Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City

Exhibition Dates: September 16-December 12, 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 16, 2010 6-8pm
Gallery Hours: Saturday & Sunday, 11am-4pm or by appointment
Location: Old Stone House 2nd Floor Gallery and Surrounding Park, 5th Avenue between 3rd and 4th Street, Park Slope (take R train to Union Street or R/F train to 4th Avenue/9th Street)
Katherine Gressel and Derek Denckla, curators
Featuring artwork by:Andrew Casner, Hernani Dias, Kate Glicksberg, Katherine Gressel, Hugh Hayden, Kim Holleman, Christina Kelly, Jess Levey, Mary Mattingly, Eve Mosher, Scott Nyerges, ORPH, Mathilde Roussel-Giraudy , Dan Sagarin, Eric Sanderson, Tattfoo Tan, Work.AC
With not-to be missed temporary outdoor installations, on view opening weekend, by:
Ian Cheney & Curt Ellis (Truck Farm): Sept. 16, 18-19, Artist Talks TBD
The Greenhorns (Sally Forth, an outdoor information tent and film screening): Times TBDKim Holleman (Trailer Park):  Sept. 16, 6-8pm; Sept. 18-19, Artist talks 1-2pm; 5-6pm
Tattfoo Tan S.O.S. Mobile Classroom demonstration: Sept. 16, 6-8pm; Sept. 19, 10am-2pm

...and, on opening night ONLY:
An outdoor musical performance by the People’s Champs
Video projections by Jess Levey

Please visit http://farmcity.us/category/brooklyn-utopias/ for more information!



ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


Utopia: An ideal place or state.
What would a “Brooklyn Utopia” look like? What is the role of artists in shaping an ideal Brooklyn?


Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City invites artists to respond to urban agriculture, or the practice of farming in or around a city, as a “utopian” solution for Brooklyn.  How successful are Brooklyn’s existing urban farming attempts and what additional innovations and collaborations are possible? How can the borough’s rich agrarian past inform its greener future? What about questions of scale, universal access, diversity and feasibility for urban farming that determine if this is a fad or a lasting practice in Brooklyn?  And finally, how can the past, present and future of Brooklyn farming inform future “farm cities?"
To address such questions, the artworks in Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City will range from the symbolic and visionary to the literally alive and dirty. These include: sample plant modules from Eve Mosher's Seeding the City rooftop garden networking project, early drawings from Christina Kelly’s Maize Field project that harvests corn in Brooklyn streets; never-before shown plans and sketches by Mary Mattingly (of the Waterpod project and Flock House); a painting by Andrew Casner made from garden compost; a rendering of an idealized agrarian Brooklyn in year 2409 by Eric Sanderson, author of the best-selling Manahatta; and, during opening weekend, tours of actual mobile farms by Tatfoo Tan, Kim Holleman, and Ian Cheney & Curt Ellis.
Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City is part of the Crossing the Line 2010: FIAF Fall Festival, with various events taking place over the next 3 weekends. Please visit http://www.fiaf.org/crossingtheline/ for more information.
The Old Stone House of Brooklyn is a modern reconstruction of the Vechte-Cortelyou House, a 1699 Dutch stone farmhouse that was the site of the largest battle of the Revolutionary War and the original home of the Brooklyn Dodgers.  The Old Stone House is dedicated to creating a strong sense of community through history, environmental education and the arts. Please visit www.theoldstonehouse.org for more information.