August Flux Thursday
Thursday August 13th
Dinner at 7 pm. Presentations begin at 8:30 pm.
The event is free, but please do bring something to share!
For this Flux Thursday the focus is New York City water. We are offering cool reliefs from the summer heat with dinner and artist presentations.
Flux Factory is pleased to present artists and historians whose practice takes root in the exploration and occupation of urban waterways. They will elaborate on their research and passion towards the subject as well as explain how it informs their work. Ida C. Benedetto co-founder of Sextantworks will discuss her most recent transgressive placemaking project involving the New York City Harbor. Steve Duncan renowned urban explorer will share his expertise on the New York sewer and tunnel system, and information about his guided underground tours. Dylan Gauthier co-founder of the boatbuilding project Mare Liberum will speak about the artist collective, and his other collaborative free seas projects. Maddie Hewitt current resident of Flux Factory will present her research on the physical reconstruction of waterways, and the influence it has on territory lines in Marble Hill. Together the discussions emphasize the complexities and creative potential of New York City’s maritime landscape. The event is free, but please do bring something to share!
Ida C. Benedetto is a Brooklyn-based experience design and media strategist. She is the co-founder of Sextantworks (formerly Wanderlust Projects). Sextantworks practices experiential gift design and transgressive placemaking through generosity, location and intimacy. Sextantworks has been profiled in The New York Times, Fast Company, NPR, and The Daily Beast. Ida consulted on the experience design and gifting system for the Night Heron Speakeasy, which has been lauded in the Atlantic and the New Yorker. She is an adviser to Photography, Expanded, an initiative of the Magnum Foundation to inspire documentary photographers to extend their storytelling practice beyond the still image. Ida is on the steering committee of the School for Poetic Computation.
Steve Duncan is an Urban Explorer based in New York City. He has extensively explored the New York City Sewer System and other tunnels in the New York City area such as the New York City Subway System and Amtrak tunnels that run through the city. Steve has also explored sewers and underground infrastructure around the world. He has explored sewers and tunnels beneath Paris, London, Rome, Naples, Stockholm, Berlin, Moscow, Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He also hosted a television show on The Discovery Channel in 2005. The show aired for five episodes and has since occasionally been aired in syndication.
Dylan Gauthier is a Brooklyn-based artist (writer, curator, educator, boatbuilder, media activist). His works take the form of videos, photographs, soundtracks, publications, environmental research and performances, and are concerned with temporary situations, shared experiences, public space and access to information. He is co-founder of the boatbuilding and printmaking project Mare Liberum (thefreeseas.org), a frequent collaborator with the Gowanus Studio Space, and with the collective Red76, and has shown in museums and galleries including MASS MoCA, the Walker Art Center, Stacion Kosovo, EFA Project Space, Parsons/the New School, Columbus College of Art and Design and the Neuberger Museum at SUNY Purchase. Dylan holds an MFA from the Integrated Media Arts program with a focus on creative nonfiction at Hunter College.
Maddie Hewitt is a visual artist and curator from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her work responds to the impositions of domestic social norms and crowd control. Using a wide range of media, Hewitt alters familiar physical objects and co-opts their original meaning. Most recently she has begun organically researching the history of New York City waterways drawing connections between pre-colonial landscapes to what the city is like today. Hewitt holds a BFA from Tyler School of Art with a focus in sculpture. Since 2013 she has been a curator at Little Berlin organizing exhibitions, film screenings, performances, weekend-long festivals, artist critiques, and other public events. She is currently an artist in residence at Flux Factory.