Week 20: Marilyn Narota
This is Marilyn Narota @marilynnarota taking over the Instagram account at @works_on_water! I’ll be posting here for a week giving you an exclusive look at my new art video created at the Upper Bay of the NY Harbor. ✨ I encourage you to similarly go to your nearest waterfront and create some artwork of your own. You’ll thank me later! Make a sketch, create a small painting, start some needlework, practice your photography, make digital art on your smartphone...anything! Just remember to take your litter with you and return often. ✨ Take advantage of this natural resource and use the waterfront as a place to relax, reflect and get in touch with your creativity in a beautiful and soothing environment.
https://marilynnarota.weebly.com/
Week 19: Marie Lorenz
All summer @works_on_water has reconnected us to the diversity of the city’s shoreline with prompts and walks along the city's edge. Now we'll insta-navigate you to all the hidden parts, the other side of the fences, utility yards, landfills, and construction sites that have hindered your path to the shore.
http://www.tideandcurrenttaxi.org/
Week 18: mayfield brooks
What do I do at this juncture of land, memory, and water? I bump up against steel, consumption & blocked access to the actual water & land. The paradox of my existence resides here where land meets water because I come from a landless people. I have no answers. I simply show up to the place where the water meets the land. I stand at the bridge.
I become the bridge from the river to the memory of those that came before me.
https://www.abronsartscenter.org/program/whale-fall/
Week 17: Sarah Cameron Sunde
Sarah Cameron Sunde invites the public to face the water and spend a week tracking the NYC tidal shifts in relationship to the land, our bodies, and global sea level rise. The culminating work in her series, 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea (2013 - present) was originally scheduled to take place in Hallet’s Cove, Queens, on Saturday, September 5 from 6:43am - 7:09pm. But due to COVID-19, Sunde will mark the moment with a process-based livestream event for those 12 hours and 26 minutes.
Week 16: Prof:0und for Von Davien
‘You Heard Me: A Flows N Figurations Performance’ is a call-and-response based theatrical experience that explores that question from the lens of water, from the lens of dreams, and from the lens of spirit. It is the launching point for a series of workshops called ‘Flows N Figurations’ that I'm doing as part of a Climate Justice Fellowship with Culture Push. During this pandemic, questions about place, person hood, belonging, and our planet are becoming even more prescient. While sitting with the urgency of it all, my Green Afrofuturist Project also wants us to seek moments of respite, of surety—looking to the fantastical, fabulous, and ultimately the frenetic.
Week 15: Nicki Pombier Berger
I am here for #WalkingTheEdge as a mother to and student of Jonah, age 8, who has Down syndrome, Autism and hearing loss, and a profound connection with water. As an oral historian, I try to listen deeply, and in relationship with Jonah, I am learning to listen differently. For Walking the Edge I will try to steward his story by way of my own, following his gaze to Jacob Riis, where we went near daily when the city shut down in March. He needed the ocean, me the empty beach. More than a site for recreation or relief, Riis was a critical enclave, a place where my son and I could be together, needless of speech, at a kind of peace, away from all that loss. underwaternewyork.com
Image description: A landscape oriented photo of Riis beach. The line of the horizon splits the image just above the middle. A winter sky is mainly shades of white, inflected with lateral brushes of silver, lavender, and, where the sun will set, peach and gold. The sun is white, with an aura of yellow. Beneath the sky is the beach: dark sand, silver with the skin of receded waves, which bubble white where the water froths. Low waves lap in, white where they break. The sea is otherwise grey. On the beach, directly beneath the circle of the sun, a young boy stands, legs scissored as he steps toward the sea. He is seen in profile, and, backlit, he’s all shadow. His raised foot rests mere inches above the beach—it will touch down the moment the photo ends. He wears a winter coat, its hood hanging down behind him. His mouth is slightly open, his head slightly forward, his whole pose intent toward the sea. His shadow stands directly beneath him, mirrored, so he appears doubled.
Week 14: Rejin Leys
A virtual visit to Jamaican Bay via runoff. Because even when we don't go to the shore, our rain water does.
