Chemical Meadows
(2024, 20 min)
Chemical Meadows is an experimental documentary linking water chemistry and photochemistry in the post-industrial wilds of the New Jersey Meadowlands. A paradoxical estuary wilderness three miles from Manhattan and more than half its size, marred by landfills and chemical corporations yet a recovering haven for wildlife, the Meadowlands are an unexpected breach in the dense development of the mid-Atlantic. This is the story of its waters: a film created by washing 16mm footage in corroding drainage ditches and suspect holding ponds to reveal hidden contaminants, soundtracked largely with underwater hydrophone recordings.
Chemical Meadows is an experimental documentary linking water chemistry and photochemistry in the post-industrial wilds of the New Jersey Meadowlands. A paradoxical estuary wilderness three miles from Manhattan and more than half its size, marred by landfills and chemical corporations yet a recovering haven for wildlife, the Meadowlands are an unexpected breach in the dense development of the mid-Atlantic. This is the story of its waters: a film created by washing 16mm footage in corroding drainage ditches and suspect holding ponds to reveal hidden contaminants, soundtracked largely with underwater hydrophone recordings.
COMING SOON
Despite lying just west of New York City in the densest part of the U.S., the Meadowlands are a place usually only glimpsed from the windows of cars and trains, en route to the airport or somewhere further, maybe briefly wondered at -- what is this unexpected wild marshland? -- and then forgotten. This was how I first encountered it 15 years ago, but unlike most I became intrigued and made a point of finding my way through the highway cloverleaves and work yards and into the network of trails created by abandoned industrial rail lines. Despite the patchwork of brownfields and superfund sites long left to stew in toxic effluents of bygone corporations, the landscape has been overtaken by trees, grasslands, and wild animals. It is surprisingly beautiful, and unexpected natural escape so close to the city. After many hiking trips accompanied by herons, muskrats, and occasional bird watchers, I embarked on making a film about the place. But how best to capture its hidden layers of history and industry, anthropogenic misuse and preservation? Since the chemical industry accounted for most of its Superfund sites and state of environmental degradation, it seemed to me the ideal project with which to set aside my usual digital techniques, and work in photochemical film.
Though many other filmmakers chemically manipulate their developed film, few intercede in the process earlier, so I devised a technique of filming the conflicted waterways of the Meadows, loading my film into a field development tank on site (a Soviet Lomo Tank sent from the Ukraine!), and submerging it in the very waters just filmed, for times between 30 minutes and two hours. Each section of the Meadowlands has a different history and its own chemical cocktail, from the extreme mercury levels of the Berry's Creek Study Area to the petroleum biproducts of Oil Lake (Diamond Head Oil Refinery), and these were reflected in the varying phosphorescent shimmers and and melted emulsions of my various reels of 16mm Ektachrome. What exactly shapes each image needs further study (I'm in relatively unknown terrain) but the results are striking, and eerily illuminating.
Here are the sites that make up the film, including all the Meadowlands' Superfund Sites, each spot where I submerged footage, and every place where I took the hydrophone recordings that compose much of the soundtrack.
Though many other filmmakers chemically manipulate their developed film, few intercede in the process earlier, so I devised a technique of filming the conflicted waterways of the Meadows, loading my film into a field development tank on site (a Soviet Lomo Tank sent from the Ukraine!), and submerging it in the very waters just filmed, for times between 30 minutes and two hours. Each section of the Meadowlands has a different history and its own chemical cocktail, from the extreme mercury levels of the Berry's Creek Study Area to the petroleum biproducts of Oil Lake (Diamond Head Oil Refinery), and these were reflected in the varying phosphorescent shimmers and and melted emulsions of my various reels of 16mm Ektachrome. What exactly shapes each image needs further study (I'm in relatively unknown terrain) but the results are striking, and eerily illuminating.
Here are the sites that make up the film, including all the Meadowlands' Superfund Sites, each spot where I submerged footage, and every place where I took the hydrophone recordings that compose much of the soundtrack.
