The Island Free Library will host a special public program on Saturday, January 10, from 1 to 3 p.m., featuring talks by Artist Jeff Ostergren and Professor of Sociology at Yale University, Rene Almeling. Hosted by Low Season Artist Projects and sponsored by the Block Island Arts Council, this interdisciplinary event brings together contemporary art, science, and social theory to explore the intersections of chemistry, culture, and climate justice. The program is free and open to the public.
Jeff Ostergren is a New Haven–based artist whose work spans painting, sculpture, video, drawing, and installation. His visually saturated, pointillist works incorporate actual pharmaceuticals and chemicals, drawing on imagery from art history and advertising to examine the intertwined histories of color, medicine, pleasure, and toxicity. During his talk, Ostergren will discuss his artistic practice and the chemical histories that have shaped his work. Originally trained as an anthropologist, Jeff’s career as an artist has spanned over two decades. Recent solo exhibitions include Saturation Points at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn., and High Society at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Conn. He will have a solo exhibition at Mercy Gallery at the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Conn., in 2026, and the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Conn. In 2027.
Ostergren is a recipient of a 2024 Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant from the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, where he exhibited work alongside other recipients in spring, 2025. Most recently, he was added to the White Columns Registry in 2025.
Ostergren received his MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. in 2006, after receiving a BA in a double major of anthropology and gender studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas in 1998.
Rene Almeling, professor of sociology at Yale University, will present research from a new project focused on the sociology of climate change. She is the author of the award-winning books “Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm” (2011) and “GUYnecology: The Missing Science of Men’s Reproductive Health” (2020), and her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and other major foundations. In her talk, Almeling will introduce the concept of “climate privilege”—a framework for understanding how intersecting forms of advantage, including economic, racial, and gender privilege, contribute to climate inaction despite well-documented environmental inequalities.
Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Elle. At Yale, she holds courtesy appointments in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the Institution for Social and Policy Research, the School of Public Health, and the School of Medicine. She is Chair-elect of the Science, Knowledge, and Technology section of the American Sociological Association.
By pairing artistic inquiry with social science research, this program reflects Low Season Artist Projects’ mission to foster meaningful cultural exchange on Block Island during the low season and highlights the Block Island Arts Council’s ongoing support of public arts programming.
This event is free and open to all!
Location: Island Free Library, Block Island Date and
Time: Saturday, January 10, 1 to 3 p.m.
