition by the city as part of a larger redevelopment plan. Work here appears to have stalled, leaving the neighborhood to be gradually taken over by stagnant, algae filled pools and weedy plant species. Several local mechanics reported strange skin rashes and infections from the abandoned trucks and trailers that have recently appeared in the neighborhood, which are leaking unknown liquids.

During exploratory walks to this area, artist Maya Edelman, an animator and illustrator, took photographs of local flora along the banks of the Flushing River, noting especially the variety of leaf shapes. Throughout the week she returned to the Studio in the Park and the surrounding parkland, using the shapes of plants and grasses to inspire the creation of a series of cut paper sculptures. The week culminated in a day of public workshops led by Dorr and Edelman, including a walk through Willets Point to the Flushing River and an afternoon of paper plant construction with visitors to the Studio in the Park. The artists plan to return throughout the summer, to reintroduce paper plant species to the Iron Triangle and to document this new growth taking root.

For more information on upcoming events at the Studio in the Park, visit Chance Ecologies events page.

(All photographs in this post are courtesy of Nate Dorr and Maya Edelman)

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Chance Ecologies: Flushing River – Residency Launch

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On July 2nd, 2016
, Chance Ecologies launched its six-week-long Studio In The Park residency, moving into a mobile studio space located in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The curators and artists of Chance Ecologies installed books, photos and maps in the studio space, and artist Sarah Nelson Wright began a new mapping project, “Flushing River Collective Cartography,” inviting visitors to share their stories of life on the Flushing River. Several other artists started their fieldwork along the river, with Ellie Irons cataloguing 34 plant species nearby and Christopher Kennedy collecting materials for pressings.

After a picnic at the studio space, curator Nathan Kensinger led a walk-through of the Community Partnership Gallery at the nearby Queens Museum, where Chance Ecologies will have an exhibit in October 2016, and then walked participants over to the Porpoise Bridge tide gates, the border between the “chance” landscapes of the northern Flushing River and the parks-controlled areas to the south. The walk visited muskrats, raccoons, night herons, ducks and other fauna, whose habitat is situated around two brackish ponds near a Pitch & Putt golf course.

From July 1st to August 15th, Chance Ecologies: Flushing River will examine the entire length of the Flushing River, with artist-led walks, talks, workshops and events. The Studio in the Park residency is a partnership between the Queens Museum, Artbuilt, and the NYC Parks Department. For more information on this 6-week residency, visit chancecologies.org/studio-in-the-park

Next weekend, artists Nate Dorr and Maya Edelman will lead two public events, exploring Willets Point and the wild-growing flora of the Flushing River. For more information on upcoming activities, visit our events page.

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Chance Ecologies – Studio in the Park (2016)

studio_park_IMG_2243-1We are happy to announce that Chance Ecologies has been selected for the Studio in the Park residency program at the Queens Museum, in partnership with ArtBuilt and NYC Parks. This six-week residency will provide the artists of Chance Ecologies the opportunity to work in a 150 square foot purpose-built mobile studio situated adjacent to the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Chance Ecologies, led by curators Catherine Grau and Nathan Kensinger, will be using the residency to work on Chance Ecologies: Flushing River, an in-depth exploration of the entirety of the Flushing River, using the mobile studio as a research hub and community engagement space. This project will explore the long industrial history of the river, which has left much of its northern shoreline in a state of inaccessibility, while also investigating the man-made ecosystems in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, and will seek to connect the wild, abandoned waterfront areas to the better-known park’s landscape along the southern stretch of the river.

Through the six-week residency the curators of Chance Ecologies will invite a group of artists to engage in a series of week-long mini residencies at the studio space. The artists and curators will work on weekly public events based out of the studio, which will include performative walks, ecological field trips, canoe paddles, and historic and scientific investigations connecting the source of the river to its mouth in the Flushing Bay. The activities will accumulate into an evolving archive of artistic research that will be visually represented both inside and outside the mobile studio, and will be accessible to visitors during regular daytime hours. The culmination of Chance Ecologies: Flushing River will be a final daylong series of public events centered around the studio space, a publication of the research realized during the residency, and the exhibition of resulting new works at the Queens Museum in October.

