MARINA ZURKOW
Deck of cards, gameboard, table, chairs
THE ICEBERG is a card and conversation game created by Abigail Simon and Marina Zurkow that invites players to consider the beautiful trouble of complexity, with a particular focus on climate change. Like a tarot deck, the images on the cards of The Iceberg invite the user to consider a problem, give a voice to…
Custom software (color, silent)
Generative, non-interactive
93 editions, 6 artist editions, 1 publisher proof
In collaboration with Ira Greenberg
Oystercraft website design: Pat Shiu
Part of the exhibition “Chain Reaction” on Feral File, curated by Christiane Paul
Created for the online exhibition “Chain Reaction,” curated by Christiane Paul on the Feral File platform.
Marine debris, plastic bags, metal signs, CNC cut wood, mini-golf turf
In collaboration with Blake Goble, B-Space
Documentation: Jakob Dahlin
Commissioned by Putting Green, NY
When a whale dies and sinks, its carcass creates an entire ecosystem on the ocean floor, nourishing thousands of organisms. Ocean pollution affects this process and disrupts the food chain, impacting species from krill to whales. Whales are some of the longest living mammals on the planet, with lifespans from 10 to 200 years. When…
Cardboard, paint
In collaboration with Abigail Simon
Presented at the Woodstock Farm Festival, New York
A fun, non-didactic participatory engagement “where nobody wins.”
Food, ASMR, mixer and speakers, lighting, slide show
Led by Hank and Bean
Sound: Yotam Mann and Sarah Rothberg
Thanks to Sunview luncheonette and Dylan Gauthier
Presented at Sunview Luncheonette, Brooklyn, NY
Soupy Salty Sonic, an edible exploration of fluid ocean spaces was a beta dinner and an aural/oral experiment, in conjunction with the exhibition “Wet Logic” at bitforms gallery.
Food, printed fabric maps, plexiglass, prototyping materials, print graphics/texts
Chef: Jen Monroe / Bad Taste
Artists: Marina Zurkow with Lydia Jessup and Ashley Jane Lewis
Documentation: Gilad Dor
Commissioned by the Guild of Future Architects
To kick off the Guild of Future Architects’ Future Imagination Summit, Monroe and Zurkow created an interactive, edible map and visioning workshop looking at the present and future of food equity and climate change in New York’s 5 boroughs. 50 participants ate, engaged in discussion, and played — both with their food and other art-making material…
Cannonball jellyfish, ice plant, kombu seaweed, condiments, laser-cut lettering, signage, tarp, stencil, plants
In collaboration with chef duo Hank and Bean
Commissioned by LENS (Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategy), IOES (Institute of Environment and Sustainability), UCLA
A one-day pop up jellyfish jerky snack shack on the campus of UCLA. Serving Cannonball jellyfish jerky served with a choice of seasoning condiments reflective of 5 diverse regions susceptible to sea level rise: Haiti, the US Gulf coast, Sri Lanka/ S. India, Philippines, and the Netherlands. In addition, the snack shack served “invasive” ice…
Locust and red oak wood, vinyl plaques, lettering
Dear Climate Collective, in collaboration with Jennie Carlisle, Curator and Director of the Smith Gallery, Appalachian State
Fabrication: Roger Atkins of Cove Creek Woodworks
Fresh cut locust and red oak wood donated by Ian Snider of Mountain Works Sustainable Development
Documentation: Cheryl Zibisky
Commissioned by Climate Stories Collaborative at Appalachian State
“What do I need to know for the planet to thrive?” This question animates “Signs, Wonders, Blunders,” an installation of 13 signposts, each with three multi-directional signs, located at interesting and suggestive locations on campus. The signposts use book titles and common phrases to create a set of playful proposals for new ways of understanding…
Food, performance, props, slide show
In collaboration with Hank and Bean
Supported by Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies (LENS) at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (IoES), UCLA, led by Allison Carruth
A dinner and movable feast exploring the edible desertification of the Los Angeles region, one whose contemporary culture still holds dear the sensibility of a Mediterranean diet.
Emoji collection, available as downloadable images, icon set, instagram filter
In collaboration with Viniyata Pany
Disaster icons illustrated by >Manuja Waldia
Resilience icons illustrated by Anna Lin
iOS & Android app developed by Johann Diedrick & >Denny George
Thanks to Richard Farren Lapham
Supported by NYU Green Grants, in collaboration with NYU Office of Sustainability.
The Climoji are designed to distill some of the causes and effects of climate change into tiny, potent icons.
Food, dandelions, placemats, writing materials, thoughtful company
In collaboration with Valentine Cadieux and Sarah Libertus
with Jim Bovino/Topos, Courtney Tchida, Tracey Deutsch
All images courtesy Dan Marshall.
Presented at The Good Acre, Minneapolis
Commissioned by Northern Lights.mn and presented as part of Northern Spark, Climate Chaos | Climate Rising, 2016-2017, with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Knight Foundation
The invitation: These Dandelion potlucks provide a community meal space to gather, share food, and explore key questions connecting food and climate change. They’re a more informal chance to add to the meal story sharing toolkit that Making the Best of It has been cultivating.
