Meet The Team
Joshua Knoblick
Joshua Knoblick is a sculptor, entrepreneur, and big thinker. He is a founder, the architect and Executive Director of Gardenship. He has built numerous installations, sculptures and spaces around the world, including the Harriett Tubbman monument in Newark NJ, the Newark Museum Modern Wing, the Jerry Gant Collection and Solos Project House. His love of all things creative and community drive him to build ecosystems for artists, artisans and makers to grow, thrive, share and prosper. He helped form the Manhattan Iron Project, a performance-casting group who has performed in and around Brooklyn and Manhattan, casting metal in unassuming locations including the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. Josh has been involved in opening the SHED art center, installing the first two vis art shows with trisha donnaly, and Rich, Richter, Paart ; fabricated and installed the LNY mural at Term A EWR, has worked with Peter Marino on the LVMH Louis Vuitton flagship in Shanghai has been featured in arch digest Conceived, designed and built Gardenship @ Kearny Point. Knoblick has worked as a special projects consultant for Robert Miller Gallery working on the family collection, posthumously accessioning Robert's personal studio and overseeing the design and construction of their private art storage facility.
Donna Kessinger
Creative Director of Gardenship Art, D. Kessinger is a contemporary feminist artist, curator, and highly experienced arts manager working with emerging and mid-career artists based in the New York metropolitan area. She is also an accomplished grant writer, crisis manager with a keen focus on DEIA and ADA compliance, conduit for community-based outreach, and manager of artist residencies,studio spaces, museum level galleries and international art exhibitions. Kessinger’s innovative curatorial practice is driven by collaboration and partnership with artists, institutions, and art-industry leaders, all through the lens of inclusion. She has been responsible for entire life cycles of exhibitions, from initial concept to installation at international art spaces including MoMA PS1, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the International Center for Photography, the Monmouth Museum, Art Fair 14C, the Jersey City Art Studio Tour, JCAST, Aljira, Gardenship Arts, Gallery Aferro and ChaShaMa.
Jacob Mandel
Jacob Mandel was born in December 1990. Mandel graduated with honors from NYU's Master's in Visual Arts Administration program in 2020 and from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2012 receiving a BFA in Photography and a minor degree in Art History. In 2012 upon completing his BFA, he planted himself in the Newark arts community and worked as Gallery Manager at Gallery Aferro in Downtown Newark. Jacob has partnered with local non-profits like Collaborate Audio Lab and Oculus Art Collaborative to write grants, curate exhibitions, and produce events. As a curator, Jacob has done projects with Layqa Nuna Yawar, Newark Open Doors, major group and solo exhibitions in Gallery Aferro’s main gallery, Index Art Center, and exhibitions outside of Newark including at the Arts Guild of New Jersey in Rahway, NJ. His work in a growing art community like Newark’s has shown him that collaboration and idea sharing are crucial to creative success.
Brian Curry
An explorer of all things interdisciplinary, Brian is always seeking to identify and capture the connective and conceptual tissues between mediums, passions, and pursuits. As a founding member of NJ alt/folk trio Cold Weather Company, he has toured 18 states and the UK performing original music. With mignolo dance, Brian has filmed eight screendances and contributed over an hour of original music to accompany movement, performing live on-stage for “Self Help” and running sound and live operations for “Visitor Parking,” an immersive piece set at Gardenship. Working with the Historical Society of Plainfield, he has been documenting events, collections and activities at the Nathaniel Drake House since 2021. In 2022, he founded Haven & Hazard, a cross-disciplinary multimedia pursuit offering photography, videography, editing, original music, and conceptual services to clients across diverse industries. Since joining the Gardenship Media Team in 2022, Brian has been filming, photographing, and editing social media clips and narrative archival videos of Gardenship’s activities to share with the world.