After 25 years as an emergent art complex(ity), Mildred’s Lane is becoming a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization, Mildred’s Lane Inc.

Mildred’s Lane Inc. is an experimental cultural organization and residency program where interdisciplinary visionaries collaborate on new forms of critical social engagement at the intersections of art, ecology, science, and history.

Vision

Mildred’s Lane, Inc. is becoming a nonprofit charitable organization on Main Street in Narrowsburg, New York, in the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River Corridor. Building upon 25 years of history, we will continue to serve and grow as an impactful interdisciplinary project fostering a diverse program of lectures, exhibits, workshops, symposia, collaborative projects, and events by creative thinkers and makers working across fields of contemporary art and culture.

The engagement of Mildred’s Lane Inc. encompasses art, ecology, and education, seeking innovative ways to connect these topics with interdisciplinary projects, always in a spirit of exchange with the greater community, including the nonhuman environment.

Mildred's Lane Inc. forms a significant center for new forms of creative practice by hosting and supporting local and international cultural producers, and by organizing symposia to activate nexuses of art, science, environmental conservation, history, and critical theory. Core principles are 1) to facilitate research-based, project-based, and context-specific learning that fosters creative communities, and 2) to develop sustainable practices for art and life in this challenging century.

History

The Mildred's Lane Project was originally formed around an old agrarian landscape renovated by artists J. Morgan Puett and Mark Dion deep in rural northeastern Pennsylvania bordering Narrowsburg, New York, beginning in 1997. Early iterations of the project defy easy categorization; it began as a home, fostering exchange and collaboration across disciplines, consistently reinventing itself in response to a rapidly changing world. Puett, Dion, and collaborators are currently publishing a book outlining twenty-five years of contributions to contemporary art history at Mildred’s Lane.

Mildred’s Lane has co-evolved as an energetic, artist-driven, grassroots project serving hundreds of artists and creative thinkers through programs, residencies, workshops, and events. The project has grown, moving out of the woods and onto Main Street USA in Narrowsburg, to rigorously rethink the contemporary art complex. Topics which continue to animate the ecosystem of Mildred’s Lane include experimental education, environment, economic strategies for art workers, and expanding creative practitioners’ roles in contemporary society. The entity is not engaged in any activity regulated by the New York State Department of Education.

New projects include Mildred’s Lane collaborators developing a long-term forestry and land-use plan for the Upper Delaware River Valley Region. Outreach involves bringing together creative thinkers nationally and internationally, as well as locally, culturally benefiting people in diverse, rural, and underserved communities. Mildred’s Lane Inc.’s organizational impact will be to continue our programming to expand our diverse, interdisciplinary community and expand our civic engagement.