SEA
To listen to a podcast from our panel discussion on fracking, or to a recording of the SEA Poetry Series No. 6 with Phil Metres, Michael Leong and Jacques del Conte, please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
FRACKING: Art and Activism Against the Drill
EXTENDED! Through March 26, 2011
Opening Tuesday, December 7, 7-9pm
EXHIBITION * ARTISTS * PUBLIC EVENTS * ABOUT FRACKING * ABOUT SEA * SUPPORT
Exit Art announces Fracking: Art and Activism Against the Drill. Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is a means of gas extraction that accesses gas trapped more than a mile below the earth’s surface. This exhibition, a project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics), will expose this process of gas extraction that is contaminating water supplies worldwide. Through documentary videos, photography by Jacques del Conte and Michael Forster Rothbart, commissioned works, public responses and literature, it will engage the public in dialogue on this issue through public lectures and calls to action and encourage audiences to continue educating themselves and their communities on fracking and its detrimental effects.
Exit Art invited the public to respond to the issue of fracking by submitting a postcard via mail with original artwork on one side and a written statement on the other. The dozens of responses we received will be on view, forming a collective call to end fracking; postcards will be accepted throughout the run of the exhibition and will be added as they are received.
Organized by Lauren Rosati, Assistant Curator, with Peggy Cyphers, Ruth Hardinger, and Alice Zinnes.
ARTISTS
June Ahrens, Guy and Mary Arnold, Sabrina Artel, Kevin Bourgeois, Dianne Bowen, Miriam Brumer, Lois Carlo, Pamela Casper, Peggy Cypher, Carrie Dashow and Suzanne Thorpe, Jacques del Conte, Linda DiGusta, Debra Drexler, Dennis Edge, Mariah Fee, Xeth Feinberg, Jane Fire, Sandy Gellis, Patricia Bellan-Gillen, Elizabeth Ginsberg, Edith Gould, Grace Graupe-Pillard, Ruth Hardinger, Erica Hart, Heide Hatry, Mary Hrbacek, Michael Lebron, Michael Leong, Linda Levit, Ellen Levy, Glenn Lieberman, Norm Magnusson, Angela Manno, E.J. McAdams, Jenny McNutt, Philip Metres and Kristen Baumlier, William Meyer, Rifka Milder, Ron Moroson and Miriam Bloom, C. Michael Norton, Tom Otterness, Tina Potter, Jane Prettyman, Aviva Rahmani, Michael Forster Rothbart, Allan Rubin, Christy Rupp, Kevin Ryan, Paul Lloyd Sargent, Laura Sheinkopf / Jesse Goldstein / Molly Fair, Barbara Slitkin, Susan Smith, Robin Jane Solvang, Sasha Sumner, Naomi Teppich, Robin Tewes, Edwin Torres, Chris Twomey, Mark Wiener, Jeanne Wilkinson, Alice Zinnes
POSTCARDS BY: June Ablele, Irina Adam, Ivan Alechine, Audrey Anastasi, Nancy Azara, Mike Ball, Andrea L. Beeman, Zigi Ben-Haim, Darla Bjork, J.K. Black, Sarah Bliss, Louise Bloom, David Borawski, Keith A. Buchholz, Uma Bullock, Milanka Bunard, Abraham Cahn, Raquel Camara, Lindsay Carone, Ed Cheng, Clark Clarke, Maurizio Collini, Marcia Cooper, Linus Coraggio, Kathy Creutzburg, Janet Culbertson, Josiah Cuneo, Gina Cuneo, Steve Dalachinsky, Daniel De Culla , Bryan Derballa, Cecilia Devine, Daria Dorosh, Michael P. Duncan, William Durkin, Willis Elkins, Jordan Essoe, Jacinto Estevez Garcia, Edward Fausty, Alan Finkel, Ann Finneran, David Fry, Sean Patrick Gallagher, Dylan Gauthier, Sandy Gellis, Ali Gracie, Dustin Grella, Julie Guoss, Jedd Haas, Parker Hamill, Sofia Heimowitz, Christine Heller, Sarah Hincley, Jean Hricik, Akiko Ichikawa, George Jacob, Taylor Jaffe, Ramona Jan, Lucian Jones, Robert Kirkbride, Richard J. Kreznar, Nick Lamia, Ian Laughlin, Cecile Lawrence, Gwyneth Leech, Ellen Levy, Larry