Urban Farming on a Stalled Construction Site
Since moving to New York, I’ve become way more concerned with where my food comes from and trying to eat a more sustainable diet. As the managing editor of InhabitatNYC, I have the pleasure of writing about the city’s local and sustainable food culture every day, and I’ve become somewhat obsessed with urban farming. I think it’s completely brilliant to create lush, food producing plots of land on underutilized urban spaces like rooftops, stalled construction sites, and empty lots.
Last Friday, I had the pleasure to tour Riverpark Farm, a 1 acre urban farm built on a stalled Manhattan construction site for Riverpark restaurant. It’s an incredible use of space, and the farm brings the “farm to fork” idea a whole lot closer to the table. Plus, the farm provides Riverpark with delicious, fresh produce (I dined at Riverpark last month and it was literally the best meal I have ever eaten). See all of my photos from the tour and learn more about the farm in my article on InhabitatNYC.
New Posts Coming Soon!
It’s been a wild start to 2011 and I couldn’t be more thankful. I’m spending my days managing and editing the local New York City Inhabitat site, and the rest of my writing has been pushed to the back burner for the time being. But I spent the weekend watching people take ideas and turn them into reality, and it inspired me to put more time and effort into my writing, reporting, and photography. Working with Inhabitat has been an amazing experience so far, and I’ve had the opportunity to cover some awesome events thanks to the site, like the opening of Section 2 of the High Line (it happened today!) and the Toyota Ideas for Good event in Pittsburgh (home sweet home!), just to name a few. But I want to get back to writing about the things I love most, so from here on out, I’m going to make a concerted effort to post more regularly. Here’s to more writing!
Trash Transformed into Eco-Art at NY Studio Gallery
America produces about 250 million tons of trash per year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That’s enough garbage to cover the state of Texas two and a half times. For a new exhibit at the NY Studio Gallery in the Lower East Side called “Trash,” four artists created work that highlights our waste production by repurposing or depicting refuse in creative ways.
YouTube as Fine Art
The Huber Experiments
In the latest high art/pop culture mash-up, the Guggenheim and YouTube have joined forces to create an exhibit that celebrates and examines online video. This weekend, the museum announced the twenty winning videos for the installation “YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video.” The videos were culled from more than 23,000 submissions from 91 countries. Last month, the eclectic jury, including Takashi Murakami and the music group Animal Collective, selected 125 finalists, which are still available for viewing on the playbiennial channel.
In the Studio: Dahlia Elsayed
Dahlia Elsayed has mapped out her life. Literally. The 41-year-old Arab American painter and writer uses cartography to document and express the cultural markers of her life. The maps she draws are based on concrete locations – Egypt, New Jersey, New York City – but the markers are pure feelings. With a calming blue-green palette and humorous text woven through the images, her paintings have a continuity that makes them read like pages from a book. Over the weekend, I trekked out to Newark to visit Dahlia in her studio and see her solo show at Aferro Gallery:
Book Fest Brass: Johnny Temple On The Balance Between Art and Commerce
Johnny Temple is a man of many talents. He’s played shows around the world as the bassist for Girls Against Boys, he founded an independent press Akashic Books in 1996, and publishes unsung urban authors. For the past five years, he has helped bring some of the most popular authors to Borough Hall for the Brooklyn Book Festival. This year’s book festival, on Sunday September 12, is bigger than ever with two days of “Bookend” events and all-star authors like Salman Rushdie, Naomi Klein, and Gary Shteyngart. We caught up with Temple, chair of the Brooklyn Literary Council, to talk about Akashic Books, how music and literature connect, and who he’s most excited to see at the festival.
During your time in the music business, you were involved in bands that were very influential in creating, recording, and distributing music by DIY means. The publishing business is starting to see this same shift. How do you think this will change the industry?
I think it already has affected the publishing business. There are major economic hurdles for all the publishers, large and small, but there are also all sorts of opportunities. I think it’s actually a good time to be a small company because small companies are better equipped to try creative solutions and think on our toes when it comes to the challenges presented by contemporary publishing. A lot of great independent companies are really starting to flourish. I think it’s an encouraging time with regards to companies with more of a DIY spirit.
Artisan Boutique Brooklyn Collective Finds There’s No Place Like Home
“This is a realization of the last six years,” says Rachel Goldberg, looking around. Paintings and photographs hang on the walls around her. Next to her, a wooden table is neatly covered with hand drawn cards and small pieces of art. A few racks of women’s clothing and screen-printed t-shirts sit near the back wall. Armoires and shelves display original pieces ranging from earrings and necklaces to pillows and box lights.
Welcome to the new home of Brooklyn Collective, an artisan gallery and boutique in the Columbia Street Waterfront District that exhibits and sells handcrafted jewelry, clothing, art, and housewares.
Elastic City Art Walks Unveil A Multi-Sensory City Landscape
Participants during "Monumental Walk"
Todd Shalom wants you to walk down Carroll Street with your eyes closed. He wants you to write poems in the sand at Brighton Beach. He wants to stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge with you, marveling at the worn planks and angled wires. He wants you to experience this great city in a whole new way. Living in New York City, it’s easy to take our everyday surroundings — the size of a city block, the copious amounts of public art, the glean of the skyscrapers — for granted, which is why Shalom, a Brooklyn artist, founded Elastic City. Elastic City is an organization of artists that lead walks around the city, encouraging participants to experience New York with all of their senses. Through each artist’s individual frame, the city morphs into a new, unfamiliar, and fascinating terrain. We caught up with Shalom to talk about the different walks, how they can open our minds, and why they’re unlike any other guided tour.