Lucy Jackson

Meeting at Newtown Creek is an immersive experimental video, tracing Newtown Creek, the overlooked estuary flowing inland from the East River, creating the border between Brooklyn and Queens, NY. Filmed at three access points: a kayak launch in Long Island City, Queens, the polluted English kills tributary in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn and the Plank Road Public Shoreline in Maspeth, Queens. Based in Indigenous conceptions of kinship in which all beings are understood as interconnected and interdependent, I seek to render the perspective of the blue crabs, striped bass, ducks, and seagulls who inhabit the creek. By positioning my GoPro on the Creek’s rocky shore, passing through abandoned plastic bottles, and completely enraptured in layers of thick black mayonnaise or sludge, viewers embody the perspective of Creek creatures. Through this approach, I hope to reconfigure our relationship to our waters and cohabitators.