1 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:23,080 ["New York Close Up"] 2 00:00:45,220 --> 00:00:48,840 ["Bryan Zanisnik Goes To The Meadowlands"] 3 00:00:50,860 --> 00:00:51,960 [Meadowlands, New Jersey] 4 00:00:53,080 --> 00:00:56,920 I love this idea of this landscape that's constantly evolving 5 00:00:56,920 --> 00:00:58,420 but also devolving. 6 00:00:59,900 --> 00:01:03,980 A lot of the train lines have been ripped apart by Hurricane Sandy. 7 00:01:03,980 --> 00:01:09,440 So there's new areas of devastation on top of other devastations. 8 00:01:11,060 --> 00:01:11,660 [SOUND OF CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING] 9 00:01:12,780 --> 00:01:13,280 [SOUND OF CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING] 10 00:01:14,960 --> 00:01:15,460 [SOUND OF CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING] 11 00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:20,000 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 12 00:01:23,940 --> 00:01:26,000 I was photographing things I was finding along the way 13 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:30,460 like these needles that were dumped from what looks like a hospital. 14 00:01:30,890 --> 00:01:35,390 Signpost markers from train lines. 15 00:01:36,030 --> 00:01:40,190 And this here is this old operator's cabin that was next to a turn bridge. 16 00:01:40,570 --> 00:01:43,250 It was where the operator watched for trains coming 17 00:01:43,250 --> 00:01:45,830 and it's since been abandoned for many decades. 18 00:01:59,380 --> 00:02:01,660 --But I'll just go this far anyway because it's kind of ruined. 19 00:02:03,300 --> 00:02:05,220 Looks like one of my installations, doesn't it? 20 00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:13,989 So that there in the distance is Snake Hill 21 00:02:13,989 --> 00:02:18,070 and it's actually the only natural elevation in the Meadowlands. 22 00:02:18,070 --> 00:02:22,480 So it becomes this sort of strange emblem of New Jersey. 23 00:02:22,480 --> 00:02:25,739 In the nineteenth century, landscape painters from all across the U.S. 24 00:02:25,739 --> 00:02:26,850 would come to paint it 25 00:02:26,850 --> 00:02:29,060 because it was considered one of the most beautiful 26 00:02:29,060 --> 00:02:31,100 rock out-croppings in the Northeast. 27 00:02:33,100 --> 00:02:36,780 In the twentieth century, it was considered one of the ugliest marks 28 00:02:36,790 --> 00:02:38,489 on the New Jersey landscape. 29 00:02:41,300 --> 00:02:44,100 [GPS NAVIGATION] "Turn right onto Meadowlands Parkway." 30 00:02:47,620 --> 00:02:51,140 The Meadowlands was always kind of this transitional zone 31 00:02:51,140 --> 00:02:53,670 between the suburbs and the city. 32 00:02:53,670 --> 00:02:56,590 Like, you travel through it, but that was it. 33 00:02:57,240 --> 00:03:00,420 It just felt like this completely unchartered, 34 00:03:00,420 --> 00:03:02,100 unknown territory. 35 00:03:03,730 --> 00:03:05,610 I think of the Meadowlands as 36 00:03:05,610 --> 00:03:07,950 the unconsciousness of New York City. 37 00:03:07,950 --> 00:03:10,270 The unwanted, or the forgotten, 38 00:03:10,270 --> 00:03:12,090 or the disgusted of Manhattan 39 00:03:12,090 --> 00:03:13,570 comes here. 40 00:03:33,890 --> 00:03:36,540 I was drawn by just this, like, endless curiosity that 41 00:03:36,540 --> 00:03:40,680 behind the next patch of reeds 42 00:03:40,680 --> 00:03:42,400 there was something amazing. 43 00:03:43,420 --> 00:03:44,640 Generally there wasn't, 44 00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:46,060 and maybe that's also what really drew me: 45 00:03:46,060 --> 00:03:48,020 That it's so much of the same thing 46 00:03:48,020 --> 00:03:49,900 again and again and again. 47 00:03:50,410 --> 00:03:53,700 It's kind of monumental in its nothingness. 48 00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:10,360 [Brooklyn Museum] 49 00:04:24,480 --> 00:04:25,720 See these are all the reeds. 50 00:04:26,020 --> 00:04:27,340 That's why I collect reeds. 51 00:04:27,340 --> 00:04:28,720 And they're everywhere. 52 00:04:36,520 --> 00:04:39,180 I kind of think of building one my installations 53 00:04:39,190 --> 00:04:42,270 as if I'm constructing a stream-of-consciousness sentence. 