Congratulations to Sarah Nelson Wright

The Newtown Creek Armada is a public art project that allows visitors to safely explore this Superfund site and engage with its rich history.

From Sarah’s Summer Stipend application:

    The Newtown Creek Armada is an interactive installation in which a model boat pond will be created on the Newtown Creek, one of America’s most polluted waterways. Visitors will be invited to pilot a fleet of handcrafted, miniature, radio-controlled boats along the creek’s surface while at the same time documenting the world hidden beneath the water. Each boat in the Armada will be equipped with an underwater camera, allowing participants to record a unique voyage on the creek. Video from underwater explorations will be on view at the project location, giving visitors a chance to virtually immerse themselves in the toxic waters of this Superfund site.

Find out much more at newtowncreekarmada.org, like the project on Facebook, or follow on Google+.

Here’s what our panelists had to say about Sarah’s application:

“This project encompasses all of the things I think creative work should focus on in today’s society. This is a poetic, generous and interesting way to highlight a social/environmental problem and allow visitors and the community to become a part of the change.”

“The Newtown Creek Armada can impact a dire condition on our local waterways. By educating the public by using an armada of model boats this has a potential for drawing in an audience that is not necessarily conservation based and will educate about a serious problem in an entertaining way.”

“This is a very interesting idea. I think it’s quite admirable that this team is coming together to create a community event that also doubles as a video document to expose the pollution problem in the creek. I also really appreciate that the Armada will be created out of natural elements and artifacts from the creek area itself.”

“This artistic and innovative project achieves scale with a minuscule size and a quick and easy concept to grasp, making it appealing to all types, especially families.”

Thanks to all of this year’s applicants!

Check out all of the great submissions from our 2012 finalists.

The Macktez Summer Stipend is a development grant to encourage one of the many imaginative people we meet and work with every day to finish their summer project. We evaluate applications on three simple criteria: originality, relevance, and conviction.

Stipend Archive

  • 2012 — Congratulations to Sarah Nelson Wright
    Macktez 2012 Summer Stipend recipient has been announced!
  • 2011 — Congratulations to Mary Jeys
    Mary's project — to document her Brooklyn Torch exchanges — is part community engagement, part economic anthropology, and part technological rescue.
  • 2010 — Congratulations to Jack Shaw
    Jack received the 2010 stipend for his vision to create a waste-free product made out of its own packing material. The result will be The Light Box, a floor lamp or wall sconce incorporating its own packaging into the design and construction.
  • 2009 — Congratulations to Zoe Fraade-Blanar
    Zoe Fraade-Blanar received the 2009 stipend to map the difference between the news people are searching for and what journalists are publishing. Beautiful visual representations can show editors which hot topics are underrepresented by news sources, giving them the opportunity to generate readership by tapping unmet demand. The result was Current: A News Project her thesis project at NYU's Tisch ITP. Current is now being used at a large (unnamed) newspaper to help editors determine what stories to move to the front page of their website. Zoe teaches at NYU School of Journalism and will be an Adjunct Professor at NYU's ITP program starting fall 2011.
  • 2008 — Congratulations to Nicole Kenney for Before I Die I Want To
    Nicole and partner KS continue to grow the Polaroid project. Since the summer that they won the stipend, they have taken the project to India as well as hospice. Nicole is finishing a 1-year program in Documentary Photography at the International Center of Photography. She has an exhibition opening at ICP June 24, 2011 called "living in love, living in loss," an autobiographical exploration of the impermanence of marriage, which will be available on her website, nicolekenney.com, sometime after its opening.
  • 2007 — Congratulations to Andrew Sloat for A More Perfect Union
    Andrew recently finished working on a series of advertisements for the Ford Fiesta, an opportunity that came about largely as a result of the project Macktez helped fund. He still teaches at RISD and continues to work on videos about the constitution, as well as keeping a roster of clients here in the city.
  • 2006 — Christopher Allen and UnionDocs
    Christopher Allen and UnionDocs are putting the final touches on a collaborative work called "Documenting Mythologies" that was premiered at the Museum of Modern Art last year. It is a collection of experimental essay films inspired by the writing of Roland Barthes, embedded in the narrative of a Fourth of July road trip. It will be set to tour art spaces and micro-cinemas in the fall. They are also looking forward to the public launch of their next collaborative documentary focusing on the neighborhood in which UnionDocs is part. They are launching this three-year project with a series of local events, including a Rooftop Films Screening this summer.
  • 2005 — Daniel Marr, Chinatown
    First of all, Daniel's changed his surname back to the one he was born with: Maher. Daniel is writing songs for his seventh album. Hear more of his music on MySpace.