According to this MS4 outfall map, Jamaica comprises a large part of the city's MS4 system. I live in Southeast Queens, and if I'm reading the map correctly, our local rainfall (and any pollutants swept up with it) flow unfiltered into Jamaica Bay via Bergen Basin. I haven't taken public transportation since March, so I chose this site because I can make a virtual visit to the bay by observing the rain and thinking about it's path to the shore.
Week 13: Edmund Mooney
My content will involve an opportunity to take some self-guided walks (in person or on Google maps) around some long erased shorelines in hopes that we can re-imagine what used to be here and what we can learn/create from its erasure. Most of my map explorations into Manahatta start with a visit to the Welikia map, for some quick geo-reference of pre-1609 Manhattan.
Week 12: Sherese Francis
The Edge as a Road to Other Possible Wooorrr(l)ds:
A speculative journey around Jamaica Bay through poetry and imagery collages. The artwork and prompts will highlight the importance of naming, etymology and mythology as gateways to submerged memories and remembering underserved places and histories we need to return, to protect and to conserve.
Week 11: Sunk Shore
Sunk Shore (Carolyn Hall and Clarinda Mac Low) brings you on a tour of the climate changed future on the shores of the East River.
Join them as they time-travel to 2092 and back again.
Picture a shoreline you know well - it can be near you now, one you grew up with, or one you visited and fell in love with. What do you imagine it will look and feel like 72 years in the future - in 2092? Think about the temperature, the air, the ground, the water, the sounds, the smells. Will it be further inshore or offshore? Who lives there and how do they live? What structures are nearby? What plants, animals, birds, fish, and insects do you see? Note what has changed…
Sunk Shore is a speculative, experiential tour of our climate changed future that takes place along specific shorelines. The experience is built to bring you into an embodied experience of information that can seem very remote or abstract, giving number and date visceral weight and impact. The tour is based on research about events expected to take place (and already happening), including rising sea levels, changing animal species, higher heat, ingenious solutions, social revolutions, and more.
Week 10: Denae Howard
The inspiration for this artwork is ritual and reflection - relearning human senses while feeling stillness/ closeness after unexpected separation. The work will be a collaging of digital media and found video/media, with extracted sounds of the waterfront and songs that are notes of the space. Associated music will also be stitched into the sequence, exemplifying breaks in consciousness and aligned patterns of thought that represent the experience at the location of the water's edge. The artwork will live as static images curated by conversations had via my senses, when taking these visits to the water's edge.
Prompts:
What pulls you to the water's edge? Why are you here? How do you feel? What do you feel? What do you smell? What can you hear? Have your breaths changed?
Week 9: Kamau Ware
"The Edge Within" asks people to get in tune with the water we have in our bodies and how it carries memories of our ancestors.
In creating Black Gotham Experience, it has been necessary to get in tune with redacted narratives in urban spaces. I often go on walks where the history happened and dial up my empathy and imagination to feel stories. It is not a scientific way of researching but it does complement what is discoverable in the archives and secondary sources to engage through meditation and kinesthetics.
Learn more about Kamau’s work on kamaustudios.com
Week 8: Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow
I’m Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow presiding during week 8 of “Walking the Edge”. In the next coming days, I will showcase my work at various water sites around New York City. I hope that this work inspires you to get out of the comfort of your homes to safely explore your water’s edge.
When I think of the water’s edge I think of this massive body as the element that brought many of our ancestors here.
The water holds memories of their voyages.
Today, I’m prompting you to think about water as being a place of reflection. How does a large body of water make you feel?
Out of curiosity of what would be my nearest waterfront I’ve been researching areas for this project and came across Shirley Chisholm State Park while speaking to my neighbor in Queens. I recently rode my bicycle there to explore it as a possible site for my site specific performance work titled Junkanooacome, which touches upon Afro-Caribbean and American histories, landmarks, race, gender, and social justice. After learning more about Shirley Chisholm and the park named after her I’m inspired.
Learn more about Jodie’s work on her website.
Week 7: Tattfoo Tan
On Friday, June 12, Tattfoo Tan takes us on a meditative journey along the north shore of Staten Island, traveling along one of our original Walking the Edge routes, inspired by this passage from Swami Vivekananda:
“Suppose there is a wave in the ocean. The wave is distinct from the ocean only in its form and name, and this form and this name cannot have any separate existence from the wave; they exist only with wave. The wave may subside but the same amount of water remains, even if the name and form that were on the wave vanish for ever. So this Maya is what makes the difference between me and you , between all animals and man, between gods and men.”
