Communication and Green Curating:
Signs at Brooklyn Ecopolis by the entrance desk
During the summer of 2010 I had an internship
working with the new non-profit 501(c) 3 organization, Brooklyn Ecopolis, a
community-based education and resource center aimed at promoting access to
sustainable products, services and innovations for healthy living. The main
premises of the internship were outreach and creating relationships with other
“green” organizations in New York City, and working closely with the executive director,
graphic designers and others to plan for and create materials for the exhibit
space. Officially, this internship position was phrased as “providing
administrative assistance for a wide variety of activities aimed at building
local relationships within the public, professional and sustainable communities
to support programs and events at Brooklyn Ecopolis. The internship position
also will provide support for planning, marketing, event logistics and
coordination of the resource library and exhibit areas.” I also did a lot
of work on sponsorship communications - researching organizations, foundations,
service providers, and government agencies to pursue as funders, and finding Brooklyn Ecopolis
exhibitors. I went into my summer knowing that I’d have a lot on
my plate and there would not be a shortage of things I could help with.
Communication
BE from the outside, in Boerum Hill Brooklyn
Working at Brooklyn Ecopolis (BE) was an
invaluable learning experience for me. Since it is a new non-profit, there was
a lot of creative freedom in figuring out how to best display our message of
urban sustainability to the public. There was a lot of work to do, which was
increased by the fact that starting BE was a “side project” for my boss and the
executive director, Patti Boyce. Patti still had her original day job, and was
only in the BE office for one or two days of the week at the beginning of the
internship. This made it very hard for me to adjust to the internship in the
beginning, but in the end it taught me some very important lessons about
working independently and effective communication.
As time went on, Patti and I established communication routines that worked well. After a few weeks, I was able to show Patti that I could follow her directions and produce the results she was looking for once she communicated them clearly to me. We both got used to one another’s working styles, and I think out of that new levels of respect on both sides were built. I understood my role much more clearly, which is an important thing to do especially when working for a non-profit. I was used to leading projects and turning them into successes, and thought I’d be able to come into BE and “turn it into a success”. I did end up making some important contributions, but ultimately my role was a transient one and it took me some time to understand that. Also, it wasn’t what I was expecting – I thought things would be more established once I got there – so that took some adjusting to as well.
At the end of every work day, I’d send Patti a detailed email about what I did during the day, and write in it any questions I had. She’d always respond late at night, and I’d see her email in the morning when I got into work. Then after about an hour of work in the morning, Patti and I would have a phone check-in to make sure all my questions for the upcoming day were answered and to give any updates on projects, etc. This method of both daily email and phone contact on a specific schedule worked really well for us. As our communication improved, I also started hearing back and getting results from the many emails I sent out in the beginning, trying to connect BE with other organizations, artists, and sponsors in the New York City area.
As time went on, Patti and I established communication routines that worked well. After a few weeks, I was able to show Patti that I could follow her directions and produce the results she was looking for once she communicated them clearly to me. We both got used to one another’s working styles, and I think out of that new levels of respect on both sides were built. I understood my role much more clearly, which is an important thing to do especially when working for a non-profit. I was used to leading projects and turning them into successes, and thought I’d be able to come into BE and “turn it into a success”. I did end up making some important contributions, but ultimately my role was a transient one and it took me some time to understand that. Also, it wasn’t what I was expecting – I thought things would be more established once I got there – so that took some adjusting to as well.
At the end of every work day, I’d send Patti a detailed email about what I did during the day, and write in it any questions I had. She’d always respond late at night, and I’d see her email in the morning when I got into work. Then after about an hour of work in the morning, Patti and I would have a phone check-in to make sure all my questions for the upcoming day were answered and to give any updates on projects, etc. This method of both daily email and phone contact on a specific schedule worked really well for us. As our communication improved, I also started hearing back and getting results from the many emails I sent out in the beginning, trying to connect BE with other organizations, artists, and sponsors in the New York City area.
Green Curating
Environmental Art
The main part of my internship at BE was to
support the set-up of exhibits in the resource center, including programming
exhibits, set-up and display and logistics – and I quickly learned that that is
easier said than done! After my first week of work, I went to an outdoor art
exhibit (the Figment Exhibition) on Governors Island where I saw a lot of great
environmental art pieces. This was very inspiring as I thought about what the
BE exhibit space could be. I was able to arrange for some environmental art to be shown in BE’s
exhibit space - one of them is a “living pavilion” which was an awesome tunnel
made of milk crates with grass growing in it. The idea of the piece was to
demonstrate green architecture, and I arranged to have some of the crates
arranged in the exhibit space along a wall that would have otherwise been
empty.
