WEBVTT 00:00:20.040 --> 00:00:23.080 ["New York Close Up"] 00:00:45.220 --> 00:00:48.840 ["Bryan Zanisnik Goes To The Meadowlands"] 00:00:50.860 --> 00:00:51.960 [Meadowlands, New Jersey] 00:00:53.080 --> 00:00:56.920 I love this idea of this landscape that's constantly evolving 00:00:56.920 --> 00:00:58.420 but also devolving. 00:00:59.900 --> 00:01:03.980 A lot of the train lines have been ripped apart by Hurricane Sandy. 00:01:03.980 --> 00:01:09.440 So there's new areas of devastation on top of other devastations. 00:01:11.060 --> 00:01:11.660 [SOUND OF CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING] 00:01:12.780 --> 00:01:13.280 [SOUND OF CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING] 00:01:14.960 --> 00:01:15.460 [SOUND OF CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING] 00:01:19.440 --> 00:01:20.000 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 00:01:23.940 --> 00:01:26.000 I was photographing things I was finding along the way 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:30.460 like these needles that were dumped from what looks like a hospital. 00:01:30.890 --> 00:01:35.390 Signpost markers from train lines. 00:01:36.030 --> 00:01:40.190 And this here is this old operator's cabin that was next to a turn bridge. 00:01:40.570 --> 00:01:43.250 It was where the operator watched for trains coming 00:01:43.250 --> 00:01:45.830 and it's since been abandoned for many decades. 00:01:59.380 --> 00:02:01.660 --But I'll just go this far anyway because it's kind of ruined. 00:02:03.300 --> 00:02:05.220 Looks like one of my installations, doesn't it? 00:02:11.200 --> 00:02:13.989 So that there in the distance is Snake Hill 00:02:13.989 --> 00:02:18.070 and it's actually the only natural elevation in the Meadowlands. 00:02:18.070 --> 00:02:22.480 So it becomes this sort of strange emblem of New Jersey. 00:02:22.480 --> 00:02:25.739 In the nineteenth century, landscape painters from all across the U.S. 00:02:25.739 --> 00:02:26.850 would come to paint it 00:02:26.850 --> 00:02:29.060 because it was considered one of the most beautiful 00:02:29.060 --> 00:02:31.100 rock out-croppings in the Northeast. 00:02:33.100 --> 00:02:36.780 In the twentieth century, it was considered one of the ugliest marks 00:02:36.790 --> 00:02:38.489 on the New Jersey landscape. 00:02:41.300 --> 00:02:44.100 [GPS NAVIGATION] "Turn right onto Meadowlands Parkway." 00:02:47.620 --> 00:02:51.140 The Meadowlands was always kind of this transitional zone 00:02:51.140 --> 00:02:53.670 between the suburbs and the city. 00:02:53.670 --> 00:02:56.590 Like, you travel through it, but that was it. 00:02:57.240 --> 00:03:00.420 It just felt like this completely unchartered, 00:03:00.420 --> 00:03:02.100 unknown territory. 00:03:03.730 --> 00:03:05.610 I think of the Meadowlands as 00:03:05.610 --> 00:03:07.950 the unconsciousness of New York City. 00:03:07.950 --> 00:03:10.270 The unwanted, or the forgotten, 00:03:10.270 --> 00:03:12.090 or the disgusted of Manhattan 00:03:12.090 --> 00:03:13.570 comes here. 00:03:33.890 --> 00:03:36.540 I was drawn by just this, like, endless curiosity that 00:03:36.540 --> 00:03:40.680 behind the next patch of reeds 00:03:40.680 --> 00:03:42.400 there was something amazing. 00:03:43.420 --> 00:03:44.640 Generally there wasn't, 00:03:44.640 --> 00:03:46.060 and maybe that's also what really drew me: 00:03:46.060 --> 00:03:48.020 That it's so much of the same thing 00:03:48.020 --> 00:03:49.900 again and again and again. 00:03:50.410 --> 00:03:53.700 It's kind of monumental in its nothingness. 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:10.360 [Brooklyn Museum] 00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:25.720 See these are all the reeds. 00:04:26.020 --> 00:04:27.340 That's why I collect reeds. 00:04:27.340 --> 00:04:28.720 And they're everywhere. 