Litt, Angela Manno, Marina March, Anna Mattila-Tolvanen, Sarah McCoubrey, Anna Jane McIntyre, Michael McKeown, Brandi Merolla, Rifka Milder, Lisa Moren, Ron Morosan, Leo Morrissey, Margaret Neill, Reynolds Norman-Tenazas, Clemente Padin, Catherine Pena, Nicholas R. Pena, Connie Perry, Olivia Racette, B. Raux, Pat Roberts, G. Ross, Brie Ruais, Deborah Scheider, Scott Schultheis, Laurel Shute, Marilyn Silver, Susan Smith, Joan Sonnenfeld, Martin Springhetti, Sharon Suess, Kendra Sullivan, Jaromir Svozilik, Theodore Taffe, Sandra Taggart, S. Tanger, Naomi Teppich, Catherine Tirr, Dennis Tonifrins, Teressa Valla, Adrian Vega, Hanna Von Goeler, Dave Walczak, Lili White, Stephanie Wooster, Tamara Wyndham, Barbara Zweig
PUBLIC EVENTS
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 / 7-9pm
Fracking and Its Effects: A Panel Discussion
Host: Mark Ruffalo, Actor / Activist
Moderator: Tracy Carluccio, Activist
Panelists: Joe Levine, Lobbyist / Activist; Michael Lebron, Artist / Activist / Organizer; Al Appleton, Policy; Dr. Vince Pedre, Health Expert; Christy Rupp, Artist; and Josh Fox, Director / "Gasland"
Fracking and Its Effects: A Panel Discussion
Host: Mark Ruffalo, Actor / Activist
Moderator: Tracy Carluccio, Activist
Panelists: Joe Levine, Lobbyist / Activist; Michael Lebron, Artist / Activist / Organizer; Al Appleton, Policy; Dr. Vince Pedre, Health Expert; Christy Rupp, Artist; and Josh Fox, Director / "Gasland"
This panel discussion brings together leading experts and activists on hydraulic fracturing, representing multiple facets of this issue.
Mark Ruffalo is an actor, director, producer and screenwriter known for his roles in We Don’t Live Here Anymore, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Reservation Road, and The Kids Are All Right, for which he recently received SAG and Independent Spirit Award nominations. He is also a vocal critic of hydraulic fracturing.
Tracy Carluccio is the Deputy Director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, a nonprofit environmental organization she helped found in 1988. She has served on several State, county and township Councils and boards, project steering committees and community organizations related to issues of water and environmental preservation.
Al Appleton is the former Commissioner of NYC's Department of Environmental Protection and the former Director of the New York City Water and Sewer System where he created the Catskill watershed protection program, a worldwide model for sustainable watershed management and drinking water source protection. He is an international expert on water issues, watershed management and environmental sustainability. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Cooper Union and a Senior Fellow at the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design.
Josh Fox is the Director of "Gasland," a documentary
film that focuses on communities affected by natural gas drilling. It
premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Special
Jury Prize, and has also been nominated for best documentary screenplay
by the Writer's Guild of America. Josh is also the Artistic Director of
the International WOW Company, a theater and film company that has
produced two feature films and over 25 full-length theater productions
which have premiered in New York City, Asia and Europe.
Michael Lebron has had a varied career in site-specific / public forum media art installations, in advertising, and in grassroots activism. His public work has led him into a number of 1st Amendment battles, one of which involved an 8-1 decision at the Supreme court level written by Antonin Scalia, with Sandra Day O'Connor in dissent.
