The Water Tank Project

In collaboration with STUDIO IN A SCHOOL, we are thrilled to present WATER! The Water Tank Project Student Art Exhibition at David Zwirner’s 535 West 20th Street space. Curated by Neville Wakefield, Bettina Bryant and Mary Jordan, the exhibition features select works by public high school students from each of New York City’s five boroughs who participated in the Spring 2012 Art Competition for The Water Tank Project. In celebrating the creativity of these students, the exhibition seeks to highlight water as the defining resource of the 21st century.  

The exhibition will be on view September 28 - October 6, 2012

David Zwirner, 535 West 20th Street

by Kimberlie Birks

Lately, hydraulic fracturing (aka hydro-fracking) once again making headlines. You may have even heard it on this morning’s NPR report.  

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is expected to decide soon whether to allow natural gas companies to use the controversial drilling technique known as hydro-fracking. New Yorkers are sharply divided on the issue. Prodevelopment groups say that New York’s rust belt—the area that stretches west from Albany along the Pennsylvania border—needs new industry and new jobs.  Meanwhile environmentalists vehemently oppose injecting the earth with the cocktail of hundreds of unknown chemicals, that could contaminate vital water supplies.

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by Lisa Mucciacito

via gardenvisit

Manhattan has long been a jungle, but 400 years ago it wasn’t concrete.  It’s time we made our urban canyons a little greener in order to make our water a little clearer. 

via 24.media.tumblr

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via brownstoner

August 25, 2012, 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM: Join Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman for an intense walking tour through the toxic hellscape of Newtown Creek.

This Saturday, Mitch Waxman will be leading a 3-hour walk on the wild side through the  petroleum and waste transfer districts of the Newtown Creek watershed in North Brooklyn. Heavily industrialized, the tour pierces the heart of the Greenpoint Oil Spill as well as the home territory of several heavy industries and waste transfer stations. It will also include a crossing the thrice-damned Kosciuszko Bridge, which is scheduled for a demolition and replacement project starting next year. 

Details and tickets ($25) here.

by Lulu Almana

image via swarrick

“We take it completely for granted, and yet it’s a minor miracle when you think about it and the problem is we don’t think about it, we ought to every time we turn on our taps,” remarks water and climate analyst Peter Glieck of the Pacific Institute.

Millions around the world do not have this luxury. Water is a critical women’s rights concern. Around the world, water is a commodity which women and girls are responsible for finding and carrying in buckets back to their homes on a daily basis. This is not just a back-breaking task which sometimes causes spine and pelvic deformities, but carries the threat of sexual and gender-based violence. In regions where water is scarce, it forces women to travel far from home in order to fill their buckets with enough clean water to supply their households for the day. During these long journeys, women and girls face terrifying stories of violence and rape. Victims often become outcasts of their communities. Dry seasons don’t make things easier, and women have to spend more time and travel further to find water. Returning home late has put women at risk of domestic violence and accusations of secret affairs from their husbands. 

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by Lisa Mucciacito

image via New York Daily News

The summer fireworks displays have nothing on the spectacular storms that have been watercoloring New York City’s skies (and wetting our feet) of late.  Amidst puddle jumping and shelter hopping, I got to pondering how the City’s water treatment infrastructure manages to take a licking and keep on ticking (slightly strange, I know, but when it’s too wet for an iPhone, one has to keep one’s mind busy while waiting for the storm to pass).

image: Rohit Mattoo, flickr

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by Lisa Mucciacito

via colormekatie

Living in manic Manhattan can make a person forget to slow down and appreciate Mother Nature.  With this past weekend’s wicked weather, I decided it was high time to hit the water. Saturday I cycled down the Hudson River Greenway and across Brooklyn Bridge.  Sunday I boarded an MNR to Milford, CT and hit the beach with my superfly inflatable stingray(hit up Toys R Us if you don’t have one) in Long Island Sound.

(You know you want one)

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Nathan Kensinger, Inside Drydock One - Brooklyn Navy Yard (2010)

July 27, 2012, 7pm-9pm: Join photographer and filmmaker Nathan Kensinger for an illustrated exploration of the hidden and liminal spaces that still can be found at the watery edges of the City.

In the last decade, large sections of New York City’s waterfront have been rezoned, parcelled off and handed over to developers. A new landscape of luxury condominiums has replaced the old sugar refineries, powerhouses, bungalows and docks that once lined New York’s shores. However, some vestiges of the historic waterfront remain, mainly in forgotten or off-limits neighborhoods like Bloomfield, Edgemere, New Dorp Beach and Hammels Wye. Join Nathan Kensinger as he shares his photographs documenting the changing waterfront. 

This is part of the Atlas Obscura Speakers series of talks at Observatory, 543 Union Street (at Nevins), Brooklyn, NY 11215. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on right. Go right on Nevins and left down the alley through large black gates. Gallery is the second door on the left. Enter Observatory via Proteus Gowanus Gallery.

ADVANCE TICKETS RECOMMENDED.

by Kimberlie Birks

via sunwarrior.com

It’s likely no surprise the Tank team digs creative approaches to sustainability.  Inspired by the huge fish that beached themselves in Rio during the Rio+20 Sustainability Development Conference in June, we are tumbling into the plastic arts today, with a look at projects that cause us to reflect on our consumption habits in inspiring ways.

plastic bottle fish on Botafogo beach in Rio, June 2012 via demilked

The New York-based graphic design firm MSLK, desiring to draw attention to the plague of plastic bottles that we produce on a daily basis, installed Watershed on New York’s Governors Island in 2009. The work strung 1,500 plastic bottles—the number of bottles that the US consumes in 1 second—together into a work meant to cause people to reflect on the environmental repercussions of drinking bottled water over tap. To see more about the installation of this project, watch this lovely little video.

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