May 1 – June 6, 11 Nolan, Governors Island
How do we, as humans, connect to the many bodies that carry and create us?
PHREATIC! was the inaugural teaching exhibition of WetLab, an emerging art-science collective and curatorial laboratory at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Working within the bones of a domestic interior, eight interdisciplinary artists explore symbiotic ecologies and eruptive encounters. Delving into the worlds that live within other worlds, the artists investigate multispecies interactions and earthliness at points of disruption. The exhibition is housed within the New York Virtual Volcano Observatory; like volcanic eruptions, the processes and cycles that the artists explore generate both destruction and renewal.
Works by Brock Riggins and Taylor Burkhead explore contaminated and conflicted landscapes across ecological and cultural histories, while Annick Saralegui works with microbes and the visual languages of bacterial pigments and DNA to convey climate crises and fermented ecologies. Aleyna Weitzner, Rhea Barve, and Kris Waymire present works that illuminate the intimate homes within nests, shells, and other natural vessels. Jack Helfrich and Emma Waddell create sound art and interactive virtual landscapes to bring forward patterns of symbiosis.
We invite you to sense, wonder, and enjoy the unfolding investigations that reside in this house.
– Ayaka Fujii and Elinor New
Thank you to everyone who visited PHREATIC! in person or from afar. The exhibition closed on June 6th, and we are currently creating an exhibition catalog that will be available in Fall 2021 [details forthcoming]. Please follow @wetlab_artscicollective on Instagram or check this page for further updates and announcements.