Joe Levine is a principal in the NYC firm of Bone/Levine Architects. The firm is involved with urban infrastructure upgrading and rehabilitation, conservation easement planning, and is a consultant to the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design. He is the co-founder of NYH20 and Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, two grassroots nonprofit organizations dedicated to educating the public about the threats posed by unconventional natural gas extraction.
Michael Lebron has had a varied career in site-specific / public forum media art installations, in advertising, and in grassroots activism. His public work has led him into a number of 1st Amendment battles, one of which involved an 8-1 decision at the Supreme court level written by Antonin Scalia, with Sandra Day O'Connor in dissent.
Joe Levine is a principal in the NYC firm of Bone/Levine Architects. The firm is involved with urban infrastructure upgrading and rehabilitation, conservation easement planning, and is a consultant to the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design. He is the co-founder of NYH20 and Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, two grassroots nonprofit organizations dedicated to educating the public about the threats posed by unconventional natural gas extraction.
Dr. Vince Pedre is the President of Wellness Media LLC, Medical
Director of Pedre Integrative Health, and a Board-Certified Internist
in private practice in New York City since 2004. He maintains hospital privileges and is voluntary faculty at Mount Sinai Medical Center where he holds the title of Clinical Instructor in Medicine.
Christy Rupp is an artist and activist who has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions internationally since 1977. Her most recent body of work deals with fracking, mountaintop removal and oil drilling in the Amazon.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011 / 7-9pm
SEA Poetry Series No. 6 with Phil Metres and Michael Leong
and an artist response by Jacques del Conte
SEA Poetry Series No. 6 with Phil Metres and Michael Leong
and an artist response by Jacques del Conte
The SEA Poetry Series emphasizes diverse ways in
which poets address social and environmental issues in their work.
Presented in connection with specific SEA exhibitions, the series aims
to investigate and expand the exhibition theme through the lens of
contemporary poetry. After each reading, an artist from the exhibition
or a community member working within the exhibition theme briefly
responds to the poet. Past poets in the series have included Jonathan Skinner, Marcella
Durand, Laura Elrick, The Canary Project, James Sherry and Julie Ezelle
Patton.
SEA Poetry Series conceived and organized by E.J. McAdams, poet and
Associate Director of Philanthropy at The Nature Conservancy, New York
City. $5. Cash bar. Q and A to follow.
Michael Leong is the author of two books of poetry: e.s.p. (Silenced Press, 2009) and Cutting Time with a Knife (Black Square Editions / The Brooklyn Rail, forthcoming). He's also written a translation of the Chilean poet Estela Lamat, I, the Worst of All (BlazeVOX [books], 2009), and several chapbooks and broadsides including The Great Archivist's / Cloudy Quotient (Beard of Bees Press, 2010), Midnight's Marsupium (The Knives Forks and Spoons Press, 2010), and The Lung of the Poet (Splitleaves Press, 2011). He lives in New York City and contributes to the literary blog Big Other.
Philip Metres is the author of To See the Earth (2008), Come Together: Imagine Peace (2008), Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront since 1941 (2007), Catalogue of Comedic Novelties: Selected Poems of Lev Rubinstein (translation, 2004), and A Kindred Orphanhood: Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky (translation, 2003). He has also published two chapbooks, Instants (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2006) and Primer for Non-Native Speakers (Wick Poetry Series, 2004), and has three forthcoming in 2011: abu ghraib arias, Ode to Oil, and Thirty-Five New Pages. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, and Inclined to Speak: Contemporary Arab American Poetry and has garnered an NEA, a Watson Fellowship, two Ohio Arts Council Grants, and the Cleveland Arts Prize in 2010. He teaches literature and creative writing at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. For more information on his poetry, click here.