00:04:36.520 --> 00:04:39.180 I kind of think of building one my installations 00:04:39.190 --> 00:04:42.270 as if I'm constructing a stream-of-consciousness sentence. 00:04:42.270 --> 00:04:45.590 That not every word leads into the next, 00:04:45.590 --> 00:04:46.870 but there's an overall mood 00:04:46.870 --> 00:04:48.700 or feeling being constructed. 00:04:48.700 --> 00:04:51.020 And in a similar way, I feel that exists out here. 00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:54.060 This landscape is very stream of consciousness for me. 00:04:55.020 --> 00:04:55.940 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 00:04:57.680 --> 00:04:58.400 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 00:04:58.860 --> 00:04:59.540 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 00:05:02.200 --> 00:05:02.860 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:05.680 [SOUND OF STAPLE GUN TRIGGERING] 00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:11.180 The way it dots from reeds, 00:05:11.780 --> 00:05:12.700 to water, 00:05:12.960 --> 00:05:14.260 to public, to private, 00:05:14.260 --> 00:05:15.419 to polluted, 00:05:15.419 --> 00:05:18.510 to gated, and preserved; 00:05:18.510 --> 00:05:21.030 that it really just feels disconnected. 00:05:21.940 --> 00:05:26.250 It's a landscape that just allows me entire complete freedom. 00:05:26.250 --> 00:05:31.200 That all the rules of civilization are discarded here. 00:05:59.289 --> 00:06:02.390 This idea of having this freedom to explore 00:06:03.300 --> 00:06:05.120 I think is something I would want 00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:08.240 people to gain out of my work, as well; 00:06:08.599 --> 00:06:11.419 that, when you go see the piece at the Brooklyn Museum, 00:06:11.419 --> 00:06:13.359 "Meadowlands Picaresque," 00:06:13.370 --> 00:06:17.110 it's kind of the same play and exploration I have out here. 00:06:17.110 --> 00:06:21.089 I kind of fantasize that my viewer is having a similar experience 00:06:21.580 --> 00:06:24.240 walking through one of my installations. 00:06:43.880 --> 00:06:48.140 I grew up in a place that was so suburban. 00:06:48.480 --> 00:06:50.880 Everything was very familiar and chartered. 00:06:50.880 --> 00:06:53.020 You know, all the houses had numbers 00:06:53.020 --> 00:06:54.820 and were the same distance apart, 00:06:54.820 --> 00:06:56.460 and there were only a few stores in town 00:06:56.460 --> 00:06:57.810 and everyone knew what they were. 00:06:57.810 --> 00:06:59.770 Everything was kind of defined. 00:06:59.770 --> 00:07:03.760 And this felt like a place that no one ever bothered to mark or map. 00:07:04.280 --> 00:07:09.600 And I've always seeked out something a little more undefinable. 00:07:14.900 --> 00:07:19.300 When someone asks me if I still live in New Jersey, 00:07:19.450 --> 00:07:21.790 I say, almost in embarrassment, 00:07:21.790 --> 00:07:22.850 "Oh no, of course not." 00:07:23.500 --> 00:07:24.720 "I live in New York City." 00:07:25.280 --> 00:07:28.440 You know, and a big proud grin appears across my face. 00:07:29.289 --> 00:07:31.520 So then I think, "Oh, am I ashamed of New Jersey?" 00:07:31.520 --> 00:07:33.900 But then I go back here all the time 00:07:33.900 --> 00:07:35.760 and make so much work about it, 00:07:35.760 --> 00:07:36.560 so there's maybe... 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:38.040 maybe there's some... 00:07:38.380 --> 00:07:39.380 ambivalence? 00:07:40.340 --> 00:07:41.920 Because I think, "Well I love it," 00:07:41.920 --> 00:07:43.500 "but I kind of hate it," 00:07:43.500 --> 00:07:45.010 "and maybe I’d like to forget it..." 00:07:46.220 --> 00:07:49.820 But I can't, because that's where I'm from. 00:07:52.110 --> 00:07:53.830 No matter how many times I visit, 00:07:53.830 --> 00:07:55.830 I never understand it completely. 00:07:57.709 --> 00:08:00.129 And I may never understand it, 00:08:00.129 --> 00:08:02.129 but that's what holds my attention.