Fresh Kills: Field R/D was an art-research residency program organized by Dylan Gauthier and Marielle Villeré. I was part of the first of two cohorts which met in 2017-2018 to develop proposals for public projects at Freshkills Park, on the site of the former Fresh Kills landfill. The goal was to contribute to "contemporary dialogue around public memory, environmental justice, urbanism, ecology, and public architecture’s uses and forms" (Gauthier and Villeré). I produced three projects, two of which were unrealized due to the complex politics of the city agencies that oversee the site.
+Geographies of Waste, Geographies of Time: a critical tour that explored Fresh Kills’ landfill-to-park project within the long trajectory of the changing urban environment in Staten Island, and an even longer trajectory of geologic time. Read more about this project here.
+Gull Monument. The steady food source at the Fresh Kills landfill drew 30,000-50,000 herring gulls and great black-backed gulls, species that were less prevalent in the area when the dump opened in the late 1940s. These birds have been described as scavengers, opportunists, predators, and nuisances. Now, Freshkills Park is promoted as an ideal spot for bird watching, and gulls are an appreciated part of a diverse bird population. The garbage-scavenger’s image has been redeemed. This proposal for an installation of large, tethered balloons immortalizes the cultural evolution of the gull from nuisance to noble bird.
+Off Trail proposes a guided walk through East Park on a meandering, specially-mown path. Fresh Kills is a multi-layered site that contains the collective history of New York City’s refuse, landfill mitigation infrastructure, plant and animal habitat, and the promise of transformation. When Freshkills Park is fully built, it will offer a highly produced landscape and recreation experience. In the meantime, we have a unique opportunity to experience the site in its less-directed, more wild state, in which the site’s narratives are more visibly complex, less fixed. By going "off-trail," you leave a pre-determined or official path (such as a hiking trail), fostering exploration and a less-mediated experience. To go off-trail at Fresh Kills is to move in and out of experiences of wilderness and engineering, nature and policy, history and the future.
Related Links:
>Geographies of Waste, Geographies of Time
>Fresh Kills: Field R/D website
>Confluence: Artists on Water and Change (boat tour), 2016
>In Plain View: Transforming Freshkills from Landfill to Landscape, Aronson Gallery, Parsons School of Design, 2025
>reGeneration online exhibition, 2018
>2200 Acres: Field R/D Artists on Regeneration at Freshkills Park, Freshkills Park Gallery, 2018-2019