Cycles (Riverdale Study)

A collaboration with Beatrice Glow for "Call & Response," a show celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Wave Hill's Sunroom Project Space.
Digital print on fabric
104 x 50 in.
2017

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Exhibition Text

In Cycles (Riverdale Study), artists Julian Chams and Beatrice Glow collaborated to create a digital fabric print that presents a reimagining of the precolonial landscapes of Riverdale and the larger Northeast Woodlands area. In the initial research stage, Chams and Glow consulted Native culture bearers as well as Dr. Eric Sanderson and Chris Spagnoli at the Bronx Zoo’s Wildlife Conservation Society, who have led extensive ecological research in the area. This print is a collage of Glow's paintings of Fordham Gneiss, the oldest rock that forms the foundation of the region, as well as Chams’ photographs of native plants. The collage is not a reflection of an actual landscape, but a composition of possible ecologies that are simultaneously the past, present and future, mirroring the creative and forensics work that is funneled into piecing together history’s puzzles.

A Guide to Native Plants in Cycles (Riverdale Study)

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Further reading

A Guide to Native Plants of the New York City Region
Margaret B. Gargiullo, Rutgers University Press, 2007

Ecological Communities of New York State
Carol Reschke, New York Natural Heritage Program, 2014
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/ecocomm2014.pdf

Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City
Leslie Day, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007

Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City
Eric W. SandersonMarkley Boyer, Harry N. Abrams, 2009

The Nature of New York: An Environmental History of the Empire State
David Stradling, Cornell University Press, 201

Wild New York: A Guide to the Wildlife, Wild Places & Natural Phenomena of New York City
Margaret Mittelbach & Michael Crewdson, Three Rivers Press, 1997