The 7th annual Greenpoint Film Festival is back, bringing a diverse mix of local, environmental and art shorts and feature-length films to the Wythe Hotel Screening Room (80 Wythe Ave) this week, starting today May 3rd and running through May 6th. Tickets for all the programs are $10 each, or you can buy a festival day pass for $18, or a pass for the entire fest for $56. Read on for our top picks of the fest! Continue reading →
Last year, we profiled local Polish-born artist Martynka Wawrzyniak and her upcoming public art project, Ziemia (which means earth in Polish). Martynka is collecting dirt (not the gossip kind) from local residents—she’s asking folks to contribute a handful of soil from a place that represents their identity. The dirt will become the glaze for a spherical ceramic sculpture baked out of Greenpoint clay, and installed in McGolrick Park this May. The deadline to contribute soil to the project is March 1st! You can drop off your soil at Proper Real Estate, 100 Nassau Avenue. Don’t miss this chance to unite with your neighbors and be a part of Greenpoint history.
Kingsland Wildflowers rooftop, the starting point for Saturday’s tour.
Local artist Martynka Wawrzyniak‘s site-specific sculpture, Ziemia, will take the form of a ceramic sphere atop a meadow garden in McGolrick Park, and she’s having the local community help create it. Ziemia, which means Earth in Polish, will celebrate our neighborhood’s many cultures, become a locus for community programming, and carry personal significance for the participants who help shape it.
Ziemia site in McGolrick Park, via Ziemia on Instagram
McGolrick Sculpture Installation & Walking Tour With Greenpoint Historian
When: Saturday, September 30, 3pm – 5pm
Where: Kingsland Wildflowers Green Roof | 520 Kingsland Avenue
Who: Greenpoint artist, Martynka Wawrzyniak & Greenpoint historian, Geoff Cobb
$15 donation (proceeds go to the Ziemia art project), RSVP
Lydia Lunch performs, speaking about misogyny and today’s pessimistic world. Photo: Angelica Hill
Last Thursday, artistMartynka Wawrzyniak hosted “A Night of Experimental Jazz & Lydia Lunch” at the Park Church Co-Op (129 Russell Street) to support her McGolrick Park community art installation, Ziemia. Ziemia, when finished, will consist of a large ceramic orb made from soil from across the globe and placed in a carefully cultivated meadow in McGolrick Park, adjacent to Russell Street between Nassau Ave and Driggs Ave.
The Park Church Co-Op was dimly lit, the stage awash with red and blue light. Meditative electronic new-age music played as the image of Jesus on the crucifix centered on the back wall looked over the scene. It may not seem like the most likely venue for a night of experimental jazz, but Pastor Amy Kienzle remarked that this event was part of the church’s larger event series that supports community art. And with Wawrzyniak being such an enthusiastic member of the church she felt it was important to support. She added that the church “believes in art and it being spiritually beneficial.” Continue reading →
On Thursday, September 28th, the Park Church Co-Op (129 Russell St) will play host to an evening of experimental jazz headlined by post-punk, avant-garde powerhouse Lydia Lunch. Performances will begin at 8pm with pianist Jesse Lynch, followed by Matt Nelson on tenor saxophone, and a trio set by Moppa Elliott’s Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Lydia Lunch and Michael Foster will headline at 10pm. The evening will close with an experimental group ensemble conducted by Lunch. And, if that wasn’t enough to entice you to check this one out, proceeds will go towards McGolrick Park’s public art project, Ziemia (Polish for “Earth”).
To create Ziemia, artist Martynka Wawrzyniak is creating a native plant meadow and a sculpture made with help from Greenpoint residents. The sculpture will take the form of a ceramic orb, fired out of clay excavated in Greenpoint and glazed with a mix of soil contributed by residents from personally meaningful locations from around the world, which symbolize their identities. Ziemia aims to bridge the divides between the neighborhood’s disparate subcultures, serving as a collective portrait of the community through embodying residents’ personal homelands and migration stories.
Martynka Wawrzyniak, a Polish-born local artist driven by a creative vision, recently learned that local history eerily repeats itself. Researching Greenpoint history for her local site-specific artwork, she learned she was following in the footsteps of another Greenpoint Polish woman whose quest to create a local monument decades ago amazingly mirrored her own efforts.
Martynka is currently working on a community-engaged public art project, celebrating the disparate cultures comprising North Brooklyn. Her work titled Ziemia (which means earth in Polish), created in collaboration with local residents, invites locals to contribute soil from personally meaningful locations that symbolize their identity. Ziemia will take the form of a three-foot diameter ceramic orb sitting atop of a native plant meadow in McGolrick Park. Grenpoint clay will serve as the materials for the orb and the mix of soil contributed by residents will be used for the glaze. The piece will function as a collective community portrait, embodying the many Greenpoint homeland and migration stories. You can follow along with the sculpture’s progress on Instagram. Continue reading →
