In late March I will be a visiting scholar at NYU Abu Dhabi, UAE, invited by ITP’s Marina Zurkow and the Floating Studio for Dark Ecologies.
Zurkow initiated the Floating Studio for Dark Ecologies to connect artists, activists, and citizen scientists working and living amidst accelerated changes, globalization and deep uncertainty. Often times, we can feel like ineffective specks in an ocean of immense environmental problems. Coalition building – making sense of and integrating these “specks” of amazing work – feels urgent, to make the sum of our commitment greater than our many parts.
In summer 2015, FSDE (led by Marina Zurkow, Nicholas Hubbard, Rebecca Lieberman, Chester Dols, and Kelsa Trom) conducted an intensive research project to map the dark ecologies occurring in and around the Newtown Creek Superfund Site, Brooklyn. This project launched the FSDE website, which features people & projects working publicly on environmental issues in novel ways, and offers its first publication: a free downloadable Field Guide to the Dark Ecologies of Newtown Creek Superfund Site. The map and guide offer participatory models and opportunities to get involved in existent projects.
In 2018, FSDE (led by Marina Zurkow and Dylan Gauthier) is studying the Saadiyat Island region of Abu Dhabi, focused on HVAC, human-animal relationships, greening the desert, and infrastructure which will produce a new field guide tentatively entitled “Dark Ecologies Field Guide to the Cooling Breezes of AD.”