MAY 1ST – JUNE 6TH
SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS
11AM – 5PM
Nolan Park, House No. 11, Governors Island, NYC
Curated by Ayaka Fujii & Elinor New
Presented by NYU Gallatin WetLab
How do we, as humans, connect to the many bodies that carry and create us?
PHREATIC! is the inaugural teaching exhibition of WetLab, an emerging art-science collective and curatorial laboratory at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Working within the bones of a domestic interior, eight interdisciplinary artists explore symbiotic ecologies and eruptive encounters. Delving into the worlds that live within other worlds, the artists investigate multispecies interactions and earthliness at points of disruption. The exhibition is housed within the New York Virtual Volcano Observatory; like volcanic eruptions, the processes and cycles that the artists explore generate both destruction and renewal.
Works by Brock Riggins and Taylor Burkhead explore contaminated and conflicted landscapes across ecological and cultural histories, while Annick Saralegui works with microbes and the visual languages of bacterial pigments and DNA to convey climate crises and fermented ecologies. Aleyna Weitzner, Rhea Barve, and Kristina Waymire present works that illuminate the intimate homes within nests, shells, and other natural vessels. Jack Helfrich and Emma Waddell create sound art and interactive virtual landscapes to bring forward patterns of symbiosis.
We invite you to sense, wonder, and enjoy the unfolding investigations that reside in this house.
– Ayaka Fujii and Elinor New
2 PM
CURATORS’ TALK
WetLab Directors Eugenia Kisin & Karen Holmberg in conversation with Curators Ayaka Fujii & Ellie New on the process of creating PHREATIC!, art-science exhibitions, and curating in times of crisis
3 PM
LIVE MUSIC
Featuring: Jack Helfrich, Noelle Heriveaux, Itai Beaudoin de Roca,
Emma Waddell, & Bird Ring Studio
3–5 PM
ARTIST-LED HAPPENINGS & KID-FRIENDLY ACTIVITIES
Join us for arts & crafts, small exhibition tours, and conversation with the artists
VR Landscapes
.
Meet the Co-Curators
Ayaka Fujii
is driven by the question of how inner and outer landscapes intertwine, and what exists their space of ‘in-between.’ With roots in Japan-Malaysia-Thailand, she is now based in NYC. As an interdisciplinary movement artist she explores felt time, embodied knowledge, psychogeography, and nature-culture entanglement. She is a graduate of NYU Gallatin with an individualized B.A. titled “Poetics of Home” (2020) with a minor in Peace and Conflict Studies. She is honored and inspired to be an alumna-in-residence at Gallatin as a curatorial fellow, and aspires to nurture a home for re-imaging social, political and ecological entanglements at WetLab. @ayaka_fujiitham
Photo by Emma Comrie
Ellie New
is a curator, producer, and writer. Her projects include exhibitions, events, and writing that connect art, environmental justice, and the emerging field of curatorial activism in order to catalyze the power of artists’ voices to generate alternative futures. In March 2021, she curated Press Your Ear to the Wind: a virtual stage for artist “duets” that explore the complexities of climate crises through artworks, conversation, and questioning. She graduated from New York University with an Individualized B.A. titled “Art for Our Sake: Curatorial Activism and Cultural Institutions as Civic Assets” and a minor in Arts Politics from the NYU Tisch Department of Art & Public Policy. She is an alumna-in-residence and curatorial fellow with WetLab. www.ellienew.info
Photo by J. New
With gratitude to all who helped
bring PHREATIC! to life
Armaan Ahmed, Shane Brennan, Patrick Brooks and the NY VVO, Aaron Cedolia, Cyd Cipolla, Emma Comrie, Jacob Ford, Karen Holmberg, Eugenia Kisin, Keith Miller, Alessia Reggiani, Casey Skodnek, KC Trommer, Suzanne Wofford, NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study, The Gallatin Galleries, NYU Gallatin STAC, and all of our neighbors in Nolan Park.
A special thank you to our Gallery Staff members
Jaap Deinum, Sarika Doppalapudi, Salma Kiuhan, Clara Luce, Jesse McLaughlin, and Jayda Robison