Gowanus On Tap is a Creative Community Consultation project initiated by TRAX, which will bring together a diverse group of local residents who will make the water of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal potable. The project will host a series of community workshops which will develop a filtration unit & sculpture by Brian Cohen. The creative & scientific process will become part of an episodic broadcast documentary.

This project is still in its early stages but aims to engage people proximal to the canal in a series of workshops which will raise the water quality to potable levels. Two scientists with the City University of New York will assist us with laboratory determinations. If we can produce just one glass at potable standards then we will have achieved our goal. The unit we construct will be a work of art in itself and the process will output a series of short films and a documentary.

The water remediation unit produced will tour area schools & conferences, presenting to audiences the story of a community living on a canal eligible for Superfund status. The chemical & biological breakdown of contaminants will be exorcised from the water & audiences will be invited to drink from the chalice of purified industrial waste.

This is a grassroots human ecology project which investigates the environmental & cultural value of a unique waterway. The project will consider solutions to treating canal sewage using surplus elements in our environment as contributing stages in filtration.

We document this process & present the findings to various audiences through narrative (the community’s reflections & stories via film), scientific data (the story of the water & sediment), sculpture (the filtration unit) & experience (drinking the gowanus).

This project will empower local communities to take interest in urban renewal and create a highly public symbol of what the residents living around the Gowanus Canal value both on shore & off.

“Culture is the accumulation of all the artistic expression of a time and place. It may present an unattractive picture, or a brilliant one, but it is an essential record unless we take the nihilist view that human existence itself is irrelevant.

The nihilist would see no point in having children. If any one of us matters, then art matters and culture matters. A Society without art leaves no children; with no past it can have no future.”

- Julian Burnside, QC

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This project is currently seeking funding &/or in-kind support to develop & grow.