Works on Water Triennial 2020/21

Due to COVID-19, Works on Water’s planned 2020 Triennial will now take place in two Acts – virtual and physical manifestations of public art interventions that are made on, in, and with urban bodies of water, created in response to the global climate crisis. In partnership with the NYC Department of City Planning, the Trust for Governors Island, and community partners city-wide, the WoW Triennial is a series of curated public art interventions that:

• Bring New Yorkers to their waterfront, virtually and physically, to explore its edges and journey to the water while social-distancing;

• Change the way New Yorkers understand the city and imagine its future by engaging, observing and reflecting on its edges;

• Activate New Yorkers as creative and crucial citizen planners;

• Advance global conversations about how artists working with water as site and material offer meaningful responses to the urgency of climate change in our current state of self-isolation.

ACT I: 2020

As part of our year’s work, as this pandemic develops and we pause physical engagement with each other and the world, we have been imagining what a Works On Water response to this moment would look like online. How might we continue to share our on-going water-related work and ideas on virtual platforms? What is the nexus of the physical and the screen-based? What’s the relationship between your water and your COVID-19 experience? How can we make the most of this sudden sense of togetherness we are all feeling on a global scale?

Walking The EdgE - THE PROMPTS

Join us in a virtual exploration of NYC’s 520 miles of waterfront. Each week we will post a prompt on our social channels (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) and invite you to share your responses and your own exploration with the hashtag #WalkingTheEdgeNYC

WOW TV

Launching soon, WOW TV will be a global exploration of the bodies of water with which we live. This series will explore the digital space as a means to interact, be site specific and performative.

MAPPING WATER ART

Launching in summer, the mapping project will trace the work of Walking The Edge, WOW TV and the field of water art globally. The map(s) will examine geographies, intersections, influences and confluences.

ACT II: Summer 2021

The Works on Water Triennial is a series of public art works made directly on, in, and with bodies of water in all five boroughs of New York City. The WoW Triennial is not a static exhibition, but a dynamic invitation to New Yorkers to experience and reimagine the edge of our city through site-specific, participatory, time- based and embodied installations, events, conversations, excursions and more.