April 10, 2006
Mary Walling Blackburn
with Sameer Kapoor
Laced: A Greenpoint Supper

A large packing crate is filled with contaminated soil dug from the banks of New Town Creek, a dirt that is saturated with oil and other introduced particulate matter. Greenpoint is the site of the largest US oil spill and this northern end of Greenpoint just recently shut down a plant that manufactured plastic bags. Occasionally a wind smelling of human shit blows through this terrain. The sewage facility is that close.

As the diners sit facing away from each other at separate tables, the crate is violently torn open, the wood removed. The artist excavates the soil cube, pulling out a meal’s worth of sealed jars that have been buried in it for a week. The jars are rinsed, placed on the table, opened and its contents are removed and served to the guests. They are given the option to eat or not (they accept). While they consume, Blackburn and Kapoor lecture each diner about the history of Greenpoint and write directly on the tablecloth excerpts from interviews with local residents who, in fact, grow their food in their backyard and eat it.