Safari 7 Reading Room

Exhibition: Safari 7 Reading Room October 15-December 31, 2009 Opening: Thursday, 10/15, 7-9pm Press Preview, 6-7pm, with the exhibition curators "Safari 7 Reading Room" Oysters, dogs, humans, worms, snakefish, cormorants and germs are some of the species that populate the length of the MTA 7 train. Known as the "International Express," this physical, urban transect cuts through New York City's most diverse range of ecosystems. The 7 line runs from Manhattan's dense core, under the East River, and through a dispersed mixture of residences and parklands (including Sunnyside Gardens and the 1939 and 1964 World's Fair grounds), terminating in downtown Flushing, Queens: the nation's most ethnically diverse community. Led by the Urban Landscape Lab (Janette Kim, Kate Orff) at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and MTWTF (Glen Cummings), Safari 7 began in the summer of 2009 as a series of podcasts and maps that uncover the complexity, biodiversity, conflicts and potentials of New York's ecosystems, and of New Yorkers' relationships the animal life around them. Materials imagined subway cars as eco-urban classrooms and invited travelers to act as active, self-guided park rangers in their own city. Opening in conjunction with the conference "ECOGRAM II: Architecture for a Crowded Planet" at Columbia University GSAPP, the "Safari 7 Reading Room" brings these subway classrooms to Studio-X, inviting New Yorkers to become citizen-scientists in our shared urban zoo. The Reading Room presents for the first time a series of 3D maps, audio listening stations, curated reading materials, and a set of large-scale drawings of animal habitats, behaviors and life cycles in relationship to urban culture and history at selected sites along the 7 line. "Safari 7 Reading Room" will be on view at Studio-X from October 15-December 31, 2009. See the Studio-X website for additional "Safari 7 Reading Room" events. http://www.arch.columbia.edu/school/studiox This exhibition is generously supported by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University. Additional funding from CeX Complete Entertainment Exchange and Ito En.