The Secret Life of Trash: A Panel Discussion

Join us for a panel discussion on how awareness about the relationship between production, consumerism & waste translate to action.

Our panel will include artist Sari Carel, whose exhibition Sari Carel: A More Perfect Circle is currently on view at Lentol Garden, Brooklyn, and Rebecca Bratspies, a Professor at CUNY School of Law and the author of award winning environmental-justice comic books Mayah’s Lot, Bina’s Plant and Troop’s Run. The panel is moderated by Nicholas Hoynes, a PhD student in Sociology at NYU.

Nick Hoynes is a PhD student in Sociology at NYU. His work uses qualitative methods to study the social construction of environmental problems and the everyday experience of climate change. He is currently working on a project about social responses to the growing threat of ticks and tick-borne illnesses in Maine. Before graduate school, Nick worked as an analyst for the City of New York.

Sari Carel is a Brooklyn-based, multimedia artist and environmental activist whose projects consider interspecies communication, relationships between people and place, and how the senses inform perception. Recent exhibitions include The Sun Is A Mouth Of Blue at Melanie Flood Projects, Portland, OR; The Shape Of Play, a public art project in Boston’s North End, and Mud Songs For Anni at The Schneider Museum Of Art’s Art Beyond in Ashland, OR. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies at Stundars Museum, Solf, Finland; Atelier Stipendium des Bundeskanzleramtes, Vienna, Austria; and Bundanon, Illaroo, Australia; Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY; and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Residency on Governors Island, NY, among others. She is a recent recipient of a commissions award for Korean Art Forum’s 2024-2025 “Shared Dialogue, Shared Space” program.

Rebecca Bratspies is a Professor at CUNY School of Law and the founding director of the Center for Urban Environmental Reform. A scholar of environmental justice and human rights, Rebecca has written scores of law review articles. Her most recent book Naming Gotham: The Villains, Rogues and Heroes Behind New York Place Names.won the New York Public Historians’ 2023 Excellence in Local History Award Her co-authored textbook Environmental Justice: Law Policy and Regulation is used in schools across the country. Rebecca is best known for her EPA Clean Air Excellence Award winning environmental-justice comic books Mayah’s Lot, Bina’s Plant, and Troop’s Run, (made with artist Charlie LaGreca-Velasco.) Learn more at www.Rebecca.Bratspies.com