Workroom at Swale House, Governors Island, NYC
Christy Gast brings her Mobile Tinctorium to Governor’s Island to extract color from goldenrod (solidago sp.), a native plant in the aster family. Gast’s process includes transferring color from plants to fibers (foraging, dyeing, felting), sculptural installations, and exploratory, poetic, performative and collaborative actions. She will work on-site and host events throughout the summer, amidst an evolving exhibition of projects and processes in the studio.
Felting / Feeling
Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 2PM
Wet felting of wool is a tactile process during which the animal fibers must be shocked, massaged, and submerged in hot and cold water repeatedly. Wool dyed with goldenrod-derived colors will be shocked and bound into a subtle spectrum. What is shocking? Why does visibility matter?
Liberation Botany (A Poetic Oratory)
Saturday, July 13, 2019 at 2PM
What rises as it falls? Nature! This lecture by poet-writer Charity Coleman will consider natural acts of resistance, the discovery-language of colonial pillagers, and how a land became other lands as a result of brute folly. Liberation Botany is talking toward listening, asking us to tune into the poetic testimony of natural reinvention. Charity Coleman is a Brooklyn-based writer.
Text-isle
Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 2 PM
Wool needs teeth to bond with dye. Soaking the fibers in a mineral-rich bath is called mordanting. We’ll collect seawater from Buttermilk Channel to mordant wool. As we walk along the seawall, we’ll practice deep listening and ask, “What else needs teeth? How do we make language susceptible to environment?” While the wool soaks in seawater, we will steep in the place where sculpture and poetry meet, souse our words, and play with them. This workshop is a part of Ensayos, a nomadic research program based in Tierra del Fuego. Presented in collaboration with Denise Milstein, a writer and researcher who teaches at Columbia University and edits Dispatches from the Field, a publication series devoted to ethnographic material.
Arbor ∞ Ardor
Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 2 PM
Arbor ∞ Ardor proposes a new interspecies courting ritual. Trees and shrubs, woody or willowy, are known for gradual growth and support systems hidden from view. Participants will be invited to court the plant of their choice with the help of the artists/intermediaries. Should both plant and participant consent, they will be guided into contact together with rope binds. Presented in collaboration with Paloma Barhaugh-Bordas
Below: Images of installation and workshops
