Memorial for ecological artist Jackie Brookner at The New School, as her Fargo Project moves forward

A memorial service for pioneering ecological artist Jackie Brookner will be held on Saturday, October 17 at The New School's Wollman Hall in New York City, beginning at 10:00 a.m. Brookner, who died of cancer earlier this year, was in the midst of The Fargo Project, a community-designed initiative in Fargo, North Dakota that recently received an Art America grant. The project will transform an 18-acre storm water basin into a restored wetland and neighborhood commons featuring a listening garden shaped like an ear, a citizen science lab, and giant playable marimbas built from tree logs. Brookner's artistic practice, which evolved over two decades, integrated biology, social equality, and ecology, moving from art history and sculpture to creating works with beneficial ecological functions. Her work was featured in the exhibition "Climate Contemporary" at the Lake George Arts Project in upstate New York, where she urged a focus on her recent projects like Fargo and Veden Taika. The latter project in Saalo, Finland transformed a decommissioned sewage lagoon into floating islands that clean water and air, eventually becoming an EU bird sanctuary. Brookner believed sculpture could change minds through metaphor, addressing the inseparability of human bodies and their habitats. Her Fargo Project, developed over five years with over a hundred collaborators, will now be implemented by the city of Fargo.