NEWS

LIVING SCULPTURES: What! Art and Oysters? One Artist’s Quest to Create the Ultimate Habitat for the Urban Oyster. New York City was once known as the "Oyster Capitol of the World", with its water systems once boasting 350 square miles of oyster reef. Now it has none. New York City based environmental artist Mara G. Haseltine wants to change that.

Sunday, July 12, 2009 Governor's Island, NYC

1:30 PM: Meet at Manhattan’s Governors Island Ferry Terminal, and arrival of special guest performance artist Jessica Delfino as "Ghost of Oyster's Past"

2:15 PM: Lecture & Demonstration on Waterpod™ (environmental art barge docked off Governor’s Island)

3:15 PM: Tour of "Modern Day Midden: Ode to Oysters Past” (at Colonial's Row, Governor’s Island)

Cost of event: FREE (including the ferry ride)

MARA G. HASELTINE, environmental artist and science based sculptor, will be giving a talk and demonstration showcasing her latest work in creating designs and structures for 'living sculptures" in order to create an ultimate urban oyster reef in New York City. In addition to her talk the artist will give a tour of her work "Modern Day Midden: Ode to Oysters Past" and related drawings, currently installed on Governors Island in "Colonel's Row" as part of the the sculpture Guilds' show entitled "Formative Lines", which was curated by the Drawing Center and is on display throughout the summer season.

She will talk about her involvement in bringing the Crassotrea Virginica, or the native New York oyster back to region's estuaries. This would create a natural filtration system to cleanse the waters stimulating a return to a level of biodiversity that has been missing in New York’s waters since the Industrial Revolution. Oysters are the backbone of the benthic habitat and act as natural water treatment plants. The average oyster filters 5-25 gallons of "nutrient" rich water per day. The restoration of 100 square miles of reef would filter twenty seven billion tons of wastewater that flows into New York's Waterways annually. The reef would not only be a haven for oysters, but would quickly become a diverse habitat for aquatic life of all forms from gastropods to Striped Bass.

SHEEPSHEAD BAY COMMUNITY EVENT THURSDAY JULY 2
6pm – dark: Music, art, new technologies and food, prepared by people in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood and the Waterpod™ team. TBD: WFMU Broadcast by solar car.

OFFICIAL PUBLIC OPENING OF WATERPOD™ AT SHEEPSHEAD BAY
This week Waterpod™ was towed by a masterful team at Miller's Launch to Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn, and have been granted certification as a public vessel by the United States Coast Guard. We are ready to celebrate. We will be open tomorrow from 11 am - 7 pm. Pier 2 is located on Emmons Avenue and Bedford Avenue (essentially E 25th Street) in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. It can be accessed by the Q and B trains, followed by about a 15 minute walk or a short ride on the B4 bus. Want to bring a treat for the chickens? Our ladies love to eat egg shells, it helps provide them with the calcium they need to lay eggs. Sheepshead Bay is also home to some great local spots, including Jordan's Lobster dock, who serves a famous lobster roll and Randazzo's clam bar, a local gem that has been generous in supplying us with oyster shells that we crush and feed to the chickens, another great source of calcium. It is also home to a flock of about 75 white swans that can be seen from the Pod exploring the harbor.We will be docked in Sheepshead Bay until Sunday July 5. On July 6 we will be towed to Governor's Island.

view larger map>>

JUNE 2009 Resident artist Eve K. Tremblay has posted photographs she took during the construction of Waterpod™ at the GMD Shipyards in the Brooklyn Navy Yard>>

- Photograph by Eve K. Tremblay.

WATERPOD™ and CLIMATE CHANGE PREPAREDNESS CENTER
The four primary Waterpod™ resident artists (Mary, Mira, Eve and Alison) are being outiftted by Jane Van Cleef of Climate Change Preparedness Center. CCPC has been outfitting Americans for a more aquatic future since October 2005. Their mission began in Cambridge, Massachusetts where the team combined their passions for wet weather gear, future topographics and factory enterprise into an innovative small business. CCPC will purvey visionary and functional handmade merchandise designed for the resident artists as they embark on their experimental summer adventure, including a skirt that can transform into a tent and a sailor cap that can charge batteries with solar power >>


WATERPOD™ IN THE NEWS: The NY TIMES and TIME OUT NY
As the crew works to complete our new watery home, two articles are printed Thursday June 4th about Waterpod™ and our final weeks of construction.

-Photo by Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times.

JUNE 2009: WATERPOD™ EVENTS SCHEDULE POSTED
We are still working on our launch date in coordination with the Mayor's office, but we have created a calendar of events which will be updated shortly with our full exhibition, lecture and conference schedule.

CURRENT BARGE RENDERINGS >>


-Architectural renderings produced by our lead designer Gabe Krause. Clockwise from top: Waterpod™ top angle view, Waterpod™ side view, artist residence building, green house dome.

WATERPOD™ LECTURE SERIES >>
Waterpod™ is pleased to announce it's first free public lecture event at the South Street Seaport Pier on June 12, 2009, at 8 PM. **OUR LECTURE WITH PETER EISENSTADT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL A LATER DATE**

MAY 2009: UPDATED DOCKING SCHEDULE>>
We don't have all the details worked out yet, but here are some of our docking dates and locations so far.

WOOLOO HAS CHOSEN WATERPOD™
Wooloo.org has chosen Waterpod™ to act as an international sister exhibition to NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN. Wooloo.org is an artist-run organization based in Berlin, Germany, which is presenting NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN this year, a contemporary environmental art festival powered by the collective thinking of the Wooloo.org community's worldwide users >>

TALE OF A BARGE: MAY 2009
The Waterpod™ team has encountered many unexpected challenges during the progression of the project. Our first barge, a donated massive aging deck barge named 'Uncle Leo', didn't survive the long New York winter and ended up being sold for scrap metal. We considered a 1983 Hopper Barge, but given the delays were not able to invest the added labour and resources it would have required to create a level deck. Luckily for Waterpod™, we were saved by Weeks Marine. This isn't the first rescue for Weeks Marine, they are the company responsible for lifting the US Airways flight 1549 airplane from the Hudson River in January. Our current acquisition is a solid though smaller, 98' x 31' tanker barge, which was once employed for the transport of petroleum. The barge has been restored in preparation for its next incarnation as the foundation for our installation. This of course required Mary Mattingly, Derek Hunter and Gabe Krause to focus on reorganizing our design plans to accommodate the new barge dimensions. We are currently building Waterpod™ at the Brooklyn Navy Yard with a devoted team of gifted volunteers lead by Derek Hunter.

- Picture by Derek Hunter of the ongoing build-out at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

JOIN WATERPOD™ FOR OUR FUNDRAISING LAUNCH PARTY
Wednesday May 20 2009 at 5 Ninth (between W 13th Street and Little West 12th Street), New York, NY 10014. You are invited to be a part of an effort to affect the public attitude towards the environment and to actively educate people through art and science. Tickets available at $150, $500, $1000 and higher depending on sponsorship level. DOWNLOAD INVITE AND EVENT INFORMATION AS A PDF>>


RSVP or FIND OUT MORE ABOUT WATERPOD™ SPONSORSHIP by contacting marymattingly@thewaterpod.org >>

ART FORUM AND WATERPOD™
500 words on Waterpod™ and Mary Mattingly featured in Art Forum's online edition >>

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