MARINA ZURKOW
Emoji collection, available as downloadable images, icon set, instagram filter
In collaboration with Viniyata Pany<br>
Disaster icons illustrated by Manuja Waldia <br>
Resilience icons illustrated by Anna Lin <br>
iOS & Android app developed by Johann Diedrick & Denny George<br>
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.
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.
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 in the future.” MtBoI:D created a church-like refuge in which all were invited to take on a non-human persona and offer a brief remembrance of the human species.
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.
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…
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.
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 knowledge production and reception. Many of the book titles are drawn from some of the most influential works of contemporary ecological thought, by thinkers like Donna Haraway, Timothy Morton, Eduardo Kohn, Amitav Ghosh, and Jane Bennet. Others invoke concepts or topics closely associated with climate literacy and advocacy. Yet others allude to contemporary popular culture.
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.”