The Embankment on My Mind Exhibition // 11am - 7pm

Friday, December 2nd, 11:00am-7:00pm New Jersey City University Galleries

100 Culver Avenue and NJCU Lemmerman Gallery/Hepburn Hall 323, 2039 Kennedy Blvd.

A vine is crawling up the embankment wall — The Embankment on My Mind/ Design by Shantal Henry

History, land use policy, environmental degradation, and nature’s reclamation of an industrial landscape are just a few of the themes explored by visual artists in The Embankment on My Mind. The exhibition runs from November 1 through December 16, 2022, at New Jersey City University’s two art galleries. In works ranging from prints and paintings to sculptures and installations, twenty-seven artists approach varied aspects of the historic Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) Harsimus Branch and its massive stone Embankment in Downtown Jersey City. The past, present, and possibilities of the old freight line into New York Harbor are explored. Some works suggest attitudes toward land use implicit in corporate practices or governmental policy that have kept the site from reuse beneficial to the neighborhoods it runs through. Some artists exhibit objects created from plants that moved into the site when train traffic ceased. Trash that would have found its way into city sewers and ultimately into the Hudson estuary is sculpted into representations of shellfish, historically extinguished by polluting industries. Some artists express a feeling about the site. In delicate drawings, an additional sixteen artists depict flora and fauna that have found niches in the disturbed soils along the PRR’s old freight way to the Hudson River. The exhibition is curated by Midori Yoshimoto, Director of NJCU Galleries, and Peter Delman, artist and independent curator, and organized by Katy Lyness and Maureen Crowley with support of the Embankment Preservation Coalition. The art will fill the Harold B. Lemmerman Gallery, Hepburn Hall, Room 323. 2039 Kennedy Blvd. and the Visual Arts Gallery, 100 Culver Avenue. Hours for both galleries are Monday – Friday, 9-5 and by appointment.

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