Mespaetches Creek Dynamic Listening @ Newtown Creek Nature Walk







In Winter 2021 I participated in a remote interactive art residency via laboratory Spokane.
I started a sound archiving project focused on Mespaetches/Newtown Creek and the proposed North Brooklyn Pipeline
fitting into my body of work called Pre York River. This body of work engaged ecologies and communities
connected to what is popularly known as the Hudson River using public sound installation, social archiving,
and up cycled soft sculpture. For Laboratory Spokane I created an interactive sound map and many large quilts.
On the sound map a user can move digitized sounding sculptures around my Brooklyn quilt to hear sounds
I recorded at those locations. This map mimics how my sculpture, the dynamic listening instrument,
can be used to share sonic archives using electromagnetic fields, sculpture, and interaction.

Circles on the map hold a few recordings I have taken over the years around the city, ranging from interviews,
protests, and ambient found sound.

This map was made as a precursor to an in person installation to take place once pandemic restrictions had eased.
In its creation I visited many sites along Newtown Creek and the north Brooklyn pipeline taking recordings and mapping sites,
going to events and hosting interviews on my radio show at Newtown Radio, Anthropology.
Now I am ready to do an installation at Newtown Creek Nature Walk Park where 10 Pre York River Quilts,
hours of my archival audio, and performances can be shared with a diverse public. Organizations like North Brooklyn Neighbors
have been advocating for waterfront access and remediation of Newtown Creek which is one of the most polluted places in the country.
My installation offers an environment for critical play where people of any age can learn about this history of the waterway while
also having fun playing with sounds and lounging on soft sculpture.

Newtown Creek Nature Walk Park is right behind the Wastewater Treatment plant where 40% of the cities liquid waste is processed.
The park is hidden away accessed by a series of bridges and is literally a piece of landscape art with many features intentional and
incidental. As you sit on the park's stairs descending into the creek, where I will install my quilts and sound sculpture,
you can watch cranes crushing cars, birds returning to the remediated creek, and people living in small boats.

This installation builds upon my other Pre-York River Works, offering interactive sound and soft sculpture along the waterway
throughout the state with sounding buckets and pillows.