HOW TO MAKE LIVING SUSTAINABLE to Continue Creative Time and NPYL's 'In Situ' Series

Creative Time and The New York Public Library have announced that the final 2017 In Situ will feature artist and activist Mel Chin, internationally renowned attorney and environmental and climate justice leader Elizabeth Yeampierre of the Brooklyn-based organization UPROSE, and President/CEO of GrowNYC Marcel Van Ooyen.

The third and final talk, titled How to Make Living Sustainable, will focus on topics of climate change, environmental justice, and sustainability and will take place at the Sims Municipal Recycling, a-state-of-the-art recycling plant on Sunset Park's industrial waterfront.

Tickets for the September 23rd event are available here. A limited number of Behind the Scenes tickets are available, and will offer guests a special guided tour of the 11-acre recycling center and reserved seating during the talk.

Presented by Creative Time and The New York Public Library, In Situ is a series of site-specific conversations pairing leading artists and intellectuals to address critical topics of our time. Each has taken place in a cultural institution and/or landmark throughout New York City this year. The first iteration of In Situ was held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and explored religion in a conversation between Janine Antoni and Slavoj Žižek, moderated by Sister Helen Prejean. The second conversation featured Eileen Myles in conversation with Anna Holmes, and examined 21st century feminism at The Lower East Side Girls Club.

With a half-century of combined expertise presenting landmark public programming, the collaboration between Creative Time and The New York Public Library has resulted in an unprecedented opportunity for open dialogue that engages a diverse cross-section of the public.

IF YOU GO:

"How to Make Living Sustainable"
Mel Chin in conversation with Elizabeth Yeampierre
Moderated by Marcel Van Ooyen
Sims Municipal Recycling
472 2nd Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11232
Saturday, September 23, 2017
1:00 PM
Buy Tickets

Mel Chin is an artist resistant to any branding that may fence in his capacity to execute iconic sculptures and actions in any medium, engage in any territory-toxic or social, or to encourage the expansion and generational transfer of ideas in any alternative field. Chin has garnered international acclaim for his use of art to spread political awareness and expose social injustice, working with sculpture, video, and land art, among other mediums. He developed Revival Field (1989-ongoing), a project that pioneered the field of "green remediation," the use of plants to remove toxic, heavy metals from the soil. His nationwide Fundred Dollar Bill Project continues to engage and present this valuable form of public will to help catalyze an end to childhood lead poisoning.

His work is exhibited extensively in the US and abroad and was documented in the popular PBS program, Art 21: Art of the 21st Century. Mel is the recipient of numerous national and international awards, including four honorary doctorates. A traveling retrospective exhibition of his work, titled ReMatch, opened at the New Orleans Museum of Art in February 2014. As a follow up to ReMatch which explored his mutative strategies, a solo comprehensive survey, "ALL OVER the PLACE" organized by No Longer Empty and the Queens Museum, is being planned for citywide manifestations in NYC, for spring 2018.

Elizabeth Yeampierre is an internationally recognized Puerto Rican attorney and environmental and climate justice leader of African and Indigenous ancestry born and raised in New York City. A national leader in climate justice movement, Elizabeth co-chairs of the Climate Justice Alliance. She is Executive Director of UPROSE, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community based organization. Her award winning vision for an inter-generational, multi-cultural and community led organization is the driving force behind UPROSE. She is a long-time advocate and trailblazer for community organizing around just, sustainable development, environmental justice and community-led climate adaptation and community resiliency in Sunset Park. Prior to assuming the Executive Director position at UPROSE, Ms. Yeampierre was the Director of Legal Education and Training at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, Director of Legal Services for the American Indian law Alliance and Dean of Puerto Rican Student Affairs at Yale University. She holds a BA from Fordham University, a law degree from Northeastern University.

Marcel Van Ooyen earned degrees in Social Ecology from the University of California Irvine and from the Seattle University School of Law specializing in Environmental Law. After graduating from law school, Van Ooyen worked for the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council in Washington State, where he conducted the environmental review of proposed power plants. Upon moving to New York City, Van Ooyen worked for The New York City Council as the Chief of Staff to City Council Member Gifford Miller and then as Legislative Director for the City Council. As Legislative Director, Van Ooyen ensured the passage of over 30 environmental Local Laws, including the city's landmark green buildings legislation, lead bill, clean air codes, environmental purchasing laws, and many more. Van Ooyen now serves as the President/CEO of the GrowNYC, a key local environmental non-profit in New York City, which promotes community gardens, environmental education, recycling and waste reduction, and is best know for operating the Greenmarket farmers' markets.

Located on an 11-acre waterfront pier, the Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility (MRF) has received widespread praise and multiple awards for its design by Selldorf Architects since opening in 2013. The facility, made almost entirely from recycled steel, was built with the public in mind, and features an Education Center with interactive exhibits and a viewing platform that allows visitors to see the vast processing system, which features more than $25 million in state of the art equipment, and NYC's first commercial-scale wind turbine. Today, The Sunset Park MRF is the principal processing center for all of NYC's metal, glass, and plastic recyclables. If you live in the five boroughs and recycle, odds are this is where your discards come to be processed before being shipped out as raw material for remanufacturing.

Creative Time, The New York based public arts non-profit, is committed to working with artists on the dialogues, debates, and dreams of our time. Creative Time presents the most innovative art in the public realm, providing new platforms to amplify artists' voices, including the Creative Time Summit, an international conference convening at the intersection of art and social justice.

Since 1974, Creative Time has produced over 350 groundbreaking public art projects that ignite the imagination, explore ideas that shape society, and engage millions of people around the globe. Since its inception, the non-profit organization has been at the forefront of socially engaged public art, seeking to convert the power of artists' ideas into works that inspire and challenge the public. Creative Time projects stimulate dialogue on timely issues, and initiate a dynamic experience between artists, sites, and audiences.

For more information on Creative Time visit www.creativetime.org. To connect with us via Twitter use @CreativeTime and find us on Instagram @CreativeTimeNYC. To share the project on social media use the hashtag #InSituTalks.

The New York Public Library is a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With 92 locations-including research and branch libraries-throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years. The New York Public Library serves more than 18 million patrons who come through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at www.nypl.org. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support.

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