About Footnote
Photo by Domenica Bucalo
Footnote is an interdisciplinary project that uses art to shed light on forgotten histories and their effect on memory and place. Footnote projects and installations reactivate the public memory as a catalyst for change, exploring the pathos and power of lost narratives and voices through selections of art and artifacts. Conceived by Sasha Chavchavadze, Footnote projects are created by artists Karen Mainenti and Sasha Chavchavadze. Projects are presented in the Footnote project space located in Gowanus at 543 Union Street or as offsite installations called “Footnotes.” Footnote has an ongoing collaborative relationship with Artpoetica Project Space.
Footnote projects focus on three central thematic areas: marginalized self-identifying women, social justice, and neighborhood and community connection. To this end, two community-centered projects serve as an ongoing resource for Footnote exhibitions: the Hall of Gowanus, a community-curated archive of art and artifacts related to the Gowanus Canal and neighborhood; SALLY, a collaborative project that uses art to reactivate the lives of forgotten women in local communities around the United States.
Hall of Gowanus
The Hall of Gowanus is a community-curated archive of art, artifacts and documents related to the history of the Gowanus Canal, a post-industrial waterway that has played a central role in Brooklyn history. Conceived and co-curated by Sasha Chavchavadze and Tammy Pittman at Proteus Gowanus from 2009 until the gallery closed in 2015, Footnote now has a selection of objects on permanent display.
About Us
Sasha Chavchavadze
Sasha Chavchavadze’s mixed media paintings, assemblages and public projects connect art to forgotten history as a catalyst for change. She is the founder of Proteus Gowanus, an interdisciplinary exhibition/event space that was a cultural hub in Brooklyn for ten years. Her community-based, interdisciplinary projects include: Battle Pass Collective; D’Amico Gowanus Laboratory; Museum of Matches; Carnival of Connectivity and SALLY. Her paintings, drawings, and installations have been exhibited widely, including: Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY; Luise Ross Gallery; Cooper Union Gallery; Rotunda Gallery; Kentler International Drawing Space; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; Museum of Literature, Tbilisi, Georgia. Her collaborative projects have been presented at TEDxGowanus, as Museum of Modern Art workshops and on BRIC TV. Her public art installation Battle Pass: Revolution II, located in Brooklyn, was commissioned by NYC DOT Urban Art. Excerpts of Chavchavadze's visual work and writing have been published in Cabinet, Bomb, Marginalia and NYFA Current magazines, and as a book (Museum of Matches, Proteotypes 2011).
Karen Mainenti
Karen Mainenti’s artwork engages appropriated text and images from commonly overlooked consumer products, advertising, and media. By reframing these messages—often with humor—she uncovers the absurdity of our world. Solo exhibitions include the 2019 SPRING/BREAK Art Show, The Bard Graduate Center Library, Ground Floor Gallery, The Society for Domestic Museology, and Chashama. She has been included in selected group exhibitions at Untitled Space, DUMBO Arts Festival, La Bodega Gallery, Trestle Gallery, Guest Spot @ The Reinstitute in Baltimore, and the Cornell Museum of Art in Delray Beach, Florida. Her artwork has received coverage in ARTnews, Artnet News, Hyperallergic, Gothamist, Brooklyn Magazine, Gallery Gurls, and The Believer Magazine, among others. In 2018 she was an Artist-in-Residence at the Bard Graduate Center Library. Mainenti also serves on the board of directors for Arts Gowanus.
“The scrolls of the past burn my fingers”