THE WATERPOD
Waterpod: Life afloat, on the edge of the grid
Date: Friday 9.18
Start Time: 2:00pm
Location: World’s Fair Marina Flushing, Queens (map)
The Waterpod will be docked at the World’s Fair Marina in Queens, giving us the opportunity to talk about the Future: what worked with Waterpod 1, and what we have concluded we would change given a chance to try this experiment again.
Photographer and sculptor Mary Mattingly has designed the Waterpod as a living sculpture in preparation for our coming world with an increase in population, a decrease in usable land, and a greater flux in environmental conditions, for a time when people will need to rely closely on immediate communities and look for alternative living models; the Waterpod is a floating eco-habitat and a living experiment that recalls the work of Buckminster Fuller, Andrea Zittel, and Constant Nieuwenhuis.
Mary Mattingly and a NY/NJ-based team including an artist, curator, Waterpod’s executive director, and Waterpod’s marine engineer will tour the on-board closed system, and explore the process of the Waterpod from its inception to the possibilities for the future. The panel will talk about the decision-making behind the Waterpod and describe the process of getting companies, communities, and governments involved in the unfolding of the Waterpod, getting it up and running, the residents choices in their daily lives on board Waterpod, and talk about the possibilities for the future of the Waterpod and Waterpods.
Mary Mattingly is a photographer and sculptor as well as the Founder of the Waterpod. Ian Daniel is a curator, permaculturalist and filmmaker. He is the Residency Curator on Waterpod. Jes Gettler is a sculptor living and working aboard Waterpod. John McGarvey is the Executive Director of the Waterpod. John is a local and international Art/Technology/Creative consultant for the past 15 years as well as an art and politics activist. Hendrik “Rik” Van Hemmen is an aerospace and ocean engineer and a principal in Martin, Ottaway, van Hemmen & Dolan, Inc., a maritime consulting firm that has been in continuous operation in the port of New York since 1875. Rik is Waterpod’s Nautical Engineer.
