Solar-Powered Film Series Starts Thursday

This Thursday evening, solar advocacy group Solar One and social network GreenEdge Collaborative NYC will pair up for the second year in a row to deliver an eco-themed solar-powered film series, putting a local spin on global issues.

The six-film series will be shown over six nights: Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week and next. Film topics range from the World Water Crisis to electric cars. Each film will be paired with a relevant segment from Brooklyn filmmaker Michelle Vey’s From Elegance to Earthworms, a documentary about New York-based environmental groups.

Screenings will be followed by one or two guest speakers and a question and answer session. The speakers are from local environmental groups and businesses, said Judy Harper, New York City chapter director of GreenEdge. “The movies are about big issues,” she explained. “We want to bring them back to the local area.”

Doors will open each night (figuratively, since the screenings are outside) at 7 p.m. with the films starting at 7:45. The projector and audio will be powered by a solar system on the roof of Solar One, at 23rd Street and FDR Drive in Manhattan, where the screenings will take place. Chris Neidl, outreach and advocacy coordinator at Solar One, said that the solar power is collected and stored in a battery bank, allowing it to be used after dark.

Though the film series will be shown in Manhattan, the event has a strong Brooklyn influence. GreenEdge Collaborative NYC was founded in 2006 by then-Park Slope resident Carolyn Gilles. She wanted to connect businesses and residents who live sustainably. Since then, GreenEdge has expanded to include a Kentucky chapter, and a San Francisco chapter is in the works. Gilles has relocated to Kentucky — “I moved five weeks ago and I miss [Brooklyn] dearly,” she said — but GreenEdge still has a strong connection to Brooklyn.

“We’re very much born and bred in Brooklyn,” said Harper. “It’s where we have built the most support.”

In a nod to these Brooklyn roots, several of the guest speakers are from Brooklyn organizations. For Thursday night’s film, Addicted to Plastic, a documentary about solutions to plastic pollution, speakers will be Vey and also Amanda Gentile, a co-founder of the Brooklyn Green Team. On Sept. 18, The Garden, about a community garden in Los Angeles, will be shown, followed by speakers Juventino Avila, co-owner and Chef of Get Fresh Table and Market in Brooklyn, and Stacey Murphy, founder of BK Farmyards. Gilles said the films were chosen to emphasize current topics in environmentalism and she hopes attendees will gain something from the screenings. “I hope that they walk away inspired to take action and make changes in their daily lives.”

Neidl — who happens to be a Brooklyn resident — hopes to “build the reputation and understanding of solar power” through the film series, demonstrating “the message and the medium” at the same time.

The series should also be a good time. Previous years have seen as many as 400 people in attendance, said Neidl, noting that though this is the second year GreenEdge has been a partner, it’s the fifth year Solar One has hosted film screenings.

“It’s a fun way to learn about the environment and what’s happening currently,” said Gilles.

Screenings for the Solar-Powered Film Series will be on September 10, 11, 12 and 17, 18 and 19. The event is free. Doors open at 7 p.m.

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Eat-In on Labor Day in Brooklyn

No plans on Labor Day? Join Slow Food USA — an organization dedicated to promoting good, clean and fair food — for its National Eat-In day on Monday, Sept 7, in conjunction with its Time for Lunch Campaign. An Eat-In is a potluck that takes place in public and gathers people to support a cause, in this case to get real food into schools.

Not Eating Out in New York has a list of some Eat-Ins, several of which are in Brooklyn:

• Prospect Heights, at the schoolyard of PS 9 Teunis G. Bergen School (80 Underhill Avenue on St. Mark’s Avenue), from 12 – 3 p.m.
• Williamsburg, at Bridget (20 Broadway between Dunham Pl. and Kent Ave), from 12 – 3 p.m.
• Gowanus, at The Bell House (149 Seventh Street), from 3 – 7 p.m., a local-themed Eat-In hosted by the Ladies Who Lunch.
• Park Slope, a kid-friendly Eat-In, at 6/15 Green Community Garden (Sixth Avenue and 15th Street), from 3 – 5 p.m.

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New Brooklyn Green Team Eco-Challenge

For the next three months, the Brooklyn Green Team challenges you to choose a room in your home, the one you think uses the most energy, an unplug all the appliances that aren't in use. Computers, cell-phone chargers, and other electronics continue to use power even when you turn them off. Nationally, this creates the annual emissions equivalent to 17 power plants.

