Other of Pearl

by Jenny Kendler

Wednesday-Sunday

10AM-5PM

Governors Island National Monument - Governors Island National Monument - Fort Jay

Oth­er of Pearl is pre­sent­ed in part­ner­ship by Gov­er­nors Island Arts and NRDC (Nat­ur­al Resources Defense Coun­cil).

In Oth­er of Pearl, Jen­ny Kendler (b. 1980, New York, NY) tells the sto­ry of the extrac­tive his­to­ries that form the ori­gin sto­ries of the cli­mate and envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis, while con­sid­er­ing the oys­ter and whale as cen­tral play­ers in an eco­log­i­cal entan­gle­ment between human and non­hu­man beings, water­ways, and flows of cap­i­tal.

Focus­ing on our rela­tion­ships with these two very dif­fer­ent beings, Kendler illu­mi­nates the ways in which cap­i­tal­ist sys­tems are often found­ed upon the bod­ies of oth­ers. The artist con­fronts con­tem­po­rary envi­ron­men­tal issues — cli­mate change, ocean noise, chem­i­cal pol­lu­tion, bio­di­ver­si­ty loss, and sea lev­el rise — while point­ing towards the cul­tur­al struc­tures that have allowed these cat­a­stro­phes to occur.

Oth­er of Pearl, Kendler’s first solo exhi­bi­tion in New York City, trans­forms the mag­a­zine of Fort Jay into a space for slow explo­ration. Here you will encounter sev­en inti­mate and del­i­cate works, includ­ing a hand­blown glass instru­ment where you can sing in the voice of a whale and pearl sculp­tures grown inside oys­ters. At the con­clu­sion of the exhi­bi­tion, the pearl sculp­tures will be auc­tioned to raise funds to help cre­ate a new oys­ter reef — redis­trib­ut­ing resources in a ges­ture of eco­log­i­cal restora­tion — in part­ner­ship with the Bil­lion Oys­ter Project.

By offer­ing this propo­si­tion of a more inti­mate, and bod­i­ly rela­tion­ship with the nat­ur­al world, Oth­er of Pearl pro­pos­es a new way to envi­sion who mat­ters and who we build the future for, invit­ing us to imag­ine a restored prac­tice of reci­procity between human and non-humans.

Jen­ny Kendler is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist, envi­ron­men­tal activist, nat­u­ral­ist, and wild for­ager whose work has been exhib­it­ed nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly at muse­ums, bien­ni­als, pub­lic spaces, and nat­ur­al areas. For the past two decades, Kendler’s work has focused on cli­mate change and bio­di­ver­si­ty loss. Her prac­tice seeks to decen­ter the human and re-enchant our rela­tion­ship with the nat­ur­al world. She is a found­ing mem­ber of Artists Com­mit, which seeks to raise cli­mate con­scious­ness in the art­world, and Artist-in-Res­i­dence at NRDC.

Sup­port for Oth­er of Pearl is pro­vid­ed by the Rip­ple Foun­da­tion as well as Roseate Jew­el­ry. Spe­cial thanks to exhi­bi­tion con­trib­u­tors David Gru­ber and Project CETI and Bil­lion Oys­ter Project.

Getting to Governors Island National Monument

5 Minutes from Soissons Landing 10 Minutes from Yankee Pier

3 Minutes from Soissons Landing 5 Minutes from Yankee Pier