Field R/D Receives Rubin Foundation Grant Award
Freshkills Park’s ongoing Field R/D project has been named one of sixty awardees of the Rubin Foundation’s grants toward their Art and Social Justice Initiative. This research and development phase of the expansive and collaborative art-research project began through artist conversations and visits to Freshkills Park over the course of 2017. Now, through the support of the Rubin Foundation, the conversation moves toward installation and realization this summer.
Lize Mogel stands in her studio wearing a cut-fabric landscape, representing a body of work that deals with mapping and un-mapping the world around us. (Photo: Natalie Conn)
Mary Mattingly’s previous pieces dealing with consumption and accumulation accumulate around her as she works. (Photo: Natalie Conn)
Nancy Nowacek waits to catch the Staten Island Ferry with supplies in hand. Her artistic practice, which explores the daily tasks of bodies, is always on the move. (Photo: Natalie Conn)
Audrey Snyder and Joe Riley take a break from their extensive research at lab-like studios in Cooper Union. Their exploratory process takes them throughout the city and beyond. (Photo: Natalie Conn)
Through the Art and Social Justice Initiative grant, the Rubin Foundation seeks to “catalyze collective action, promote equality, contribute to advocacy and policy change and develop capacity for greater civic engagement.” These goals align closely with Field R/D’s flexible and innovative take on public art programming, as the site specific backdrop asks artists to engage with the changing landscape, the history of waste, and contemporary questions surrounding both waste and nature in Freshkills Park. This is the third iteration of the Art and Social Justice program which began in 2015, and the second time that the Freshkills Park Alliance has received the award.
The selected artists, working closely with Freshkills Park and artist/curator Dylan Gauthier, researched and submitted initial proposals for work to show this summer. The artists include Lize Mogel, Mary Mattingly, Nancy Nowacek, and the team Audrey Snyder and Joe Riley, among others. Field R/D is a template for how artists may engage the site as it progresses through its transformation and form a residency program. As much about the process as it is the final presentation, the group has prioritized documentation of their work throughout the year. Photographer Natalie Conn has documented the group’s collaborative process as well as the artists in their individual spaces of research.
In addition to the temporary installations and performances at Freshkills Park this summer, Field R/D will widen the artist discussion to the New York City community through events, exhibitions, and a final publication. The Rubin Foundation Grant allows for the exploration of environmental issues through art, and through this artistic process we can better understand our own community and world.
Artist portraits by Natalie Conn.
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