Discuss Disgust: A Site Specific Installation at The Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse

 Artists Kasia Zurek-Doule (she/her) and Khae Haskell (they/them)

 Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse

165 2nd Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

 August 3 – 27

Saturdays a Sundays 1-5

Opening Reception Thursday August 3rd 6-9

 Gowanus artists Khae Haskell and Kasia Zurek-Doule have collaborated on a site-specific installation for the Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse. The installation, Discuss Disgust will be on view at the boathouse Saturdays and Sundays in August 2023, with an opening reception on Thursday August 3rd from 6-9.  Haskell and Zurek-Doule both explore feelings of attraction and revulsion in their own practices and chose to create a collaborative project specifically for the Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse walls.  Through the use of natural and unnatural materials, a fluctuating color palette, and complex textures, the artists aim for viewers to address their own complicated feelings about what attracts and disgusts them personally.

 Haskell, a mixed media artist with a focus on drawing, creates multimedia resin collages on found materials that include illustrations of the local biological world in all stages of life. Haskell’s inspiration is often found on long walks to and from their studio in Gowanus, seeking the visual treasures sprinkled throughout the city.

 Zurek-Doule, a ceramic artist, created a series of rocky outcroppings paired with organic inspired textured growths. She explores the complicated state of the natural environment as it is found in and near the canal, addressing its history of pollution, filth, as well as it’s reemergence.

 Is there harmony in the installation, or does it feel jarring? Do you find the color palette upsetting or intriguing? Does the layout bother you, confuse you, or remind you of something? Do the shapes of the individual work cause an unsettling reaction, or do they excite you? What types of feelings are you having when you gaze at sticky looking surfaces, small pitted areas, cracks, or slimy little creatures? The artists encourage the audience to ponder their human reaction to pleasure and repulsion and everything in between, and perhaps Discuss Disgust with others, maybe even at the dinner table.