Swale

Swale began as a float­ing food for­est built atop a 5,000 square foot barge that trav­eled to pub­lic piers in New York City and wel­comed the pub­lic to har­vest herbs, fruits, and veg­eta­bles for free. Since 2016, Swale has pro­mot­ed Pub­lic Food and ecosys­tem ser­vices through edu­ca­tion­al work­shops and local cul­tur­al events. Swale con­tin­ues to pro­mote Pub­lic Food through advo­ca­cy, build­ing edi­ble land­scapes, and edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­ming stress­ing how impor­tant it is for more peo­ple to be involved in address­ing food as a commons.

This sea­son, Swale will col­lab­o­rate with ecoart­space and the Urban Soils Insti­tute to host res­i­den­cies, exhi­bi­tions, and pro­grams cen­tered around soil and the envi­ron­ment. These orga­ni­za­tions rec­og­nize the pow­er of art to make abstract ideas vis­i­ble and acces­si­ble. They seek to pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for artists and soil sci­en­tists to explore com­mon inter­ests and pas­sions and engen­der stew­ard­ship of soil and ecology.

Cur­rent­ly on View

The Soil Shroud Room at Swale House, pre­sent­ed by ecoart­space, brings togeth­er tex­tiles sub­merged in soils from around the world as an artis­tic expres­sion of the min­er­als and microor­gan­isms that con­nect us all. The con­cept of bury­ing and trans­form­ing tex­tiles was simul­ta­ne­ous­ly ini­ti­at­ed in Eng­land, Ger­many, Italy, Por­tu­gal, Oman, Cana­da, Aus­tralia and the US via an online Soils Dia­logues. Vis­i­tors to Swale House are invit­ed to con­tribute to this col­lab­o­ra­tive work, to bury, clean, paint, print, embroi­der, and stitch togeth­er soil tex­tiles into an ever-grow­ing col­lec­tive shroud.

Upcom­ing Exhibitions

July 27-August 23

Elie Porter Tru­bert: Call and Response

Call and Response explores the sto­ry of the land and the riv­er that flows through it. Sto­ries have been imag­ined through asemic writ­ing on cyan­otypes inspired by water’s lan­guage of sound and move­ment and on ceram­ic tablets formed of local clay with sto­ries writ­ten by sea­weed at low tide and the writ­ing of Emer­ald Ash Bor­er. Tru­bert is inter­est­ed in form­ing a call and response between her sto­ries and those of oth­er women and is engaged in an ongo­ing explo­ration of the lan­guage of the more-than-human.

Kat­ri­na Bel­lo: Expansion

Expan­sion is a series of draw­ings based on a year-long jour­ney of look­ing for and imag­in­ing con­nec­tions between vol­canic activ­i­ty, plate tec­ton­ics, bod­ies of water, cos­mic mate­r­i­al from deep space, and how all togeth­er have led to the soil con­di­tions that allowed for a mas­sive organ­ism at least 9,000 years old to thrive and spread out in an alpine envi­ron­ment. The works are the out­come of a res­i­den­cy with Friends of Pan­do, an orga­ni­za­tion whose founders are work­ing to edu­cate the pub­lic, sup­port research and preser­va­tion efforts, and inspire stew­ard­ship of Pan­do, the world’s largest tree.

Getting to Nolan Park

3 Minutes from Soissons Landing 7 Minutes from Yankee Pier

1 Minutes from Soissons Landing 5 Minutes from Yankee Pier