54 00:04:42,270 --> 00:04:45,590 That not every word leads into the next, 55 00:04:45,590 --> 00:04:46,870 but there's an overall mood 56 00:04:46,870 --> 00:04:48,700 or feeling being constructed. 57 00:04:48,700 --> 00:04:51,020 And in a similar way, I feel that exists out here. 58 00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:54,060 This landscape is very stream of consciousness for me. 59 00:04:55,020 --> 00:04:55,940 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 60 00:04:57,680 --> 00:04:58,400 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 61 00:04:58,860 --> 00:04:59,540 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 62 00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:02,860 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 63 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:05,680 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 64 00:05:08,400 --> 00:05:11,180 The way it dots from reeds, 65 00:05:11,780 --> 00:05:12,700 to water, 66 00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:14,260 to public, to private, 67 00:05:14,260 --> 00:05:15,419 to polluted, 68 00:05:15,419 --> 00:05:18,510 to gated, and preserved; 69 00:05:18,510 --> 00:05:21,030 that it really just feels disconnected. 70 00:05:21,940 --> 00:05:26,250 It's a landscape that just allows me entire complete freedom. 71 00:05:26,250 --> 00:05:31,200 That all the rules of civilization are discarded here. 72 00:05:59,289 --> 00:06:02,390 This idea of having this freedom to explore 73 00:06:03,300 --> 00:06:05,120 I think is something I would want 74 00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:08,240 people to gain out of my work, as well; 75 00:06:08,599 --> 00:06:11,419 that, when you go see the piece at the Brooklyn Museum, 76 00:06:11,419 --> 00:06:13,359 "Meadowlands Picaresque," 77 00:06:13,370 --> 00:06:17,110 it's kind of the same play and exploration I have out here. 78 00:06:17,110 --> 00:06:21,089 I kind of fantasize that my viewer is having a similar experience 79 00:06:21,580 --> 00:06:24,240 walking through one of my installations. 80 00:06:43,880 --> 00:06:48,140 I grew up in a place that was so suburban. 81 00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:50,880 Everything was very familiar and chartered. 82 00:06:50,880 --> 00:06:53,020 You know, all the houses had numbers 83 00:06:53,020 --> 00:06:54,820 and were the same distance apart, 84 00:06:54,820 --> 00:06:56,460 and there were only a few stores in town 85 00:06:56,460 --> 00:06:57,810 and everyone knew what they were. 86 00:06:57,810 --> 00:06:59,770 Everything was kind of defined. 87 00:06:59,770 --> 00:07:03,760 And this felt like a place that no one ever bothered to mark or map. 88 00:07:04,280 --> 00:07:09,600 And I've always seeked out something a little more undefinable. 89 00:07:14,900 --> 00:07:19,300 When someone asks me if I still live in New Jersey, 90 00:07:19,450 --> 00:07:21,790 I say, almost in embarrassment, 91 00:07:21,790 --> 00:07:22,850 "Oh no, of course not." 92 00:07:23,500 --> 00:07:24,720 "I live in New York City." 93 00:07:25,280 --> 00:07:28,440 You know, and a big proud grin appears across my face. 94 00:07:29,289 --> 00:07:31,520 So then I think, "Oh, am I ashamed of New Jersey?" 95 00:07:31,520 --> 00:07:33,900 But then I go back here all the time 96 00:07:33,900 --> 00:07:35,760 and make so much work about it, 97 00:07:35,760 --> 00:07:36,560 so there's maybe... 98 00:07:36,560 --> 00:07:38,040 maybe there's some... 99 00:07:38,380 --> 00:07:39,380 ambivalence? 100 00:07:40,340 --> 00:07:41,920 Because I think, "Well I love it," 101 00:07:41,920 --> 00:07:43,500 "but I kind of hate it," 102 00:07:43,500 --> 00:07:45,010 "and maybe I’d like to forget it..." 103 00:07:46,220 --> 00:07:49,820 But I can't, because that's where I'm from. 104 00:07:52,110 --> 00:07:53,830 No matter how many times I visit, 105 00:07:53,830 --> 00:07:55,830 I never understand it completely. 106 00:07:57,709 --> 00:08:00,129 And I may never understand it, 107 00:08:00,129 --> 00:08:02,129 but that's what holds my attention.