Press Your Ear to the Wind

About the Series Duet #1 Duet #2 Duet #3

March 3, 17, & 31, 2021

Curated by Elinor New (Gallatin BA ’20)

Presented by The Gallatin Galleries in Collaboration with WetLab
A woman is standing with a bouquet of flowers looking onto the ocean in front of her
Artwork by Deborah Jack, “what is the value of water if it quenches our thirst for…” (2015), Courtesy of the artist. Graphic Design: Lau Guzmán.
 

What’s missing from mainstream dialogues about climate crises? 

How can artistic practices unearth the complexities inherent in experiences of environmental injustice and climate emergency? 

How can artworks activate our collective power to imagine more equitable, habitable futures?

Press Your Ear to the Wind is a three-part event series that unites artists and audiences around the above questions. Borrowing its title from Deborah Jack’s artwork “Foremothers”, this series is an invitation to listen to the wisdom held in the land, water, and our own bodies, and to trace the currents of resilience that flow from our inherited pasts into the futures we generate.

In their own ways, each of these artists investigates relationships with place, cultural inheritance, ritual, and embodiment as modes of resistance to the systems that spur climate crises. In each virtual “duet”, two artists will share their artworks and ideas, untangling both the individual and the shared strands of their perspectives. Weaving art, conversation, and questioning across disciplinary and geographical boundaries, this series celebrates the power of art and artists to dismantle structures of oppression through acts of care, embodied imagination, and bold action.

Duet 1: Wednesday, March 3, 2021 at 2pm via Zoom, free with registration
Fathoming Uncertainty: Performing with(in) Vulnerable Landscapes with Eiko Otake and Sarah Cameron Sunde

Duet 2: Wednesday, March 17, 2021 at 10am via Zoom, free with registration
Between Belief and Reality: Revealing Water Crises in Textile & Sculpture with Vibha Galhotra & Tali Weinberg (BA ’04; MA ’12) 

Duet 3: Wednesday, March 31, 2021 at 2pm via Zoom, free with registration
Currents of Memory: The Sea, Ritual, and Rebirth in Film with Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons & Deborah Jack


Elinor New is a curator, producer, and writer. Her projects include exhibitions, events, and writing that connect art, environmental justice, and the emerging field of curatorial activism in order to catalyze the power of artists’ voices to generate more equitable, habitable futures. Elinor graduated from New York University with an Individualized B.A. titled “Art for Our Sake: Curatorial Activism and Cultural Institutions as Civic Assets” and a minor in Arts Politics from the NYU Tisch Department of Art & Public Policy. She is honored to return to Gallatin as curator of this series and as an alumna-in-residence and Curatorial Fellow with WetLab. 

This event series emerges from Elinor’s ongoing curatorial investigation into the meeting points of curation, art, and environmental issues that began as a Senior Project mentored by Professor Grace Aneiza Ali at NYU Gallatin in Spring 2020. This research continues to develop with the support of the NYU Gallatin Dean’s Award for Graduating Seniors, The Gallatin Galleries, and WetLab.

The series is presented alongside a digital exhibition of early-career artists’ responses to the series’ main questions, curated by Elinor New in collaboration with student co-curators Jasmine Buckley and Troy Gibbs-Brown (opening March 22nd). These interdependent elements aim to create space for multifaceted and intergenerational exchanges on the complex impacts of living in times of climate crises.


WetLab is a new initiative for art-science and curatorial practice at NYU Gallatin.