By Philip Henken

LIFE IN THE TANK Island of Life is a mixed-media art installation featuring live species. Specifically, it's a chunk of a marsh island from Jamaica Bay that sits in a white plastic tank, a scientifically formulated simulation of bay water pumped in through tubes connected to a tank above and behind it.

It's an ecological microcosm, a green splash in a mostly white room. Hermit crabs crawl along the soil-clump's edges. Live mussels bristle through the dark sediment. Fish can be seen swimming in the brackish water surrounding the fragment of island. It looks like something from a science-fair booth, or an Epcot Center exhibit, or a space station.

The artist responsible, Queens resident Brandon Ballengée, points out that Island of Life is a largely collaborative effort. Credit is due to his partner, wetlands ecology student Evelyn Silva, for title and assistance; to zoologist Peter Warny for specimens; and to Mike Oh for the design of the tidal-flow tank.

Ballengée's exhibit, "Losing Ground: The Rapidly Changing Ecology of Jamaica Bay," is currently running at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, situated in Jamaica, Queens, a neighborhood that for many New Yorkers, particularly the art crowd, might as well be outer space. It addresses the ecological depletion of New York City's largest wetland area.

"As New Yorkers," Ballengée observes, "we have a tendency to become very isolated in this urban environment."

Jamaica Bay's wetlands are sinking at a rate of 40 to 60 acres per year. Though Ballengée and others admit this transition is to some degree natural, they maintain that human activities such as dredging the shipping channels, developing residential and industrial properties and outputting sewage could potentially accelerate the process. "Losing Ground" was created to raise questions about this human impact while also demonstrating the diversity and ecological significance of bay species.

Ballengée exploits the white exhibit space of the Center for Arts and Learning to create shadows and contrasts, constantly reminding the viewer that humans leave an impression on their environment. He represents an emerging subcategory of activist artist trying to raise environmental awareness. Like their more traditional peers, "ecological artists" have trouble securing public funds for their interdisciplinary, hybrid art.

"I get ignored by both the art and the science press," Ballengée jokes.

"Losing Ground" was first denied funding by the National Endowment for the Arts because it's science—not art. When Ballengée went to the National Science Foundation, they said it was art, not science.

"So it's perhaps a new medium," Ballengée says. "It's a bastard child, and I am its father."

"Losing Ground: The Rapidly Changing Ecology of Jamaica Bay," through Sat., August 14, at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, 161-04 Jamaica Ave. (betw. Union St. & Parsons Blvd.), Jamaica, 718-658-7400.