AFAR 2018-2019
RESEARCH and SCHOLARSHIP
Publications
Book Cover, Reid, Molly. The Rapture Index. BOA Editions, Ltd. 2019: Elizabeth Albert, Claws, oil on canvas.
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Presentations/Programs
1/19/2019 - 2/22/2019 Adaptation to Extremes: An Art and Science Collaboration. Exhibition, Lake George Arts Center (2 paintings)
1/20/2019 Adaptation to Extremes: An Art and Science Collaboration. Panel, Bolton Museum, Bolton Landing (invited panelist)
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11/1/2018 Waterfront, the 400 Years Struggle Over NYC’s Greatest Asset; Discussion between Elizabeth Albert and Kurt Schilling; The Gotham Center for New York City History at the CUNY Graduate Center; Co-sponsored by the Museum of the City of New York.
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6/21/2018 A Superfund’s Ecosystem: Collaboration, Partnership, Results, Association for Environmental Science and Studies Annual Conference; American University, Washington, DC. Please note that conference proposal was accepted and scheduled, but I was unable to attend for budgetary reasons.
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Other ongoing significant research not resulting in publication or presentation this year
1. The Gowanus Muskrat (Children’s Book) for Publication:
I have spent the last two years developing and completing a children’s book, The Gowanus Muskrat, about the effects of climate change on urban fauna. This story follows a brave and scrappy muskrat, Finn, whose den in located in the bulwarks where the Gowanus Canal opens out into the Upper Bay of New York Harbor. A storm (Superstorm Sandy) floods the family den and the Muskrat is separated from its loved ones and community. The journey up the Gowanus Canal to find missing family brings Finn in contact with an array of other creatures, each encounter offering knowledge and life lessons. Finn is joined by Niblet, an orphaned baby mouse, and the two have a life changing adventure. This project is a natural culmination of my waterfront research and my visual art practice. The book is now complete and consists of twenty chapters and thirty illustrations, each a richly detailed oil painting. The book manuscript is now in review by literary agents. The complete project including all illustrations can be viewed here: https://elizabetalbert.wixsite.com/thegowanusmuskrat
2. Visual Art Production for Exhibition:
Most of the past two years of research has been devoted to developing a children’s book, The Gowanus Muskrat. However, I have also dedicated myself to continuing the body of large mixed-media work as part of an ongoing body of work begun in 2016. These works are painting-based, but also incorporate photography (my own) and film stills, both of which have been printed on fabric, stitched to the painted surface and then again painted into, and ranging in size from 80” x 60” to 20” x 20.” All these works represent in some form the relationship between the natural environment and its various roles in human experience. These works explore the optics of shifting space and time in actual and imaginary experience. These works explore the perception of space and time through collage-like juxtapositions of distinct worlds, evoking a simultaneity of experience, which can also reference the constant volley in daily existence as we try to navigate through a barrage of welcome and unwelcome information. The works may at times pair imagery utopian and degenerate; real and imaginary; desirable and abject. The subtext is the landscape as real and psychological battlefield, a stage where we face the fall-out from climate change and the fiercely complicated negotiations for a balance between environmental justice, human rights, and economic growth. This body of work will be ready in the near future for a solo exhibition.
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3. Conference Presentation:
I will be presenting A Different Kettle of Fish: An Eco-critical Look at the Work of J.J. Grandville as part of the panel,” Swimming into Paradise: Toward an Ecomaterialist History of Immersion II: Representation;” ASLE Conference 2019 at the University of California, Davis on June 28, 2019.