Fastnet Plein-Air
April-October 2018
Role: Project Manager
Artist: James Powers
Fastnet is a 20-foot shipping container that artist James Powers has outfitted as a mobile gallery that has opened its doors in Red Hook, Gowanus, and Jersey City. For Freshkills Park, the container became a drawing studio. Situated in the “Confluence” at Freshkills Park, an area formerly used by the NYC Department of Sanitation for landfill operations and planned as a cultural and waterfront hub in the future park, the container opens up with a view onto Main Creek and South Mound in the distance. Through the Freshkills Park art program, we have invited school groups and the public for plein air landscape drawing lessons led by practicing artists. The landscape at Freshkills Park, and from this vantage point, prompts discussion about the human-nature relationship and what is “natural” on a completely engineered site with a topography made from municipal solid waste and infrastructure to manage that material content. Lessons impart a visual awareness of the landscape and foster understanding of the consequences our actions have on the environment.

This project is made possible (in part) by a DCA Art Fund Grant from Staten Island Arts, with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and Con Edison.