Birgit hopes the installation in the watershed room was made with materials found in actual waterways

I’d like to talk about the installation in the watershed room. The installation is really cool. I like that it’s the whole room and she made a crest out of trash bags and other materials and there’s straw around it. She transformed the entire space. The textures are tablecloths and sheets and stuff. And some of them have pop culture on them, kid’s stuff, like Dora the Explorer, which makes it even creepier. I like that. It’s the disturbing side of innocence.  It’s trash that I’m sure she found in the water. I just made that up. But I was standing in there and thought if all this trash came from the water and she cleaned up the waterways by doing this piece, that would be awesome. The watershed room is my favorite room anyway. It’s awkward, but nerdy and awesome. Who else has a watershed model in the museum? Sure, the panorama is amazing. But the Queens Museum has a watershed room!

—Birgit on Camille Hoffman’s Excelsior: Ever Upward, Ever Afloat