Bridge 4: East river fashion line 2017

S.O.S East river 

Collaboration between Skye Matlock and Lisa Deurer, LD13

East river fashion line 2017

The arts today are a powerful tool used to visually express the truth of the world around us all. Therefore, we request to permission a high fashion performance event on Roosevelt island, where models will wear our 2017 Newtown Creek Bacteria line which will pose questions and visually inform society about the continuous pollution of Newtown Creek flowing into the East River.

Description of Process and Results

The commemoration of water pollution in a public space can potentially lead to the awareness of how immensely it affects our environment. If there were a growth in education and awareness about the situations revolving around the current state of water pollution, people would be more likely to help or even attempt to prevent the unsanitary habits that deteriorate our water sources. The Four Freedoms memorial at Roosevelt Island offer the optimal location to offer this type of potential educational information and awareness, as it is surrounded by one of the most polluted bodies of water in New York City, The East River. This area, booming with both natives and tourists, making it crowded quite often, could offer an opportunity to show a body of water that directly affects the people around it. By utilizing a well visited, popular space, people would be able to engage directly with the problem and form an emotional reaction rather than relying on secondary or indirect sources. Anyone who visits the island gazes at the water or admires the city from a distance, not knowing what lies within the surface of the river. Locals of the Island, as well as New Yorkers from other areas, could take what they learn from our commemoration and make steps toward the prevention of worsening water pollution. The arts today are a powerful tool used to visually express the truth of the world around us. Therefore, we believe the fashion line we would use as a sort of performance will pose questions and visually inform society about the continuous pollution of Newtown Creek flowing into the East River. Most of the time, people don’t take this kind of information seriously because it is often presented to them in intimidating or unpleasant ways. The idea of our project is to have people approach our subjects, not to scare away our audience.

Our Bacteria Fashion line excursion, should pose questions to society, make their minds go weird and crazy when they see them, they should be an alarm bell to society a tool to raise awareness and get more people involved in organizations such as the Riverkeeper association in order to make our environments clean and healthy.

The Partners and associations we want to address are:

 

 

Safe the Date: The Excursion will run the 26th of April 2018, where we celebrate earth day.

Process and development of ideas:

First sketches, first ideas

Final documentation and creation of a mood board

Mock-up of the Bacteria Fashion line excursion, April 28, 2018

Photoshoot of a prototype bacteria outfit at Roosevelt island coming 2018

Where to find us the 26th of April, 2018

Location of the Event:

Bird view of the southern tip of Roosevelt island. The Excursion will take place ate walkways of the Four Freedoms Memorial shown in both views.

 

Final Proposal

The arts today are a powerful tool used to visually express the truth of the world around us all. Therefore, we request to permission a high fashion performance event on Roosevelt island, where models will wear our 2017 Newtown Creek Bacteria line which will pose questions and visually inform society about the continuous pollution of Newtown Creek flowing into the East River.

The Newtown Creek is a 3.8 water mile between Brooklyn and Queens, with a number of tributaries that flow into the creek and out into the east river. Today the Creek is a well known polluted site in the country since the 1900 hundreds. But this wasn’t always the case. Back in the early 16 hundred where Dutch and English settlers arrived at the Newtown Creek and on the island of Manhattan, the Creek and the East River were abundant with wildlife like oysters and fish, marshlands, and indigenous people who “made good use of the vibrant ecosystem” (NCA Alliance). The Creek and the East river were rich in fish stalks and salt grases which once could feed Native Americans and European settlers with their cattles. Also due to the East River’s constant shifts up and down the river, tidal energy swept through marshes which was used to turn the mills of farmers. The time where nature and humans lived in harmony with oneself.

Time passed and things changed, in the early 1800s the Hudson and East rivers became the world’s center of trading and shipbuilding. The streams and marshes were filled in with landfill and sewage disposals and paved over in making the place the industrial epicenter at that time. In other words, the line and shape of the river were altered by human interferences. The Creek was widened and deepened for ships to pass through and reach industrial ports, which were transporting heavy material.

In the 19th century, the Creek specifically provided space for glue, oil and fertilizer factories to settle, such as Copper smelters, tanning works, chemical plants, manufactured gas plants, oil refineries such as the “ExxonMobil”, coal yards and lumber yards. A majority of these industries dealt with hazardous chemical waste or produced toxic byproducts, which polluted the Creek for years. Since New York City  in general lacked environmental restrictions, people weren’t hindered in polluting the water. Hence why, number of hazardous pollutants like mercury, fecal coliform, and excess nitrogen entered the local soils, groundwater and river of Newtown Creek itself.

Back in the 1800s, many sewer systems emptied into local waterways, without being treated or cleaned.  In the 20th century the city finally installed waste water treatment plants, which clean the wastewater of a sewage disposal. To the present, New York city has 14 wastewater plants operating in all 5 boroughs, one famous example would be the digester eggs near Newtown Creek. But still the Creek is suffering from severe problems from combined sewer overflow (CSO), when days are rainy, which is the greatest source of pollution these days in the Newtown Creek. As little as 1/10 of an inch over the course of 1 hour can be enough to overwhelm the sanitary sewerage system, which result in that 1.2 billion gallons of CSO untreated sewage and stormwater flow into the Creek on a yearly basis. Around 90% of the sewage enters the Creek from the Dutch Kills, the Maspeth Creek, the East Branch and the English kills which are all little boroughs settled north next to the Creek. Causing algae blooms that create low low dissolved oxygen levels and fish to die such as ecological dead zones.

Today, New York city has voluntary environmental protection agencies like the Newtown Creek Alliance or the Riverkeeper association who guard New York City’s water and environmental pollution restrictions. Just seeing a guard drawing through the waterways of the Newtown Creek helps to save the water from further pollution.

A way of fixing the growing problem of pollution would be to raise more awareness of the pollutants in the water caused by human ignorance and help the Riverkeeper and Newtown Creek environmental safety agencies to be more present and seen in our world today. With more voices on board we can act, we can change, we can clean the site up. Together, for Newtown Creek, East and Hudson.

The LD13 X Skye Matlock collaborative project will be like no other. We have teamed up to create a line of high-fashion items, inspired by the pollutants of the East River. Our models will wear our designs, which magnify the pollutants of the East River in a non-intimidating manner. The models we choose will parade around the four freedoms area at Roosevelt Island, preferably on Earth Day, catching people’s attention. They will be trained to know about the bacterial matter they are wearing, being able to inform anyone who passes by in wonder.

We would love to team up with you, the Riverkeeper Organization, in order to have an even stronger hold on this project. With your support, we can make your name known to the general public, making them more aware of your services. This knowledge could create more funding, going towards a cleaner, safer East River. Another idea of ours is to design new uniforms for the workers of the Riverkeeper’s Organization. The uniforms would not be as zany as our bacterial designs, but they would have potential to be more eye-catching. New uniforms could show your level of importance to the community, and bring more attention to what you all do for the city.

Thank you so much for considering our potential project. Nothing is more important to us than creating stunning designs, but to have an opportunity to make designs that have the potential to create a movement would be amazing. The LD13 X Skye Matlock collaboration is the first of its kind, and hopefully the first collaboration of many, we’d love to share this first with such a respectable group like the River-Keepers. It would be an absolute honor to work with you, we hope you feel the same towards us!

 

We hope we see you on the 26th of April, 2018. The bacteria Fashion Excursion coming soon.