After thoughts of The MoS Collective’s Water bioremediation Sculpture Raft System for Ecological City Pageant.
So happy by the amazing outcome. It really takes a village. The more villagers the better the results. Really happy to see we have a participatory community.
I have a long list of people credits.
Obstacle 1 Deploying over a railing
Deploying the raft & sculpture in was a riveting — as it was last year. It is a challenge to design a sturdy enough raft to lift over the railing and loose enough to fall apart in the water after 20 min.
It didn’t fall apart very well. It was reinforced to make it over the railing just barely.
It was not the intention for it to stay intact until The Seaport or beyond but that was super exciting. DD planned it to fall apart to cause no harm to boat traffic. It was so fragile to the touch it was surprising that it stayed intact sturdy and resilient in the river.
Next step is to design, a puppet string that will unravel the raft once in the water. And keep the mycobooms with oyster cages at LESEC.
Obstacle 2 The Ferry Terminal
After we launched the raft and the tide took the sculpture straight into the ferry terminal backwards. The raft was pushed up as the sculpture learned carefully toward the water. The face was just touching the surface as if it were kissing or leaning over to thank the water. That was it. Next it would sink.
After the terminal and lots of water kissing the river helped the sculpture bounced back up! “Webbles wobble but the don’t fall down”.
Obstacle 3 The Cement Pier
The next obstacle was a large cement building foundation/pier where basketball city lives. We quickly walked down the highway side of the pier to get there before the sculpture.
When we arrived to the waterfront again it was still floating. If fit under the pier for a perfect short cut. Tide was going out. If it had gotten stuck we’d have to wait a bit. We followed it the other side of that pier.
We were thrilled again to see it came out from under the obstacle. Yes quite lively It cruised along with the rose petals following it.
Under the Manhattan Bridge By Chana Widawski
The Seaport
Last we saw the bioremediation sculpture it was moving swiftly toward the Brooklyn Bridge. We were far out on this pier and could no longer walk (tired feet sore, people waiting for us). We tried to thumb a ride yet no one would give an oyster goddess & friends a lift to the Seaport – we finally saw a yellow taxi.
We got to The Seaport to find a crew of the Circle Line saw it go by. The sculpture of willow made sure she gave a nod to the crew of the Pioneer— who thought it was a teepee shape. The Captain suggested it went with the tide to Governors Island. Yes makes perfect sense to pay respects to Lady Liberty.
Then What?
We wondered what happened after Seaport. Did she make it to pay respects to Lady Liberty? Did she dodge all the ferries? Was it picked up by the Coast Guard. First it had to pass Pier 11, then Gov. island and Staten Island ferries which are all highly surveilled. (Ha, I decided not to ask the Coast Guard Station when I walked by looking). No one I asked between the Liberty tour boat and the Seaport saw it. It was doing its’ job even though not nearly enough to make a difference but maybe it will spark some ideas that will help us live longer on this planet.
EM-1 Mud Balls
The bioremediation technologies originally on top fell off at the start… that was ok to get the sludge anywhere to start work. Some mud balls were embedded in the raft as time release EM-1. The weight loss helped her bob & stay afloat. The mudballs and oysters want to get to work underwater right away. That stuff was meant to give her base weight but apparently not needed because she floated fine without the weight. It was instead the mycobooms that kept the sculpture bottom heavy.
Crispy Willow
So fragile & crispy willow sculpture by Saturday but it withstood the journey in and out of the “bath” twice … — amazing. Really astonishing— it was as if it had it’s own agenda.
The willow material from the La Plaza Garden was cut down. The limbs don’t last two months. Ha. I did not intend it to be soooo crispy scary looking but in hindsight it helped me let it go. Ready to decay in the water.
Permanent Home
The sculpture was invited to live in a garden. For gardens a soil conditioning bioremediation sculpture must be also a growing sculpture. Otherwise like this one it will look burnt.
The Myco Hair Booms
This is an idea of Paul Stamets to add the oyster mushrooms to the booms to eat petroleum to the hair booms that sop up surface oil after oil spills. The booms were attached to the side of the raft that helped it float really well.
The Mycobooms are heavy out of water and then wet very heavy. The booms ultimately can be salvaged or removed to continue soaking surface oil. Would be nice to watch if the mushrooms grow to eat the oil.
Oysters
We wanted to have round willow cages for the oysters to hang underwater from the booms. Christopher made a beautiful basket with willow for the cargo bike pageant display. The oysters took a dive into the sludge right away— starving for that cold water. Let’s hope they found a rocky home.
Kelp & Mussels
More kelp. It was hard to extract this year so we left it tenaciously bound to the earth. It grows out of water filtering mussels. We only had a small bag full which 4 Parsons students tied the long strand of mussels together with it. It was low tide and not welcoming to extract. So we collected the butterfly double shells.
Reeds of Phragmites
Roses
MoS Collective bioremgediating sculpture building 2019. Chana donated the flowers from the healing ceremony for Families For Safe Streets. A fatal bike crash occurred. We will fill the sculpture body with these.
When bioremediating the ecology we also heal people and environment relationships.
Improving. Learning.
Hope to someday this bioremediation work will catalyze more people to activate citizens and together create more impact.
Next challenge project
Seeking organizer curator to bring together 3,333 artists to make bioremediation sculptures. This at 2 batches each would be about 1 million mudballs.
Co-create with us.
Invite us to your Town!
Traveling BioBike Project: Radical restoration of social and environmental relationships.
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