Miska Draskoczy
As an avid outdoorsman living in the big city, Miska Draskoczy’s photography often investigates the overlap between the man-made and natural worlds through themes such as urban wild exploration, the environment, and architectural history and decay. His photography has been widely exhibited in the US and abroad and is the recipient of numerous awards. His urban wilderness series, Gowanus Wild, was published as a photobook in conjunction with the Gowanus Canal Conservancy and has been exhibited as a solo show at The Brooklyn Public Library, Davis Orton Gallery, the Vermont Center for Photography and Ground Floor Gallery in Brooklyn, NY as well as in group shows such as THE FENCE at PHOTOVILLE. His work has been featured in the press by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Hyperallergic, Brooklyn Magazine, and many others as well as collected by institutions such as the Brooklyn Public Library, MoMA Library, Tufts University, and the Fitchburg Art Museum.
You can find his work at https://www.miskadraskoczy.com/
Please reach out to info@artsgowanus.org with pricing and purchase inquiries.
Gowanus Industrial Landmarks
Gowanus Industrial Landmarks is a series by photographer Miska Draskoczy documenting industrial buildings in Gowanus that have been highlighted for potential landmarking status by the Gowanus Landmarking Coalition. With the recently approved rezoning, numerous buildings have been torn down to make way for new residential towers in the inevitable march of redevelopment. Many of these aging industrial structures have been or will be affected by the accelerated changes in the neighborhood.
Photographed on large format 5" x 7" dry plate glass negatives, the format is one which would have been used to photograph the buildings when they were first constructed, most of which were built between the 1880’s to 1930’s. The variable and organic nature of the hand poured emulsion helps capture the fragile nature of these buildings, many of which are in disrepair or states of transition.
Miska's hope is that this series will bring increased awareness to the precarious state many of these buildings face and hopefully help aid the efforts to landmark or otherwise preserve those that can be saved. For the buildings that will inevitably not survive (as some in the series have already been torn down), Miska's goal is to preserve them through photography in a way that both honors their rich history while conveying the reality of their current vulnerability.
Many thanks to Brad Vogel and the Gowanus Landmarking Coalition for the inspiration for this project.
