EARTH CELEBRATIONS’ ECOLOGICAL CITY
FELICIA YOUNG- ECOLOGICAL CITY DIRECTOR, directs the artistic project and creative engagement of over 50 community partner groups. She is the Founder/Executive Director of Earth Celebrations, a non-profit organization founded in 1991 on the Lower East Side of New York City to engage communities to generate ecological and social change through the arts. She has developed a successful methodology utilizing art, civic engagement, partnership building and activism. Her projects over the past 25 years include a 15 year collaborative community art project, Save Our Gardens (1991-2005) on the Lower East Side, which engaged over 40 community gardens, 50 partner organizations and 10,000 participants which built a local and then citywide grassroots coalition effort and led to the preservation of hundreds of community gardens in New York City. The Hudson River Pageant (2009-2012) was a collaborative art project to engage community in the restoration efforts of the Hudson River estuary and revitalization of the waterfront in downtown Manhattan. Her recent Vaigai River Restoration Project (2014-2016), applied this model to build an international and local collaborative effort in the city of Madurai, South India to restore the sacred Vaigai River, that is in a severe crisis due to pollution and the drying effects of climate change. She has produced projects for Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts, Arts>World Financial Center, The Alternative Museum, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and The Hudson River Park Trust, and engaged numerous organizations, schools and community service centers to collaborate on these efforts. These projects have received awards and grants including: LMCC-Fund for Creative Community / Manhattan Community Art Fund, DCA-Public Service Award, Threshold Foundation-Arts & Social Change, Puffin Foundation, Hudson River Foundation, JM Kaplan Fund and International Women’s Caucus on the Arts to the UN-Artistic Activism Award 2017. She has also developed a course, Art, Ecology and Community for Princeton University. Felicia has a BA in Art History from Skidmore College and an MA in Performance Studies from New York University. http://earthcelebrations.com/about-felicia-young/
MICHELE BRODY- ECOLOGICAL CITY VISUAL ART/COSUME WORKSHOP INSTRUCTOR will engage community participants through our workshop series building costumes and mobile sculptural artworks from organic and living materials. Michele has worked with Earth Celebrations leading our costume workshops series since 2009 for the Hudson River Pageant projects, where she presented the growing of the river grass skirts for the pageant as part of an exhibition at Brookfield Properties/Arts< World Financial Center. She is a visual ecological artist creating public art, ephemeral installations and living sculptures, as well as participatory rituals and community-engaged performances. Her works are made from natural and organic materials including seed, grass, bamboo, hand-made paper, and fiber. Michele has had one-person shows at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Chashama 461 Gallery, Arts>World Financial Center-Winter Garden and internationally in Germany, Costa Rica and France. She received grants from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council-MCAF, Pollack Krasner Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Puffin Foundation, Bronx Council on the Arts, 2015 Community Arts and Arts Fund Grants, Bronx, NY. Her public art installations include Bamboo Teahouse for the Bronx, Andrew Freedman Home in the Bronx and MTA Arts for Transit Program and through the Public Arts for Public Schools Program. She has a BA from Sarah Lawrence College 1989 and an MFA from the Arts Institute of Chicago in 1994. www.michelebrody.com
LUCRECIA NOVOA-ECOLOGICAL CITY PUPPET/SCULPTURE WORKSHOP INSTRUCTOR will engage community through our workshop series building paper-mache puppets and masks. She has worked with Earth Celebrations and our community participants since 1997, leading workshops for the Save Our Gardens and Hudson River pageant projects. She is an experienced mask-maker, puppet builder, performer and arts instructor who has received numerous awards and residencies in New York City, Boston and Chile. She as an MA from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, 1983-1988, and a BA in Fine Arts from University of Chile, Santiago, Chile. She conducts mask-/puppet workshops through Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Bronx Zoo and Studio in a School, New York City; Edison School, Portchester, NY; Carver Center, RAIN and SEBCO Senior Centers. Exhibitions of her work include: NY Botanical Garden, Clemente Soto Velez Center, Latin Views Exhibit, Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art, University of Ct and Material Culture Exhibit, Longwood Art Gallery, Hostos College, Bronx, NY. www.mascaraviva.com
KATHERINE FREYGANG: Artist-in-Residence /Banners-Visuals: Katherine Freygang studies and celebrates ecological relationships in art, events, exhibition design, architecture, and poetry. She works as an activist/educator in Connecticut and an artist/designer in New York; and is currently developing projects with Connecticut Innovations, Clean Water Action, Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, Rhode Island School of Design, Connecticut’s UCC Congregational Environmental Ministry Team, Cornwall Energy Task Force, and Earth Celebrations. http://katherinefreygang.com/Katherine_Freygang.html
DEE DEE MAUCHER- MOS COLLECTIVE: Artist/Environmental Educator with El Jardin del Paraiso Garden to convene with gardeners to design and develop a sculptural work incorporating the gardens’ natural materials and bio-remediation techniques of dirt fermented with effective microorganisms. The sculpture could dissolve in the river and serve to revitalize the polluted waterway. She has developed bio-remediation art projects and educational workshops engaging participants in the creation of “mudball” and “bio-spheres” made of dirt fermented with microorganisms that improve health of soil and water. Her workshops have been presented through artist Mary Mattingly’s SWALE, New Museum, Waterfront Alliance, LUNGS Harvest Arts Festival and Harbor Lab and events throughout New York City. moscollective.net