Since 2016, my mom and I have collaborated on shows portraying the renewal of oyster beds in the NYC waterways. At the time of first European contact, the waters around NYC are estimated to have contained half of the world’s oysters!
But, by the later 1900s, these essential filter-feeders had been largely removed from NYC’s waterways. Once growing up to a foot in length and inhabiting 300 square miles of oyster beds, during the 19th and 20th centuries NYC oysters were over-harvested killed by pollution, and their homes were filled with concrete to build buildings on.
Besides harm to the native oyster population, this also led to steeply declining water quality in NYC waterways. Oysters, filter feeders, could no longer filter the water as they had previously, generation after generation. This led to an increase in nitrogen, bacteria, and toxic algal blooms in the waters of NYC, overall detrimental effects on the marine ecosystem and cloudy, sediment-filled water.
Now, water quality improvement has given us a chance to bring the oysters back to NYC!
Creation of artificial reefs and introduction of oysters onto these reefs is needed because the original oyster bed habitats have been lost.
In collaboration with the NY/NJ Baykeeper, fellow artists Colleen Flanigan, my mom Judith and I created an installation at Brooklyn Bridge Park which portrayed reef building in NYC and around the world.
We later moved the project to Sunny’s in Red Hook Brooklyn, near where the Billion Oyster Project was attempting to build a restored oyster reef.
My mom does fiber art and I do drawings and paintings of the oysters. I have also designed some silkscreen and neon oyster pieces.
We like to bring attention to this particular issue, because many people are working on it and it’s created a community of volunteers. It’s also a vital issue for the health of New York and its marine ecosystems.
We would love to keep doing our work. Here are some sketches for oyster pieces. One idea we have is collecting shells from restaurants to build into recycled paper maiche reefs to recreate the size of NYC oyster reefs before the habitat loss the 20th century brought. Another idea is humorous oyster-sized human beds containing oysters, or giant oyster sculptures in human-sized beds.
An additional idea is creating murals from paper, wheatpaste and paint of oysters and other NYC animals, then placing these murals in art spaces and on the exterior walls of participating businesses and buildings in the NYC area. Both project ideas aim at raising awareness about biodiversity and conservation efforts within our city.
LARISSA SIMPSON ART 