Matthew López-Jensen

“There are scenes along this section [of Tibbetts Brook] that feel ancient; places where no one has bothered or been able to control the water. [...] Over the past 15 years, I have been quietly collecting places like this. Landscapes that are New York City and nowhere at the same time.” - Matthew López-Jensen, Walking Tibbetts CALL/WALK, 2020

Matthew López-Jensen began working with CALL in 2020 as part of the ongoing Rescuing Tibbetts Brook project. Jensen is a Bronx-based interdisciplinary artist whose rigorous explorations of the relationship between people and local landscapes combine walking, collecting, photography, video, mapping, along with extensive research. He created a video essay for a virtual CALL/WALK that follows the path of Tibbetts Brook as it flows from Yonkers to Harlem.

López-Jensen teaches art and photography at Parsons School of Design at The New School and at Fordham University. He is a Guggenheim Fellow in photography and his work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum, among other institutions. He received his MFA from the University of Connecticut and a BA from Rice University.

CALL/WALKS: Walking Tibbetts — 2020

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Bronx-based artist Matthew Jensen led us on a virtual walk of the Tibbetts Brook watershed. The video essay, written and shot by the artist, is broken up into the eight stops, each pinned to a different location along Tibbetts Brook. The short video clips will allow you to follow the path of Tibbetts Brook as it flows form Yonkers to the Harlem River. The artist’s essay is included in the subtitled of each video. At points along the virtual walk you will find additional insights contributed by renowned ecologist Eric Sanderson and the NYC Department of Environmental Protection’s Pinar Balci and Tolga Yilmaz.

This virtual walk is a part of CALL/WALKS, an ongoing series of artist and scientist led public walks diving deep into urgent, local environmental concerns and innovative ideas to overcome them. This particular walk connects to CALL’s larger initiative in the Bronx: Rescuing Tibbetts Brook. This initiative is a constellation of artist and designer-led projects that raise awareness of and engage the community in plans to remove Tibet’s Brook form the sewer system and restore it as a surface-level naturalized stream connecting from Van Cortlandt Park to the Harlem River.