Please check queensmuseum.org/events in the coming weeks for updated information on studio open hours and the project’s public programs.

Chance Ecologies Walks, Talks, Screenings and Panel Discussions at RadiatorArts – Jan. 16 + 17, 2016

We are pleased to announce a weekend of walks, talks, screenings and panel discussions as part of the Chance Ecologies exhibition at Radiator Arts, open through Jan. 22nd, 2016. Events will be held at the gallery as well as in and around the site of Hunter’s Point South, Long Island City, and continue to explore the value of unplanned wild spaces within the urban environment.

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Sat. January 16th:

2:30 pm – 4 pm:
Endangered Surfaces Walk to Hunter’s Point South – an experimental walk by Christopher Kennedy and Ellie Irons. Tracing the border of Hunter’s Point South, this participatory walk will explore the remains, edges, and overlaps of the myriad surfaces that covered the land before development began last September.
(Departing from Radiator Arts at 2:30, please dress for cold weather!)

5:30 pm – 6:30 pm:
Screening of “For the Birds” – a series of site-specific video works by Joianne Bittle, followed by a discussion of the selected texts and observations in the field with the artist.

7 pm – 8:30 pm:
Archaeological Panel: “Art, Archaeology and the Curious Activity of Digging Up Nothing” – a public discussion reflecting on the experience and concepts of performing an archeological dig.
Panel speakers: Matthias Neumann, artists of “Dock Street Dig” for Chance Ecologies / Scott Schwartz, archaeologist, CUNY Graduate Center / Megan Hicks, archaeologist, CUNY Graduate Center / Matthew C. Lange, artist / Jeffrey Lee Benjamin, artist and archaeologist, Columbia University

Sun. January 17th:

1 pm – 2:30 pm:
Curators talk and brunch, hosted by Radiator Arts. The curators of Chance Ecologies (Catherine Grau, Nathan Kensinger, and Stephen Zacks) will give a walk through of the exhibition and engage in a public discussion about the underlying themes of Chance Ecologies.

2:30 pm – 4 pm:
Site and Field: Listening to Hunter’s Point South – an Electromagnetic Field Listening walk by Dylan Gauthier.
(Departing from Radiator Arts at 2:30, please dress for cold weather!)

4 pm – 4:30 pm:
Ceremonial Score – For Grieving the Loss of a Wild Landscape, a participatory performative ritual developed by Allison Danielle Behrstock in collaboration with and facilitated by Catherine Grau.
(Location: please meet at the corner of 2nd Street and 54th Ave. Please dress for cold weather and unsteady terrain – the ritual will take place on the Hunter’s Point South site.)

4:54 pm:
The Rotation of the Earth presents the Sunset – a brief experimental sunset viewing by Dillon de Give. Please feel free to pick up a poster listing the exact times of the sunset for the duration of the Chance Ecologies exhibit at Radiator Arts.
(Location: LIC East River Ferry terminal, Hunter’s Point South.) 

Chance Ecologies: Hunters Point exhibition at Radiator Arts (2015)

Radiator Gallery Exhibition (2015)

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Endangered Surface Islands / Chris Kennedy & Ellie Irons

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 8, 2015

CHANCE ECOLOGIES
The Wild Landscape of Hunter’s Point South

Opening: Thursday, December 17th 2015, 6 – 9 pm
Exhibiting Artists:
Joianne Bittle, Laura Chipley, Allison Danielle Behrstock, Luciana Freire D’Anunciação,
Edrex Fontanilla, Dylan Gauthier, Dillon de Give, GH Hovagimyan, Ellie Irons, Christopher Kennedy, Anne Percoco, Edmund Mooney, Matthias Neumann, Natalia Roumelioti, Raphaele Shirley, Marisa Tesauro, Sarah Nelson Wright
Curated by: Catherine Grau, Nathan Kensinger, Stephen Zacks

On view at Radiator Arts Dec. 17th through Jan. 21st, Chance Ecologies: The Wild Landscape of Hunter’s Point South, displays the results of a daring summer-long experimental art project on a large plot of publicly owned land in Hunter’s Point, Long Island City, Queens. The accidental post-industrial landscape, predominantly disused for the last 35 years, harbored a rich unplanned ecology that participating artists explored through a series of secret temporary installations, performances, and research interventions. Located in the mouth of Newtown Creek, a federal Superfund site, and facing magnificent views of Midtown Manhattan across the East River, the site embodies the paradoxes of man-made ecological crisis and the continued drive towards the production of human habitats.

