FRACKING: Art and Activism Against the Drill
December 7, 2010 - February 5, 2011
Exit Art announces Fracking: Art and Activism Against the Drill. Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is a means of gas extraction that accesses gas trapped more than a mile below the earth’s surface. This exhibition, a project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics), will expose this process of gas extraction that is contaminating water supplies worldwide. Through documentary videos, photography by Jacques del Conte and Michael Forster Rothbart, commissioned works, public responses and literature, it will engage the public in dialogue on this issue through public lectures and calls to action and encourage audiences to continue educating themselves and their communities on fracking and its detrimental effects.
PUBLIC EVENT
Fracking and Its Effects: A Panel Discussion
Host: Mark Ruffalo, Actor / Activist
Moderator: Tracy Carluccio, Activist
Panelists: Joe Levine, Lobbyist / Activist; Michael Lebron, Grassroots Organizer; Al Appleton, Policy; Michel Boufadel, Civil Engineer; Christy Rupp, Artist; and a representative from “Gasland” to be announced
This panel discussion brings together leading experts and activists on hydraulic fracturing, representing multiple facets of this issue.
Mark Ruffalo is an actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He is also a vocal critic of hydraulic fracturing, having recently appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show to discuss the issue and the 2009 FRAC Act.
Tracy Carluccio is the Deputy Director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. She has served on several township boards, inter-municipal steering committees and community organizations related to issues of water and environmental preservation.
Al Appleton is the former Commissioner of NYC's Environmental Protection Agency and an international expert on water issues. He is also a Senior Fellow at the CUNY Institute for Urban Systems and an international consultant on issues of watershed and water utility management, financing, and land use.
Michel Boufadel is the Professor and Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Temple University and the Director of its Center for Natural Resources Development and Protection. He is one of the nation’s foremost experts on oil spills and the Marcellus Shale natural gas deposits.
Michael Lebron has had a varied career in site-specific / public forum media art installations, in advertising, and in grassroots activism. His public work has led him into a number of 1st Amendment battles, one of which involved an 8-1 decision at the Supreme court level written by Antonin Scalia, with Sandra Day O'Connor in dissent.
Joe Levine is the co-founder of NYH20 and Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the Upper Delaware River Basin from the ravages of deep-shale gas extraction and the threat posed by the natural gas industry.
Christy Rupp is an artist and activist who has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions internationally since 1977. Her most recent body of work deals with fracking, mountaintop removal and oil drilling in the Amazon.
“Gasland” is a documentary film directed by Josh Fox that focuses on communities affected by natural gas drilling. It was released in 2010 and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it won the Special Jury Prize.