I also got in touch with a local artist who created a piece called
“Take-Less,” 8-feet tall numbers with plastic take-out containers arranged on
it representing the amount of take-out meals that are consumed in the U.S. each
second, 2629; (there are red signs on it with facts about waste from take-out
containers). These numbers are on display at BE as a way to bridge together the
food in the downstairs café with the sustainability message of the upstairs. It
was exciting to have some success at bringing interesting art pieces into our
exhibit space, and I also think I opened up a new window of possibilities for
Patti. I don’t think she had been considering environmental art much before,
but there is a lot of it in New York City, and this summer I built up
relationships for BE with different studios and artists who are involved in
that sphere. Patti was excited that I set up these contacts. Since so many
artists have to store their pieces in a warehouse once they’re done with it,
it’s a great opportunity for them to show their work and get their message out
further if they consider BE a viable art venue.
In-house at BE, another visual project we created was a display to
convey the
amount of water an average New York City resident uses in a day. We put
together 14 Poland Spring jugs to represent the 70 gallons used per day
on average, and strung a clear tube through them attached to a fishtank
pump, to push the water through. Each of the dots have various water
facts and conservation tips. We used dots as a theme throughout the
display area - the plan was to have them hang from the ceiling to direct
people where to go, use them in the corners of picture frames and on
posters, etc.
Graphic Design
The graphic designer taught me how to
use some of the basics in Adobe Illustrator, and I was able to thoroughly edit
and insert the new logos for all of the templates in our samples library –
about 60 different PDF’s. I worked with graphic designers and Patti in coming
up with a logo and other materials for BE. Since Patti was generally doing
things for her other job during the day, I was the point person to work with
the graphic designer when she came in every afternoon to work on the different materials
I explained to her. I also did some very tangible work on physical displays; I
painted all of the benches and poster stands built by Patti’s husband, and
helped with our giant water display which was an arc of 15 5-gallon Poland
Spring bottles with water running through them representing the 70 gallons of
water the average NYC resident uses daily.
One thing I’ve learned about curating, or creating materials for a large educational display, is that it’s good to try and plan ahead for each section as much as possible. But even after all of the foresight, once you work on one section you get ideas on how all the others should be to make everything cohesive and aesthetically attractive; each section you work on adds more of these revelations. When we moved into working on a new section, for example -- from water to energy --we’d have so many new ideas and concepts we wanted to use, that we’d take the previously made materials - that we had thought were almost final versions - and use them as a jumping off point for our new plans. It may have seemed like this wasn’t the smart thing to do time wise, but I’d disagree; formulating a cohesive plan for our posters and displays was one of the most important things we did, and it wasn’t something we were able to plan ahead much – the ideas came to us in the process.
One thing I’ve learned about curating, or creating materials for a large educational display, is that it’s good to try and plan ahead for each section as much as possible. But even after all of the foresight, once you work on one section you get ideas on how all the others should be to make everything cohesive and aesthetically attractive; each section you work on adds more of these revelations. When we moved into working on a new section, for example -- from water to energy --we’d have so many new ideas and concepts we wanted to use, that we’d take the previously made materials - that we had thought were almost final versions - and use them as a jumping off point for our new plans. It may have seemed like this wasn’t the smart thing to do time wise, but I’d disagree; formulating a cohesive plan for our posters and displays was one of the most important things we did, and it wasn’t something we were able to plan ahead much – the ideas came to us in the process.
Room Layout
We had to decide how to best arrange the
room with different sections for information on water, energy and renewables,
sustainable building, waste and alternative transportation. We decided to have
low shelves going around most of the room, and the tops of the shelves could be
turned over, revealing a cushioned side which made the “shelves” into a bench,
making the room a space for community meetings and gatherings. During the day
the low shelves serve as spaces to put samples from our samples library; these included
items ranging from eco-friendly soaps, to faucet aerators, to compost bins, to
backpacks with solar panels on them to charge laptops, to recycled tiles and
building insulation made from soy. The samples library was to give people a tactile
example of products they could purchase to make their lives more sustainable. For
each of these items we included a template describing the product and where
they could be bought. There were very rough drafts of these templates completed
for most of the products, and I was in charge of securing donations for as many
of these products as possible for the library.