Exhibited in the form of photographs, videos, installations, documentation, elaborations of processes, speculative proposals, and an archive of plants and materials, Chance Ecologies is a platform for artists and thinkers to creatively explore the value of wild places in the city, uncovering and mapping their layered histories and the natural ecologies that have evolved in them. Referencing pioneering projects like Art on the Beach by Creative Time that played an instrumental role in reimagining the uses of public land prior to redevelopment, this project belongs to a lineage of public art projects utilizing vacant lots and post-industrial landfills as places of freedom, play, and experimentation.

Immediately following the summer of unpermitted activities, in the fall of 2015, heavy construction equipment leveled the Hunter’s Point site for Phase 2 of the housing and waterfront park development led by the Economic Development Corporation of New York City and designed by Thomas Balsley Associates with Weiss/ Manfredi and ARUP.

As a framework for artistic gestures, advocacy, and research exploring the un-designed landscapes and wilderness found in abandoned spaces, post-industrial sites, and landfills, Chance Ecologies continues to create actions, programs, and discourse around the value of wild spaces in the urban environment, documenting, learning from, and commemorating the naturally occurring ecosystems that are being lost to development, and articulating contemporary interpretations of and new ways of relating to urban wilderness.

For more information and to sign up for the mailing list: www.chancecologies.org

Chance Ecologies is produced in affiliation with Amplifier Inc., a nonprofit organization using art and design as tools of urban transformation and city-making. Amplifier creates programs that connect public and private groups with the global art and design field to bring the most innovative work to under-served groups and smaller communities around the country, where it can have the greatest possible resonance.

RadiatorArts (Radical Mediator for the Arts) provides local and international emerging and mid-career curators and artist-curators an excellent opportunity to work with and learn about the operations of a multi-disciplinary organization. Radiator will regularly present contemporary art exhibitions, performances and video programs. Each curator is expected to work cooperatively, be flexible, self-motivated, and interested in contributing to the ongoing needs of this active multi-arts center.

Chance Ecologies – Stolon/Station Listening Event

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On Sunday August 30th, Chance Ecologies continued its monthlong series of events with Dylan Gauthier’s Stolon/Station – a hacker wilderness radio station that runs on solar power and broadcasts recordings of and about Hunter’s Point South from onsite. Visitors were invited to bring a picnic and battery powered radios to the site, and to collectively tune in to the Stolon/Station. Friends arrived on foot and by canoe.

Stolon/Station will be heard again in late September, and presented at a winter exhibit at Radiator Gallery. To submit recordings or content to the station, please email us at chancecologies@gmail.com

Visit our Events page for updates on how to be involved in Chance Ecologies.

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Chance Ecologies – Aerial Kite Photography Workshop

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On Sunday August 30th, Chance Ecologies continued its monthlong series of events with Laura Chipley’s Aerial Kite Photography Workshop. After a presentation on how aerial kites can be used for creative documentation, Chipley led a group of participants to a grassy knoll in Hunter’s Point South for a hands-on demonstration. Local canoeists then paddled the kite out into the East River, for a different perspective. Aerial video and photography of the Hunter’s Point landscape will be presented at the Chance Ecologies exhibition in winter.

During the month of August, an ongoing series of events and installations were organized for Chance Ecologies, leading up to a winter exhibit at Radiator Gallery.

Visit our Events page for updates on how to be involved in Chance Ecologies.