Philip Metres is the author of To See the Earth (2008), Come Together: Imagine Peace (2008), Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront since 1941 (2007), Catalogue of Comedic Novelties: Selected Poems of Lev Rubinstein (translation, 2004), and A Kindred Orphanhood: Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky (translation, 2003). He has also published two chapbooks, Instants (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2006) and Primer for Non-Native Speakers (Wick Poetry Series, 2004), and has three forthcoming in 2011: abu ghraib arias, Ode to Oil, and Thirty-Five New Pages. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, and Inclined to Speak: Contemporary Arab American Poetry and has garnered an NEA, a Watson Fellowship, two Ohio Arts Council Grants, and the Cleveland Arts Prize in 2010. He teaches literature and creative writing at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. For more information on his poetry, click here.
Jacques del Conte is a regular contributor of photography and video for Vanity Fair Magazine, VanityFair.com and Vogue.it. He has also been published in Nylon, Useless, Movies Rock, Giant, WhiteWall, V Man, Lucky, Vice, Out, and The Bardian as well as Tim Barber’s Tiny Vices and TV Books. In June 2010, he created a documentary video and contributed a series of photographs to a Vanity Fair article called "A Colossal Fracking Mess." For more information, click here.
Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is a means of gas extraction that accesses gas trapped more than a mile below the earth’s surface. When a well is fracked, small earthquakes are produced by the pressurized injection of millions of gallons of fresh water combined with sand and chemicals, releasing the gas, as well as toxic chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive materials that contaminate air and water.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed under the guidance of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, exempts fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act and major provisions of other protective laws, virtually eliminating the gas industry’s liability and E.P.A.’s regulatory oversight. Exemption from the Community Right to Know Law also absolves the gas industry from being required to report the actual chemicals used in the drilling processes—chemicals that can severely contaminate the water supply and cause serious illnesses. A drilling moratorium is in effect in New York State until the D.E.C. issues fracking regulation, potentially paving the way for drilling to commence in New York in 2011.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed under the guidance of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, exempts fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act and major provisions of other protective laws, virtually eliminating the gas industry’s liability and E.P.A.’s regulatory oversight. Exemption from the Community Right to Know Law also absolves the gas industry from being required to report the actual chemicals used in the drilling processes—chemicals that can severely contaminate the water supply and cause serious illnesses. A drilling moratorium is in effect in New York State until the D.E.C. issues fracking regulation, potentially paving the way for drilling to commence in New York in 2011.
http://www.DamascusCitizens.org
Educating about gas drilling issues and seeking solutions including legal, regulatory and government reforms
The NYC sister group to Damascus Citizens
Advocate of clean water in New York State and New York City
Affiliated with Riverkeeper
http://delawareriverkeeper.org
A 22-year-old environmental advocacy, stream restoration and education organization that operates throughout the Delaware River Watershed
Active in NY State; focused in Chenango, Delaware and Otsego counties
Centralized source tracking and visualizing data related to gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale region
Active in the Upstate NY and Finger Lakes region
http://www.earthworksaction.org
A national organization for the education, organization and protection of communities from the devastating impacts of oil and gas development
http://www.catskillmountainkeeper.org/
Active in the Catskills region
About the movie and about getting involved in the issues
ABOUT SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics)
SEA is a unique endeavor that presents a diverse multimedia exhibition program and permanent archive of artworks that address social and environmental concerns. SEA assembles artists, activists, scientists and scholars to address environmental issues through presentations of visual art, performances, panels and lecture series that will communicate international activities concerning environmental and social activism. Central to SEA’s mission is to provide a vehicle through which the public can be made aware of socially- and environmentally-engaged work, and to provide a forum for collaboration between artists, scientists, activists, scholars and the public. SEA functions as an initiative where individuals can join together in dialogue about issues that affect our daily lives. SEA was conceived by Exit Art Artistic Director Papo Colo.
General exhibition support provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Bloomberg LP; Jerome Foundation; Lambent Foundation; Pollock-Krasner Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn; and public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. We are grateful to Damascus Citizens for Sustainability and Delaware RiverKeeper for their help and expertise in the complex issues of fracking.