Other of Pearl

by Jenny Kendler

Friday-Sunday through November 3

Governors Island National Monument - Governors Island National Monument - Fort Jay

Oth­er of Pearl is pre­sent­ed in part­ner­ship by Gov­er­nors Island Arts and NRDC (Nat­ur­al Resources Defense Coun­cil).

In Oth­er of Pearl (on view from June through Novem­ber 2024), Jen­ny Kendler (b. 1980, New York, NY) tells the sto­ry of the extrac­tive his­to­ries that form the ori­gin sto­ries of the cli­mate and envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis, while con­sid­er­ing the oys­ter and whale as cen­tral play­ers in an eco­log­i­cal entan­gle­ment between human and non­hu­man beings, water­ways, and flows of capital.

Focus­ing on our rela­tion­ships with these two very dif­fer­ent beings, Kendler illu­mi­nates the ways in which cap­i­tal­ist sys­tems are often found­ed upon the bod­ies of oth­ers. The artist con­fronts con­tem­po­rary envi­ron­men­tal issues — cli­mate change, ocean noise, chem­i­cal pol­lu­tion, bio­di­ver­si­ty loss, and sea lev­el rise — while point­ing towards the cul­tur­al struc­tures that have allowed these cat­a­stro­phes to occur.

Oth­er of Pearl, Kendler’s first solo exhi­bi­tion in New York City, trans­formed the mag­a­zine of Fort Jay into a space for slow explo­ration. Here, vis­i­tors were able to encounter sev­en inti­mate and del­i­cate works, includ­ing a hand­blown glass instru­ment where they could sing in the voice of a whale and pearl sculp­tures grown inside oys­ters. The pearl sculp­tures will be auc­tioned to raise funds to help cre­ate a new oys­ter reef — redis­trib­ut­ing resources in a ges­ture of eco­log­i­cal restora­tion — in part­ner­ship with the Bil­lion Oys­ter Project.

By offer­ing this propo­si­tion of a more inti­mate, and bod­i­ly rela­tion­ship with the nat­ur­al world, Oth­er of Pearl pro­pos­es a new way to envi­sion who mat­ters and who we build the future for, invit­ing us to imag­ine a restored prac­tice of reci­procity between human and non-humans.

Own a one-of-a-kind original artwork created in honor of Other of Pearl on Governors Island

This diptych by Jenny Kendler depicts film stills from the 1922 silent film Down to the Sea in Ships—a whaling ship juxtaposed with the eye of a captured sperm whale. The limited-edition print was created in collaboration with Powerhouse Arts using a specially developed "floating" monoprint technique and iridescent pigments, making each set unique. All proceeds benefit Governors Island Arts programming.

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Jen­ny Kendler is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist, envi­ron­men­tal activist, nat­u­ral­ist, and wild for­ager whose work has been exhib­it­ed nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly at muse­ums, bien­ni­als, pub­lic spaces, and nat­ur­al areas. For the past two decades, Kendler’s work has focused on cli­mate change and bio­di­ver­si­ty loss. Her prac­tice seeks to decen­ter the human and re-enchant our rela­tion­ship with the nat­ur­al world. She is a found­ing mem­ber of Artists Com­mit, which seeks to raise cli­mate con­scious­ness in the art­world, and Artist-in-Res­i­dence at NRDC.

Sup­port for Oth­er of Pearl is pro­vid­ed by the Rip­ple Foun­da­tion as well as Roseate Jew­el­ry. Spe­cial thanks to exhi­bi­tion con­trib­u­tors David Gru­ber and Project CETI and Bil­lion Oys­ter Project.