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Chance Ecologies – Impossible Shoreline Walk #2

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On Sunday August 30th, Chance Ecologies continued its monthlong series of events with Edmund Mooney’s Impossible Shoreline Walk #2. This guided walk traced the former shoreline of Hunter’s Point, which at present day is about three city blocks away from the water’s edge. Participants in the walk listened to recordings taken at Hunter’s Point South, including sounds from the current waterfront, while following a route through a geological topography that no longer exists.

During the month of August, an ongoing series of events and installations were organized for Chance Ecologies, leading up to a winter exhibit at Radiator Gallery.

Visit our Events page for updates on how to be involved in Chance Ecologies.

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Chance Ecologies – Dock Street Dig: An Archaeological Survey

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On Sunday August 30th, Chance Ecologies continued its monthlong series of events with an archaeological survey for the project Dock Street Dig. A team of artists, architects and archaeologists participated in the survey, which was led by artist/architect Matthias Neumann, in collaboration with archaeologist Scott Schwartz. Following the line of former Dock Street, the team excavated and took samples from three sites over the course of the day. Their findings will be presented in the Chance Ecologies exhibition at Radiator Arts in the winter.

During the month of August, an ongoing series of events and installations were organized for Chance Ecologies, leading up to a winter exhibit at Radiator Gallery.

Visit our Events page for updates on how to be involved in Chance Ecologies.

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Chance Ecologies – Public Discussion at Radiator Arts

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On Sunday August 23rd, Chance Ecologies continued its monthlong series of events with a public discussion at Radiator Arts in Long Island City. The artists and curators of Chance Ecologies convened at the gallery to discuss their ongoing artistic approaches to working in the field, sharing materials and insight with the public, and providing insight into the past, present and rapidly approaching future of Hunter’s Point, the post-industrial Queens wilderness currently being investigated by Chance Ecologies.

During the month of August, an ongoing series of events and installations are being organized for Chance Ecologies, leading up to a winter exhibit at Radiator Arts.

Visit our Events page for updates on how to be involved in Chance Ecologies.

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Chance Ecologies – Unguided Tour: Accidental, Temporary and Wild

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On Sunday August 23rd, Chance Ecologies continued its monthlong series of events with an unguided tour, exploring one of New York’s last accidental waterfront wild spaces before it is swallowed by the voracious development practices that have transformed Queens’s East River edge and the waterfront of the greater city. Participants were given a rough map of the terrain and invited to find their own path, traversing the site. Through intimate and unmediated immersion into this unique post-industrial site, the tour drew upon all of our senses and culminated with an open discussion led by urbanist, critic and professor Daniel Campo, author of The Accidental Playground.

During the month of August, an ongoing series of events and installations are being organized for Chance Ecologies, leading up to a winter exhibit at Radiator Gallery.

Visit our Events page for updates on how to be involved in Chance Ecologies.

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Chance Ecologies – Endangered Surfaces Walk

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On Sunday August 23rd, Chance Ecologies continued its monthlong series of events with a guided walk and movement-research investigation through the re-wilded landscape of Hunter’s Point. Artists Ellie Irons and Chris Kennedy invited the public into their exploration of endangered surfaces and the friction between man-made and re-wilded landscapes. Taking rubbings of the various surfaces on and off site, participants compared their embodied responses to these tactile surroundings. For more insights into the walk, read this photo essay created by Eric Lau and Michelle Young for the publication Untapped Cities.

During the month of August, an ongoing series of events and installations are being organized for Chance Ecologies, leading up to a winter exhibit at Radiator Gallery.

Visit our Events page for updates on how to be involved in Chance Ecologies.

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Chance Ecologies – Walking & Weaving Workshop

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On Sunday August 16th, Chance Ecologies continued its monthlong series of events with a walking and weaving workshop led by artist Anne Percoco, inviting participants to search out found materials onsite and use them to make a series of “sutras” – ropes coiled from grasses, combined and woven with other materials. The segments of ropes made by participants during this workshop will be combined into a final sculpture by the artist.

During the month of August, an ongoing series of events and installations are being organized for Chance Ecologies, leading up to a winter exhibit at Radiator Gallery.

Visit our Events page for updates on how to be involved in Chance Ecologies.

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