2020

2020-2022 Triennial

2020-2022 Triennial

We have adapted our 2020 Triennial into a three year exhibition! Despite the pandemic, we produced virtual projects and exhibitions, and are excited to continue this summer. Tending the Edge, a continuation of Walking the Edge (2020), kicks off our 2021 triennial summer with an incredible group of artists making work through the lens of the Comprehensive Waterfront Plan that invites NYC mayoral candidates and New Yorkers alike to see themselves as island inhabitants and flex their power to affect change.

2020 WoW Video Show

OVERVIEW

In six sessions over the course of three days, the WoW VideoShow gathers short videos by over 15 artists from 11 countries working on, in, and with the water. Water and waterways feature both as a place where the work happens and an essential part of the work—friend, deity, home, and collaborator. Working with water, the artists are immersed in the issues at the base of human life—human and non-human relationships to “nature” and culture; economics, history, nation, and infrastructure; race, class, and access; ritual, desire, and the sensory world.

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

We set out to discover the shared ways artists are thinking about and experiencing water around the world. We discovered a series of models and approaches to water and waterways, that through art, and the intersection with other forms that think through being with and for our waterways. Artists Felipe Castelblanco, Tsubasa Kato, Jane Chang Mi, and Subho O Saha create a direct relationship with the water through their own bodies, performing a singular action in or on the waterway partners. Natalie Casagran Lopez, Basia Irland, Sto Len, and Mary Ellen Strom explore water through performance--music-making, storytelling, and ritual come to the water to reveal new perspectives. Neha Choksi, Jon Cohrs, and Alex Monteith, Natalie Robertson and Graeme Atkins relate directly to water as a permeable material that takes many forms, infiltrating all aspects of our existence. James Dawson, Miguel Arzabe, and Jeannette Ehlers use abstraction to animate water histories, economics, and spatial politics. Marie Lorenz, Geneveieve Robertson and Meredith Lackey explore the infrastructures that contain (or don’t contain) water. The histories that grow up around water inform the works of Jacob Rivkin, Ayesha Hadir, and Lydia Hicks. We are excited to share their works with you: join us to watch, think, and feel water, together, online.
Clarinda Mac Low & Nancy Nowacek

2020 Walking the Edge

WALKING THE EDGE - THE PROMPTS

Walking the Edge launched the Works on Water Triennial 20/21. Artists produced weekly prompts (activity suggestions or questions) that invited city residents to explore their water’s edges and engage in imagining changes for those edges - virtually or on solo walks.  Responses from the public will help us think boldly and imaginatively about the future of the waterfront and share ideas that will inform the city’s next Comprehensive Waterfront Plan.  Walking the Edge was initially envisioned as a participatory non-stop relay walk of all 520 miles of New York City shoreline, but due to COVID-19, the physical event has been postponed to 2021.

Walking the Edge uses walking to encounter, reflect upon, and see places anew. This project defines “walking” as moving through space with attention and intention, and embraces all forms of mobility. Walking is a creative act, and WtE is an opportunity for New Yorkers of all abilities and ages, in every borough, to experience and express their waterfront.

Walking the Edge is a collaboration between arts organizations Culture Push and Works on Water with the NYC Department of City Planning. The project is funded by the Mayor’s Grant for Cultural Impact from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. WtE is a key outreach component of the next Comprehensive Waterfront Plan and kicks off Works on Water’s 2020 Triennial Art Exhibition dedicated to art that is made on, in, and with the water.

2020 WoWHaus Residency

Due the Covid crisis of 2020, we adjusted our offerings to be in line with restrictions. We were pleased that we were able to continue our residency program, even in a much reduced capacity.

Our 2020 Cohort: