Bryan Zanisnik Goes to the Meadowlands | ART21 "New York Close Up"

["New York Close Up"]

["Bryan Zanisnik Goes To The Meadowlands"]

[Meadowlands, New Jersey]

I love this idea of this landscape that's
constantly evolving

but also devolving.

A lot of the train lines have been ripped
apart by Hurricane Sandy.

So there's new areas of devastation on top
of other devastations.

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I was photographing things I was finding
along the way

like these needles that were dumped from what
looks like a hospital.

Signpost markers from train lines.

And this here is this old operator's cabin
that was next to a turn bridge.

It was where the operator watched for trains
coming

and it's since been abandoned for many decades.

--But I'll just go this far anyway because it's
kind of ruined.

Looks like one of my installations, doesn't
it?

So that there in the distance is Snake Hill

and it's actually the only natural elevation
in the Meadowlands.

So it becomes this sort of strange emblem
of New Jersey.

In the nineteenth century, landscape painters
from all across the U.S.

would come to paint it

because it was considered one of the most
beautiful

rock out-croppings in the Northeast.

In the twentieth century, it was considered
one of the ugliest marks

on the New Jersey landscape.

[GPS NAVIGATION] "Turn right onto Meadowlands
Parkway."

The Meadowlands was always kind of this transitional
zone

between the suburbs and the city.

Like, you travel through it, but that was
it.

It just felt like this completely unchartered,

unknown territory.

I think of the Meadowlands as

the unconsciousness of New York City.

The unwanted, or the forgotten,

or the disgusted of Manhattan

comes here.

I was drawn by just this, like, endless curiosity
that

behind the next patch of reeds

there was something amazing.

Generally there wasn't,

and maybe that's also what really drew me:

That it's so much of the same thing

again and again and again.

It's kind of monumental in its nothingness.

[Brooklyn Museum]

See these are all the reeds.

That's why I collect reeds.

And they're everywhere.

I kind of think of building one my installations

as if I'm constructing a stream-of-consciousness sentence.

That not every word leads into the next,

but there's an overall mood

or feeling being constructed.

And in a similar way, I feel that exists out
here.

This landscape is very stream of consciousness
for me.

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The way it dots from reeds,

to water,

to public, to private,

to polluted,

to gated, and preserved;

that it really just feels disconnected.

It's a landscape that just allows me entire
complete freedom.

That all the rules of civilization are discarded
here.

This idea of having this freedom to explore

I think is something I would want

people to gain out of my work, as well;

that, when you go see the piece at the Brooklyn Museum,

"Meadowlands Picaresque,"

it's kind of the same play and exploration
I have out here.

I kind of fantasize that my viewer is having
a similar experience

walking through one of my installations.

I grew up in a place that was so suburban.

Everything was very familiar and chartered.

You know, all the houses had numbers

and were the same distance apart,

and there were only a few stores in town

and everyone knew what they were.

Everything was kind of defined.

And this felt like a place that no one ever
bothered to mark or map.

And I've always seeked out something a little
more undefinable.

When someone asks me if I still live in New Jersey,

I say, almost in embarrassment,

"Oh no, of course not."

"I live in New York City."

You know, and a big proud grin appears across
my face.

So then I think, "Oh, am I ashamed of New
Jersey?"

But then I go back here all the time

and make so much work about it,

so there's maybe...

maybe there's some...

ambivalence?

Because I think, "Well I love it,"

"but I kind of hate it,"

"and maybe I’d like to forget it..."

But I can't, because that's where I'm from.

No matter how many times I visit,

I never understand it completely.

And I may never understand it,

but that's what holds my attention.