快猫短视频

Rainbow palette found in Brooklyn’s contaminated water

The Gowanus canal is one of the most polluted waterways in the US, but new species of microbe have evolved in these toxic but strangely beautiful waters
Rainbow palette found in Brooklyn's contaminated water

(Image: Steven Hirsch, Chronos, 2014. Digital C-print)

The Gowanus canal is no great beauty. The waterway stretches through 3 kilometres of New York City, thoroughly polluted over the years with sewage from local factories. The US Environmental Protection Agency has called the Gowanus one of the most contaminated bodies of water in the country. 快猫短视频s have even discovered new species of microbes in the canal, evolved to thrive in a soup of chemicals and garbage.

But when artist looked at the canal, he saw something different. Hirsch, a Brooklyn native, visited the Gowanus in the early mornings before workers arrived. The pockets of oil and slime on the surface, photographed in the 鈥渄ead light鈥 of the new day, revealed a dizzying mixture of purples, oranges, greens and blues. Though he intensified the colours later, all originated in the canal鈥檚 toxic sludge.

The photographs will be on show for the rest of the month at the Lilac Gallery in New York. Hirsch says the exhibition isn鈥檛 intended to draw attention to environmental issues, he just found the canal an unusually rich source of powerful colours and shapes. Similar sites nearby 鈥 like Newtown Creek, a heavily polluted estuary along the border of Brooklyn and Queens 鈥 haven鈥檛 turned up the same results.

鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 find anything like what I was trying to do at the Gowanus,鈥 he says. 鈥淭he palette is there for me. It鈥檚 like a studio. I just need to go back to the same studio again.鈥

Topics: Environment / Pollution