Tell us about your art practice on Governors Island now.

Don Hải Phú Daedalus: I came back to Governors Island with the idea of trying to implement a project that I've been working on since 2015, which involves planting sea grass sanctuary. The project was originally created for Randall’s Island, but there were hiccups with the funders and parks department. Seagrass is an ecological engineer that not only provides a habitat for other lifeforms, but helps itself survive and expand its domain. In the water, issues of turbidity, depth, temperature and chemical balance inform whether this grass can survive. There are other folks who are working on the same issue--Cornell has an outpost on Long Island; in the Chesapeake Bay there is a lot of great work being done--both from the marine biology perspective. My project aimed to integrate design methods, rather than simply environmental methods, to help instigate the sea grass beds.That's the project I came out here with, but it soon encountered issues with the GI Trust, specifically they don't want anyone going into the water, which I can understand. Actually, that's an element that interests me: the interstitial zones of island and water, or property and common area. Plus, it's 2020 and nothing planned seems to play out. I took their prohibition as a challenge to begin developing a relationship with the island and the staff. In my planning and research phase, I noticed that the areas where I'd like to plant the grass had a lot of refuse. Primarily it was cordage--rope from marine vessels. It was big, gnarly, and really attractive. Again, this area that is sort of the domain of the Trust and sort of the domain of another department, such as DOT's waterways, or the DEC, but neglected by everyone, allowed this rope to persist. I learned that marine rope can cause quite a lot of environmental damage, damage to vessels, as well as sea life, so I pitched the idea to collect it. Again, the Trust tossed a challenge at me: 'Yes, you can collect it, but do not cross over the fence.' So I created a tool--sort of like a grappling hook on a rope--and have been fishing this rope off the shore. I've collected several hundred feet of it. 

What does studio time look like for you right now?

There's a lot of research that occurs before a build stage and in the case of the ropes, I'm doing a lot of drawings and tests with smaller ropes to find out what I can do and what I want to do. By research I mean not only learning things online or in books, but testing ideas in studies, smaller models and R&D.I have a live/work studio in the Bronx--my apartment!--in which I make lots of things, all the time, some of which is glorified with the moniker of "art" and some which satiates my crafty side, home improvements and weird things. 99% gets shelved or put in the archive without making it to the light of day, so working at Triangle on Governors Island is a nice space for a type of deliberate work, on a scale and with materials that aren't always practical when you're cohabitating with the work. I like the idea of doing something that is public for Governors Island, because the material is tied to my experience there.

What did you work on while at the Triangle Residency in DUMBO?

I was at the Triangle Residency in 2016. My focus was a project called Conversion Prototype #2.2: Aquatic Vermiculture, through which I sought to convert the fish waste of invasive carp that I'd sourced from the Illinois River into a soil amendment that can neutralize the toxicity of lead in soil. The work took the form of an installation that consisted of black soldier flies, fish waste, and aquaculture that used convict cichlids to fertilize plants, which aided in the cultivation of black soldier flies. BSF are a non-vector insect that are used to rapidly decompose organic waste, and are ideal for removing fish waste from the bones of the carp, which I was aiming to isolate. I had the opportunity to work with the National Entomological Society at the American Museum of Natural History, where I used dermestid beetles to bring the skeletons to museum-grade cleanliness.

The installation is part of a larger project called the Illinois River Project, that seeks to repurpose invasive carp for a social and environmental benefit in post-industrial cities that suffer from high-levels of lead.

What have you been reading/watching/looking at lately?

Any recommendations? I'm currently reading The Word for Woman is Wilderness by Abi Andrews, which is a really brilliant novel written as a travel journal about nature, mythologies of heroes and being in a place. She does a good job of eviscerating the genre of the traveling philosopher--all those solitary white guys who went out into the wild to find a deeper meaning in life--while effectively contributing to the genre. Very funny, insightful. Sufficiently scattered topics to maintain your attention or attention deficit. It's a good read while traveling, which is a strange activity during a pandemic. I was recently in the Pacific Northwest, during the fires, and this book gave me a good repose from the calamity of wildfires, smoke and navigating the new airline protocols. 

What are you hoping to see happen in the art world after COVID-19?

Great question. While I'm tempted to make a prediction, the "un-foreseeing" and "un-planning" have been my modus operandi these months; being in the moment and flexible is a skill that I'm learning but more importantly learning to appreciate. So I'd rather interpret your question as, what do I see happen in the art world since COVID-19. There's a lot of suspension of the superfluous, and a profound expansion of what was and is superfluous. Whether there is ever a return to that, I don't know, but it will be hard to return to something that we did without, while ignoring the lived experience of its omission. At the same time, I recognize things that I previously took for granted, things I thought were less important but were a pillar supporting the creative community--things like connection with other artists, juxtaposition of art contexts (what we encounter in one place, but only after leaving the familiar)Personally, I find myself still aggrandizing the old normal, but then I stop and recall that actually there was a lot of bunk that I could do without.

How has Governors Island inspired your work?

Governors Island is a really special place that I've been thinking about for a long time. My ecological interest is rooted in the urban experience and Governors Island shares a history with solid waste management, specifically with the first permanent incinerator in the US, which went up on the island on1885, built by a relative of Samuel Morse. The incinerator, perceived as outdated and hazardous--in part because the technology was at the time producing dioxins--was later toppled while a choir of New York public school children sang, in 1999. Incinerators are, today, revamped and rebranded as "waste to energy" plants, and much of the un-recyclables ultimately find their way to these plants, often located in the "greenest" countries in the world. But the relation to waste goes deeper, pardon the pun, into the actual foundation of the island. New York City, like many cities, has used refuse materials to expand the terrestrial domain, and Governors Island is no different. When you're on the island, you're literally walking over rubble and waste that forms the island. If you're interested in specific history of garbage and ecology about New York City, I recommend Fat of the Land by Benjamin Miller.