photo credits: jackiebrookner.com

Jackie Brookner is a pioneering ecological artist and educator. Her work involved a collaboration with ecologists, design professionals, communities and policy-makers, to bring plant-based water remediation for parks, rivers, and wetlands, to restore habitats and create landscape sculptures. Her ecological art projects prove the usefulness of storm water and polluted water. The element of community is essential  in her projects where local resources is the focal point for an active community collaboration.

In one of her project, The Faro Project, basins that collect storm water were given a new “face-lift” to encourage local resident to understand more about the uses of basins. As the City of Faro is unique being a flat land with no slope, flooding was a recurring problem. 20 basins were put into place to solve the problem, but these were uninviting spaces in terms of aesthetic and neighborhood function. Therefore, Jackie Brookner piloted a strategy, where a participatory method was used in a public art program to include residents’ inputs and ideas to reshape these areas. Locals reinvented the public space surrounding the watershed. Water infrastructure was recreated as a public space. She created Bio Sculptures, that work as wetlands to filter water and reduce waste.

Here, Jackie Brookner speaks in TED talk about Ecological Art and The Faro Project- the process, impacts, results and significance. In this video, she highlights the need for a shift in mainstream thinking to a different understanding of who we are, as humans and individuals, and how we relate to the environment. For serious changes in our behavior and thinking, Jackie Brookner advocates a need for a deeper understanding of our physical body and how that implicates how we treat the environment and ourselves. She strongly believe in community effort and involvement to help people understand the ecosystem better.

 In making a difference to the environment, Jackie Brookner takes an extremely careful approach that considers the multiple social actors. On her website, she explains the process and thinking behind her projects:

“Like any resilient ecosystem, my process is dynamic and adaptive to emerging conditions. Each project requires its own process and layers of collaboration. I always begin with listening–to the place itself, how it feels and functions or could function ecologically and socially, to its assets and needs. I listen to the people who will use the space, to local leaders and policy makers, and to the design, science, and social science collaborators. Through this process, the social, historical and ecological contexts that shape a place gradually unfold. The web of relationships that can be gathered, both human and non-human, is revealed. Active citizen involvement is fostered throughout the entire life of the project from conception to long-term care to catalyze creative agency and encourage sustained stewardship.”