BioBAT: Embodied Futures
Venue:BioBAT ART SPACE
Date: 2023-10-14 to 2024-03-16
‘Signs of Life’ encompasses 8 mannequins of new and previous works, as part of Embodied Futures and the Ecology of Care. 'Meditations 1' is one of the new works.
MEDITATIONS 1: WHO TO SAVE FIRST?
This Meditation is in memoriam of David Buckel who took his own life through self-immolation 2018-04-14 in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, out of deep distress about the environment.
How do the ways we care for and value biological life change between their living, semi-living and non-living states? from birth to death? in public and private conversation? during times of conflict and peace? along the spectrum between health and illness? across cultures, religions, landscapes, realities, and industries as a source of information/data, nutrients, medicine, poison, the vessel of a person and material?
Meditations 1 brings these questions to life through projection-mapping red text sequenced from an upcycled military uniform with hand-stenciled black text all over. The red text appears to be scrolling on a LED ticker, spilling from the ceiling through the headless and handless figure, into a pool of decomposing pixels.
* Last updated 2024-05-01. Details of 4 of the 8 figures below. More exhibition information @STUDIOPHORIA
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David Buckel died Saturday April 14th, 2018 in Prospect Park, by self-immolation in protest for people to lead less selfish lives as a way to protect the planet. He was a prominent gay-rights lawyer and compost coordinator for the Red Hook Community Farm, the largest in the United States that processes entirely with renewable resources (solar, wind, human power). Part of his letter reads:
“Pollution ravages our planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather. Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result — my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”
Here are some links to more about the life and work of David Buckel:
• Finding Meaning After My Husband's Public Death
<2022-08-04, NPR - Death, Sex and Money >
When talking about the death of his husband, Terry Kaelber doesn't use the word suicide, "I tend to say he took his own life out of deep distress about the environment through self-immolation." Terry says it's out of respect for David that he chooses his words carefully — "It was a rational decision on his part."
• Fighting Climate Despair
< 2022-07-29, Vox - Today, Explained >
Climate change has driven some environmental activists to extremes. We talk about overcoming despair with Terry Kaelber, whose husband David Buckel took his life to protest inaction, and Tim DeChristopher, who was imprisoned for his activism.
•Institute for Local Self-Reliance
A tribute to David's spirit by Brenda Platt.
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In light of this moment in time, I also wanted to share these stories:
• A Man Was Murdered In Cold Blood And You’re Laughing? What the death of a health-insurance CEO means to America.
<2024-12-07, The New Yorker >
“It’s just a matter of where you locate the decay - in the killing, or in the response to it, or in what led us here. The only way to end up in a situation where a CEO of a health-insurance company is reflexively viewed as a dictatorial purveyor of suffering is through a history of socially sanctioned death.” - Jia Tolentino for The Lede.
• CNN’s Coverage of Man Who Set Himself on Fire Show Challenges of Live News
< 2024-04-20, New York Times >
The network's legal analyst and anchor, Laura Coates, was doing a live interview with a jury-selection expert (for Trump’s hush-money trial in Manhattan) when Maxwell Azzarello began throwing a batch of conspiracy pamphlets into the air, then dousing himself with an accelerant and setting himself ablaze.
• ‘An extreme act’ – Why Aaron Bushnell self-immolated for Gaza
< 2024-02-28, Al Jazeera, The Take >
25 year old, Aaron Bushnell, a member of the US air force, set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC (Sunday, February 25th 2024) in an act of political protest against Israel’s war in Gaza. Bushnell livestreamed his death, saying he no longer wanted to be “complicit in genocide”. How will his message resonate?
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This exhibition is made possible by the collaborative efforts of Genspace, NARS Foundation, Makerspace, Sunset Park Open Studios, BioBAT Inc., SUNY Downstate, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, and the New York Economic Development Corporation.
Exhibiting Artists: Aradhita Ajaykumar Parasrampuria, Katie Hubbell, Elaine Young, Karen Ingram, Laura Kung, Juyon Lee, Lolo Ostia, John Roach, Iz Nettere, Shihori Yamamoto, Suzanne Head.
‘Embodied Futures’ is curated by: Elena Soterakis and Eve Barro. With Special Thanks to Co-Organizers: Clarinda Mac Low & Carolyn Hall of Genspace, Junho Lee & Katherine Plourde of NARS Foundation, and DB Lampman of Makerspace.