Dandelions, beets, custom structure, sod, music, paper, costumes, banners
In collaboration with Valentine Cadieux, Sarah Libertus, Aaron Marx
Dandelion kvaas by Jim Bovino
Dandelions and more from Courtney Tchida
All images courtesy Dan Marshall
Commissioned by Northern Lights.mn and presented as part of Northern Spark, Climate Chaos | Climate Rising, 2016-2017, with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Knight Foundation
“Join us in a ritual festivity that invites you to become more dandelion. From trans-species oration to cow eulogies to intimate ocean tributes, this is the party of Making the Best of It, a communal service compressed into the space of a toast—to how all of us are making the best of it, now and…
Field guide, self-guided audio tour, website
Floating Studio for Dark Ecologies (FSDE)
(Nicholas Hubbard, Rebecca Lieberman, Marina Zurkow)
with Bruce Shackelford (voice), Jane Cramer (audio engineering), Justin Peake (music)
Funded in part by a Tisch School of the Arts Dean’s Faculty Grant, and the Brooklyn Arts Council
Focusing on Newtown Creek, the polluted and little-known waterway that borders Brooklyn and Queens, the art collective Floating Studio for Dark Ecologies (FSDE) aims to expand awareness, citizenship, and affection for this post-natural place that is currently in the final stage of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund assessment process. We have been concerned with designing…
Site specific installation
Ladder, binoculars, stake flags, laminated key, toolbox
In collaboration with Floating Studio for Dark Ecologies (FSDE)
(Nicholas Hubbard, Rebecca Lieberman, Marina Zurkow) with Chester Dols (fabrication)
First created for Works on Water Triennial, 3LD, New York
Floating Studio for Dark Ecologies (FSDE) dreams of an ongoing and open library of citizen-driven field guides. The aim of these guides is to embrace the everythingness that—like it or not, pretty or not, dirty or not—constitutes the place where we are. We believe the first step to change requires an unblinkered intimacy with the…
Dandelion leaves, flowers, tincture, custom structures, costumes, tour guides, umbrellas, meadow
In collaboration with Valentine Cadieux, Sarah Petersen, Aaron Marx
All images courtesy Dan Marshall
Commissioned by Northern Lights.mn and presented as part of Northern Spark, Climate Chaos | Climate Rising, 2016-2017, with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Knight Foundation
Over the course of 16 months in Minneapolis, geographer and social practice artist Valentine Cadieux and Marina Zurkow, with a group of collaborators and participants, explored what it might mean to “make the best of it” (“it” being climate change), using dandelions to think through eating differently, nimbly, with sadness, resilience and even joy.
Custom Cannonball jellyfish soup powder, caramels, snack puffs
Food prototypes by chefs Ryan Pera (Coltivare), and Justin Yu and Ian Levy (Oxheart)
Supported by CENHS (the Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences) at Rice University
Making the Best of It is the umbrella concept for a series of regional site-specific pop-up food shacks, installations, carts, tea houses, delivery drones, and designed community dinners that feature edible climate-change enabled, and often not normally eaten, indicator species as part of the menu.
Tasting/Participatory performance for 50 guests
Collaborators: Lucullan Foods
Hosted by Joseph Campana and Timothy Morton, with generous support from The Arts Initiatives Fund and The Humanities Research Center.
Presented by CENHS (Center for Energy & Environmental Research in the Human Sciences @ Rice)
A dinner for 50, co-hosted by philosopher Timothy Morton and poet Joseph Campana, that explored the concept of Deep Time and the multiple million-years-long process of fossil fuel formation, embodied in a seven course meal. The guests were primarily from the academic and arts communities in Houston. The purpose was to field test the effect…
Tasting/Participatory performance for 50 guests
808 Gallery Boston University
With Lucullan Foods and Michael Connor
Presented by the School of Visual Arts, in collaboration with Boston University’s Programs in Food and Wine.
The French phrase hors d’ouevre literally means “outside of the work,” that is, outside the design of the meal. Petrochemicals infuse our foods, and while these byproducts of petroleum lie outside our designs on eating, they are intimately meshed with the foods we produce, transport and consume.You are invited to a multi-course tasting that invokes…
‘Local’ dinner for 25, menu, prints
In collaboration with Michael Connor and Alex Freedman
Chefs: Lucullan Foods (Lauryn Tyrell, Loryn Hatch, and Albert Nyguyen)
Foragers: Holly Drake, Oliver Kellhammer, Bun Lai, Andrew Nundel & your hosts
Photo documentation: M.Cianfrani, M_DOK
Commissioned by The Artists Institute
The Invitation You are invited to “Not an Artichoke, Nor from Jerusalem,” a dinner that renders the local exotic, and the exotic all too local. We are serving a meal harvested in nearby waters or foraged on the adjoining shores. Tong-ho. Whores’ eggs. Knotweed. Sapidissima. Sumac. These words feel strangely potent in the mouth. Language…
Participatory performance
In collaboration with Sarah Rothberg
Premiered at New Museum IDEAS CITY
Immortal Plastics (IP) Assessment Services is a performative, methodological procedure which determines the depth of participants’ relations with hydrocarbons and positions participating individuals on a timeline of plastic’s ancient past and indefinite future. 250 million years ago during the Permian Period, marine microorganisms died and accumulated in sediments on the floor of a vast saline…