I am an experimental and documentary filmmaker/artist since 1972 and often work in collaboration with other artists. I have been interested in the urban environment since the early seventies, and worked with artist Gorden Matta-Clark on his 1974 (unfinished) film on New York’s water systems and also my film LES on urban ghetto conditions.
Recently I collaborated with artists Ruth Hardinger and Becca Smith and made the film “Emmissions” on gas emmissions exuding from the gas pipelines in Manhattan.
I asked Peter Fend (who I worked with on several other projects with NBC, OECD and the Offices of Fend Fitzgibbon Holzer Nadin Prince and Winters) to collaborate with me on the Greenpoint Newton Creek environment as it’s a site of one of New York’s superfunds, as well as the Gowanus Canal.
We took a boatride up Newtown Creek with Willis Elkins of the Greenpoint Newtown Creek Alliance and Patterson Beckwith of the North Community Boathouse and photographer Jake Sigal to get an overview of the contamination and solutions that were in progress as to the creek’s clean up.
Peter Fend proposed an experimental seaweed growing lab on Newtown Creek and other NYC waterways to try to reduce pollution and at the same time generate gas to drive electricity.
I’ve interviewed several other organizations associated with the Greepoint area and will include them in the film, such as Riverkeeper and the Bushwick Inlet Park Organization.