For Fall 2020, En Plein Air enjoys a nature walk through Fort Tyron park in uptown Manhattan with Spatial Designer Christine Espinal, Artist Elijah Anderson, and Photographer Koki Sato.
We present to you, our Fall 2020 looks on this Election Day in America. As we prepare for our next season, we can’t help but think about the inescapability of politics in the mountains, oceans, and woods. Even as we walk the streets of LES and walk the Hudson River promenade, it doesn’t escape our minds that this land we know as Manhattan, was once called “Mannahatta,” meaning “hilly island” and the Hudson River “Muhheakantuck” meaning “river that flows two ways" by the Lenape people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who first inhabited this land before this place was ever America or even New York.
So, “what does this have to do with politics and Election Day?” - you might ask. The protection, recognition, reparations, and uplifting of people and cultures can be improved (though not soon enough) through policy change, just as policy has the power to oppress, destroy, and erase these very peoples and cultures. At En Plein Air, we know that the first thing we can do to help improve our world might start with a vote. And we need to commit ourselves to change - for a just system that benefits everyone, leaving none forgotten, recompensing the wrongs that have been done and for a real commitment to reversing the destruction of our earth.
While it’s easy to say, “go vote!,” we are also aware of the real road blocks and challenges that are put in place on working class families, communities of color, and even the young to just vote. But these corrupt politicians put up these road block policies because they fear our voice and power. So today, we want to say that they can’t stop you, your family, your partner, your friends from doing what we do today. Get out there.