Houston: BioArt Bayou-Torium Returns!

by Glasstire October 12, 2021

The BioArt Bayou-torium project, led by artist Henry G. Sanchez, is ongoing for 2021. October 16-17 will be the last weekend of this event, hosted at the Yolanda Black Navarro Buffalo Bend Nature Park, located at 2300 S. Sgt. Macario Garcia Dr. in Houston’s East End. The project involves art making alongside nature and science activities along Buffalo Bayou, taking “various iterations from a science lab in a shipment container, art installations with bio-material and video.” The shipping container-based mobile project was previously hosted at Tony Marion Park, and is intended to foster the stewardship of Houston’s bayous and nature with a focus on bilingual and Spanish-speaking communities. 

For photos of the 2019 iteration, please go here. Glasstire’s Brandon Zech wrote of the BioArt Bayou-torium: “…Sanchez’s main workshop and research space, which is a retooled shipping cotainer, offers visitors microscopes, imaging equipment, and art supplies that they can use to respond to the tours and other activities. The lab is manned by bilingual (English- and Spanish-speaking) guides who are also knowledgeable about the flora and fauna of the bayou and its surroundings. The BioArt Bayou-torium fits into Mr. Sanchez’s history of creating socially-engaged spaces that aim to inform and educate local communities. A few of Mr. Sanchez’s past projects have focused on waterways: Aqua-Culture, a 2014 show he curated at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary in Dallas addressed ‘issues surrounding the use, management and engagement with water,’ and his English Kills Project addresses the pollution of English Kills, which is the source of the Newtown Creek waterway in Brooklyn.”

Admission is free and open to all ages. For more info, please go here.

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Henry G. Sanchez is a project-based, social practice artist addressing issues with the natural sciences, social and environmental justice. He currently maintains three art projects based in New York and Houston. In 2012 Sanchez founded the ENGLISH KILLS PROJECT, a bio-art and socially engaged project proposing community-based strategies to introduce bio-remediation in Newtown Creek, a Superfund site in Brooklyn, NY. In 2015 he established L.O.C.C.A.: Law Office Center for Citizenship and Art located within the property of his fathers former law office located in the East End district of Houston. L.O.C.C.A. is social practice platform concerned with the issues of Latinx, Hispanic and Mexican-American community and experience, and proposes collaborative art projects with artists, social justice groups and the people of the neighborhood. Recently in 2019, Sanchez initiated the BioArt Bayou-torium a bio-art project based on the wildlife and ecology of Buffalo Bayou, Houstons main waterway. 

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2 comments

Henry G. Sanchez October 12, 2021 - 12:05

Thank you Glasstire!!

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Susan Budge November 2, 2021 - 07:43

Yay Henry Sanchez!

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