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Welcome<\/strong>! This interactive exhibition–originally mounted at the Queens Museum in 2019–highlights the stories, geographies, and impacts of diverse civic stewards across New York through art, maps, and storytelling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the Gallery Space\u2019s \u201cfront door\u201d and we are asking for a voluntary donation to support this exhibit\u2014a tip jar, or pay-what-you-will ticket.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n During COVID-19, The Urban Ecological Arts Forum at The Nature of Cities is bringing to life virtual exhibition spaces, highlighting current exhibitions on urban ecological themes that would otherwise be impossible to experience due to the closure of cultural facilities. Your ticket purchase ensures that that this online forum can continue to bring ecological arts to the public. 100% of your donation goes to support the continuation of these exhibitions<\/span>.<\/strong> You can see the show for free too; scroll down. But please consider a donation.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBuy a Ticket<\/a>\n\n\n\n <\/span>\n\n\n\n Civic leaders and community members regularly put time and energy into caring and advocating for the environment. We call these acts of care stewardship. Beyond improving the green and blue spaces in our city, stewardship can also lead to other types of civic action. Local stewardship groups can strengthen social trust within a neighborhood. People who come together around the shared love of a garden or park steward not just that space, but also their relationships to one another–making them poised to organize around any number of issues affecting their community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This exhibition was originally mounted at the Queens Museum<\/a> in September 2019, and highlights the stories, geographies, and impacts of diverse civic stewards across New York through art, maps, and storytelling. The virtual iteration which you are about to experience is provided through a collaboration between the Forum for Radical Imagination on Environmental Cultures (FRIEC)<\/strong> at The Nature of Cities<\/strong>, and the USDA Forest Service<\/strong>, NYC Urban Field Station<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This exhibit draws upon the USDA Forest Service\u2019s Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project <\/a>(STEW-MAP<\/strong>), which is a dataset of thousands of civic stewardship groups\u2019 organizational capacity, geographic territories, and social networks. STEW-MAP has been implemented in approximately a dozen global locations; it was piloted first in New York City in 2007 and then updated in 2017, which was the source of the data that were used in this exhibit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The show features artists whose work aligns with the themes of community-based stewardship, civic engagement, and social infrastructure: Magali Duzant, Matthew Jensen, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, and Julia Oldham. Through photography, drawing, book arts, and performance, these artists reflect upon, amplify, and interpret the work of stewards and the landscapes and neighborhoods with which they work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/span>\n\n\n\n When you take care of a place you love, you are engaging in stewardship. <\/strong>Whether you pick up trash that you see in your park, band together with a few neighbors to tend to the trees in front of your building, advocate for living wages for green jobs, or teach the next generation about the importance of biodiversity, you are joining a network of care that keeps cities like New York green and flourishing for all. Caring for the environment happens at different scales, and there are roles for all sectors: public, private, and civic. Most often, civic environmental stewardship happens in groups–from a couple of friends, to small informal associations, to citywide or even international non-profts. But sometimes the important work of these civic groups can go unrecognized. This exhibition aims to make these groups more visible through sharing their stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quotes on this page are taken from interviews with stewardship groups that are documented in STEW-MAP<\/a>. USDA Forest Service researchers asked stewards to share their definition of stewardship, stories of ways in which they helped to take care of the environment, and their vision for the future of stewardship work in NYC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nWho Takes Care of New York?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
STORIES<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In their own words<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Highlighted Stories from STEW-MAP
USDA Forest Service\/ Pratt SAVI<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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