Help lower these emissions, and sign up for the challenge by emailing brooklyngreen@gmail.com and writing "(Insert Your Name) Unplugged." Visit the Green Team's blog for information, resources and encouragement.

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Creating Sculpture Out of Old Clothes

New Yorkers send 386 million pounds of textile waste to landfills annually, according to a study conducted by the Department of Sanitation. At the “Green Brooklyn... Green City” fair and symposium, held by the Council on the Environment of New York City (CENYC), this alarming fact will be visualized through a day-long sculpture demonstration conducted by artist Derick Melander.

Melander, with a group of volunteers, will carefully fold and stack 3,615 pounds of recycled clothing into a five- by seven-foot cube over the course of the conference, which runs from noon until 6 p.m. “It will be a race against the clock,” he said.

The figure 3,615 — calculated by CENYC’s Office of Recycling Outreach and Education (OROE) and Brooklyn-based clothing recycling company Wearable Collections — represents the pounds of textile waste New Yorkers create every five minutes, Melander explained. He noted that textile waste comes from the residential waste stream: clothing textiles, non-clothing textiles (towels, carpets, furniture cushions), sneakers and leather goods. It does not include textile waste from the industrial/commercial waste stream.

Wearable Collections is donating the clothes for Melander’s sculpture. Through a partnership with CENYC, Wearable Collections has a presence at several greenmarkets throughout the city. Over its five-year life span, the organization has diverted over one million pounds of New York City’s textile waste from landfills, said founder Adam Baruchowitz.

The sculpture will be made up of four stacks of clothes, with only the weight of the clothes and lateral supports keeping the structure intact, said Melander. Clothing will be divided by color into four categories: blues, warm colors, cool colors, and blacks and grays. “There’s no gluing or sewing and no treatment other than Febreze every once and a while.”

He will set up a large folding table for volunteers, using a template that indicates the dimensions of the fold, which vary depending on the garment. A sweater dictates a smaller size than a cotton shirt, because when stacked it will compress and become wider.

Folded garments will then be passed on to volunteers who, overseen by Melander, will build the sculpture. “It will be Ford Motor car assembly line-style,” he said.

Volunteers (which are still needed) can fold for part of the day or the whole six hours. Those who stay for the duration will receive a free watercolor painting by Melander, he said.

He previously collaborated with CENYC through OROE for a fundraiser to which he donated two small artworks. But Melander has been constructing clothing sculptures for more than seven years.

Having “no natural affinity for clothing,” Melander says the material found him while he was working with found vintage suitcases. “I thought they needed to be up on a pedestal,” he explained. Not wanting to put them on plain white pedestals, he decided to construct bases out of piles of clothes.

“Working with all that clothing, I started to get interested in clothes,” Melander said. He would sometimes find notes in pockets or be able to detect the lingering smell of someone’s cologne on the garments he has used.

“Clothing has this natural connection to the people who wore it,” he said. “I’m making artwork that’s like a collective portrait... it’s a symbolic gesture where I’m compressing the space between people.”

And since the clothes in his sculptures are not attached, just stacked, they can be taken apart and recycled into new pieces.

“I’m eco-conscious as a person,” he said. “It’s part of who I am and naturally ends up having a place in my artwork as well.”

Melander’s demonstration will send a clear message, illustrating how much clothing is sent to landfills. “It’s important that people understand the magnitude of the issue,” Baruchowitz said. “It’s important for people to see it.”

“Green Brooklyn... Green City,” at Brooklyn Borough Hall on September 24, will run from noon to 6 p.m. with opening remarks at 11:30 a.m. To volunteer for the fair, e-mail cshann@cenyc.org. To volunteer for Derick Melander’s sculpture demonstration, e-mail the artist at derick.melander@mindspring.com.

The work in the top photo, called Compression, is constructed of 800 pounds of carefully folded, second hand clothing, crisscrossed around a central spine, and is from the collection of Farshid Assassi. Bottom photo is called The Ocean is the Underlying Basis for Every Wave, 1,859 pounds of folded clothing. Photos courtesy of Derick Melander.

