Thanks to everyone who attended our last Breakfast Talk of the academic year, highlighting the multimedia art exhibition Bay Ridge Through an Ecological Lens. We were thrilled to host Jeannine Bardo, founder of Stand4 Gallery; Jennifer McGregor, curator of the show; and artists Christopher Lin and Nikki Lindt for an in-depth discussion on the exhibit.
Bay Ridge Through an Ecological Lens, is a multimedia exhibit offered by Stand4 Gallery in Bay Ridge that brings eighteen artists together in a show that includes interactive public art installations and exhibitions throughout this Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood. As with all its offerings, Stand4 takes art into the community and in one way or another, highlights environmental issues that are relevant to Bay Ridge.
In this last Breakfast Talk of the academic year, the four panelists spoke about engaging communities using diverse sites for their art, and employing multiple forms in their work. BWRC is always happy to host discussions of artists who talk about the Brooklyn waterfront and the climate crisis that is inexorably changing the nature of that waterfront.
Please take a look at the recording of the event now on youtube! highlights of the event are below!
Below are some key highlights from our latest Breakfast Talk! Click the links to learn more about the panelists and to follow their ongoing work!
Jeannine Bardo, founder and artistic director of Stand4 Gallery and Community Arts Center, is a Brooklyn-born artist, curator, and art educator. She received her BFA in illustration from the School of Visual Arts and completed both a Masters in Art Education and a Masters in Fine Arts from Brooklyn College. She is a multi-disciplinary artist with a focus on humanity’s connections to the natural world. She is a lifelong resident of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
Bardo has over ten years of experience as a curator in both the public and private realm. She collaborated on a NYC Public Artwork titled Ark for the Arts that focused on climate change and resiliency in the community of Red Hook, Brooklyn. Bardo is a Co-founder of BioBAT Art Space and she curated the inaugural exhibition in January, 2019. During today’s panel, Bardo discussed the founding of Stand4 Gallery and how its mission ties in with the themes of this current exhibition. She also moderated the discussion between the artists and the curator.
Jennifer McGregor is a place-based curator who focuses on ecological, historical, and cultural issues. She collaborates with organizations to activate public spaces and create opportunities for artists to engage diverse audiences. In addition to Bay Ridge Through an Ecological Lens, she curated “Shared Dialogue, Shared Space,” a day of interactive projects in her neighborhood park with Korea Art Forum.
During today’s talk, McGregor noted that while Bay Ridge is a unique place in terms of ecology because of its diversity of trees and proximity to water, “ecology is everywhere.” McGregor explained how the show came together, both in terms of the artists that are featured and the locations where works are hosted. These locations include the Alpine Theater, the Bay Ridge Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and Owl’s Head Park—in addition to Stand4 Gallery. Visit McGregor’s website to learn more about her work: https://www.mcgregorconsulting.net
Christopher Lin, a Brooklyn-based artist and educator with a background in research science, discussed his unique practice combining art with chemistry. Fueled by a lifelong obsession with fossils, his experimental installations, sculptures, and performances question the world we inhabit and envision the one we will leave behind. Often collaborating with non-human organisms or wider ecologies, his time-based works synthesize elements of environmental ecology with meditative practices to explore the interconnected nature of our material world. Lin currently teaches at Hunter College and Parsons Fine Arts and is co-director of the research-based artist collective Sprechgesang Institute.
Lin’s work at the Bay Ridge Through an Ecological Lens exhibition focuses on the water around New York City and our relationship to it. Lin highlighted one of his pieces on view, a banker’s desk with an aquarium filled with miniature New York City landmarks that are undergoing chemical processes. He discussed how calcification, the accumulation of calcium salts, contributes to improving the ecology of New York’s water systems. Visit Lin’s website to learn more about his work: https://christopherlinstudio.com/home.html
Nikki Lindt is a multidisciplinary artist who grew up in the U.S. and the Netherlands. Lindt works primarily in the mediums of painting, sound, and video on long-term projects. Her work focuses on environmental stewardship and people’s relationship to natural areas—from the Arctic Circle to the forests of New York City. She often works with ecologists, social scientists, philosophers, and others. Her work has been covered by media outlets including Forbes, NPR’s Here and Now, CBS Sunday Morning, New York Magazine, and numerous others.
Lindt has given many public talks about her work and has received the Pollack-Krasner Grant, Brooklyn Arts Council Grant, Puffin Foundation Grant, the Dutch Artists Grant (Fonds BKVB) and has been awarded the Environmental Cultural Award, Milieudienst (Environmental Protection Agency) Amsterdam, Netherlands. Today, she spoke about her ecological recordings around New York City and elsewhere. Whether recording permafrost thawing in Alaska or the New York City waterways, Lindt picks up on the subtle details of each place. Her work incorporates first-person interviews with individuals who have different but unique relationships to the water. Visit Lindt’s website to learn more about her work: https://www.nlindt.com
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
