"Wet Networks" features artifacts and commissioned projects from "Geek Camp 2021: Neversink Never Ever (2021技客營：不再永不沉沒)" at the Watershed Gallery, Queens Museum from Oct. 30 to Aug. 14, 2022. The exhibition is supported by the Taipei Cultural Center in New York, mainly organized by the Queens Museum (QM) and presented in partnership with Rhizome and CycleX.
Taking place in July 2021, this was the first of Taiwanese artist Cheang Shu-lea's (鄭淑麗) annual "Geek Camp" convening at CycleX, an experimental farm and cultural center. Cheang invited curator Celine Wong Katzman to gather a group of artists for the camp. She chose artists whose practices resonated with the context of the watershed to take part in the camp at the site located just a few miles uphill from where the East Branch of the Delaware River feeds the Pepacton reservoir.
The participating artists range from Tecumseh Ceaser, Nabil Hassein, Melanie Hoff, Christopher Lin, Jan Mun, and TJ Shin. They were joined by Erwin A. Karl, mycologist and Evan T. Pritchard, Founder of the Center for Algonquin Culture. Together their reflections and offerings illuminate the relationships between new technologies and traditional ways of knowing, the challenges of collective care, and how land and water shape and are shaped by one another and us.
The works on display include "CycleX Reflections," a collection of essays written by Cheang, Nabil Hassein and TJ Shin, "Flora for CycleX” by Erwin A.Karl, "Failure<> Collapse<> Yield<> Catalyze" by Melanie Hoff, and "224g" by Jan Mun and Tecumseh Ceaser.
Cheang Shu-lea is an artist and filmmaker currently based in Paris, and who often travels to the United States to spend time at CycleX, her recently-formed artist residency and media lab in Andes, New York.
For more information, please visit the Queens Museum's website.