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'Robert Redford: Artist & Activist' at BAM

From Sept. 8-16, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) will present "Robert Redford: Artist & Activist," a 16-film tribute to Robert Redford's 50-year film career. Some of the films to be shown are The Candidate (1972), Downhill Racer (1969), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Quiz Show (1994), The Sting (1973), All the President's Men (1976), A River Runs Through It (1992) and Jeremiah Johnson (1972). Out of Africa (1984), The Natural (1985), The Electric Horseman (1979) and The Way We Were (1973) are part of a special event on Sunday, Sept. 13, called "Redford: Film & Conversation," at which the award-winning actor/director (pictured here with BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins) will participate in a panel discussion about his career as well as his role as a leading environmental and social change activist. For more information, visit www.bam.org.

Photo by Elena Olivio

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Brooklyn Botanic Garden Photo Contest

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) is calling all photographers (amateur and otherwise) for its seasonal photo contest and asking visitors to focus on themselves. Dubbed "Me @ BBG!" the contest will document the diverse community of people who visit the garden. Photos are submitted by posting them on the Me @ BBG! Flickr group, and one will be chosen as the photo of the week for the next three weeks. Winners will receive a $20 gift certificate to the garden shops. For more information, to post photos and to view past week's winners, visit www.bbg.org.

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‘Get Yr Fix’ this Saturday in Williamsburg

The economic and climate crises have inspired in many a desire to reuse and repurpose old household objects, making them last longer, in order to use and spend less. But sometimes things break, prompting feelings of helplessness in those who aren’t sure how to fix them.

It’s this helplessness that the Brooklyn-based Fixers’ Collective tries to combat. It was started in March as a way for people to come together with their broken things and discuss how best to fix them. At Thursday night meetings, people come to art gallery/reading room Proteus Gowanus and put their broken objects on a communal table, sharing ideas with each other.

“We fix most of the stuff that comes,” artist David Mahfouda said. “We have a really high success rate.”

The collective is an idea that grew out of MEND, a year-long exhibit at Proteus Gowanus, where old tools were on display and one artist set up a station at which to fix books.

Mahfouda was one of the contributors to the exhibit, repairing a giant American flag that had been destroyed during celebrations in Union Square after President Obama was elected. “People were so excited that they made headbands and capes out of the flag,” he explained. Half of the flag was left after that night, and during MEND, Mahfouda was able to repair it, with donations and new fabric.

Some interesting challenges have come through the Fixers’ Collective. At last week’s meeting, Mahfouda said someone literally came in off the street and taught participants how to diagnose a stereo. Once, at an earlier meeting, someone brought in their iPod and an old rotary phone, their objective being to pick up the phone to hear music on their iPod. “It totally worked,” Mahfouda recalled. “It was pretty amazing.”

Fixing Fair

Fixers’ Collective meetings are usually small and low-key, with between five and 10 people at a time, all contributing $5 to participate. But this Saturday, the group will host its first major event, called “Get Yr Fix,” at VOD Space at 99 S. Sixth St. in Williamsburg.

The Collective has partnered with Sewing Rebellion and NYC Resistor for the fixing fair. Sewing Rebellion was started by a woman who calls herself Frau Fiber, Mahfouda said. She used to make clothes but decided instead to teach people how to sew and fix clothes for themselves. NYC Resistor is a Downtown Brooklyn-based group of tech designers who meet to share knowledge and build projects.

Attendees will be able to compete in individual fixing competitions, kind of like hot potato, said Mahfouda. Pairs will be given two objects to fix, with each person spending two minutes on one before passing it to their partner. The object is to be the one who actually fixes the object in the end.

“It’s kind of a faux competition,” Mahfouda explained. “Fixing can seem pretty mundane, we wanted to think about ways to popularize it and make it exciting.”

There will be a larger group competition — “kind of like Iron Chef or American Idol,” Mahfouda says — in which Fixers’ Collective will be pitted against Sewing Rebellion and NYC Resistor in front of a panel of judges.

“There will also be a barter auction, where people can auction their things off not for cash but for other people’s things,” Mahfouda said. The event, which is free, will feature live music from bands Band Practice and Too Big To Fail, will provide food and beverages for sale throughout, and will offer soldering, sewing and umbrella-fixing workshops. “It’s a fixing picnic with beer and hot dogs,” Mahfouda said.

He said that concern for the environment influenced the Fixers’ Collective, noting, “We’re going to be better off if we can consume a bit less.”

“Get Yr Fix” is this Saturday, Aug. 28 at VOD Space at 99 S. Sixth St. from 2 to 10 p.m. For questions and to RSVP, e-mail info@getyrfix.com.

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