Tattfoo’s Heal Humankind in Order to Heal the Land book.
Week 6: Elizabeth Velazquez
The video piece, Agua de Vida, documents the enactment of an intuitive expression of water worship made at Jamaica Bay and contemplates water and land as the most basic components of a human body. Without water, the body is dust, and with water, the body is alive. The conditions of bodies of water on Earth are interconnected with the conditions of human bodies on our sacred planet.
Before settler colonialism, the area surrounding Jamaica Bay held indigenous villages of Canarsie and Rockaway peoples, and the bay provided an excellent source of food and transport. Today, it is a holy place where pujas are performed by many Indo-Carribean Hindu worshipers that compare the bay to the sacred Ganges River in India.
My intention with creating, Agua de Vida, is to uplift the sacredness of water in the midst of worldwide human impact that has been detrimental to its stability and life-giving force. Irreverence for water and life, is causing a global crisis that has devastated the lives of people, land and water- with marginalized bodies receiving first impacts and being most affected.
More about Elizabeth’s work: www.elizabethvelazquez.com
Week 5: Simone Johnson
Rising sea levels and living in a city originally made me think of the legend of Atlantis. I wondered about the place millions call home going underwater at some point in the future.
One of the reasons Atlantis is interesting is because it has been described as a technologically advanced society. I want to play around with this concept
What if 'technologically advanced' in New York City meant being in right relationship with water? Or intentional conversations, collaboration and experimentation between different kinds of artists and other creatives like educators, healers, librarians, urban planners, architects, activists, farmers and fisher folk, engineers and legislators?
What if bioartists were involved in conversations about NYC's climate emergency plans, like the Climate Mobilization Act?
Learn more about Simone’s work: Atlantis, Bio-Arts, Climate Resiliency and New York City
Week 4: STo Len
sTo Len takes us on a scenic stream of consciousness walk through his neighborhood to his favorite waterfront off the beaten path: the Newtown Creek. Along the way are the ghosts of waters past, old trails, lots of memories, discarded gloves and a few masked friendly faces.
“The Newtown Creek is a special place to me and I wanted to take you all along on a video walk since we cannot do one in person. I think that we can learn a lot from the water that surrounds us, especially at a time when the pandemic has created such suffering and uncertainty, when our scheduled lives are so ephemeral and put on hold, when we must remain so still in our solitude. The water is there, its constantly moving and shaping the land. The water’s edge is blurring our hard edges. I go to the water for guidance. It shows us how to ebb and flow, a liquid GPS to better navigate the world as fluid dreamers, dancers, and survivors. It can teach us how to re-emerge into the world with one another as well. As public space has become completely transformed by the coronavirus, rediscovering the outdoors outside the box provides new opportunities for us to engage with the water and one another. Its time to reclaim new public commons beyond the ones predetermined by our patterned behavior. It's time to rediscover our waterfronts and find new ways to access our edges.”
Prompts to think about this week :
What body of water in NYC is closest to your home as well as to your heart?
Can you find access points to get to it’s edge?
Will you take us there through a photo, video, story, or song?
Learn more about sTo: www.stoishere.com
Week 3: Nancy Nowacek
In this week’s walk to the edge, consider bridges—on foot or virtually, through StreetView or through the links provided to different city maps.
You may encounter some of the 2072 bridges in the city…You might need to construct a few bridges to the edge: mapping a safe route, or packing a bag of supplies…
Moving towards the edge might forge connections to different feelings, memories, cultures or perspectives.
Think about the anchors of your crossing—where you start and end—in mind, body, and space. Contemplate it’s span, or experiences you have along the way: how the sounds, smells, and air change.
At the edge, spend a moment reflecting on a bridge you think the city will need in the future. There may be many. What would they look like? Be made of? How can the waterfront and waterways help build bridges to the future you envision?
Learn more about Nancy: https://nancynowacek.com
Week 2: Eve Mosher
Like you, I've been in lockdown for 57 days.
I was looking forward to Walking The Edge of NYC's 520 miles of coastline, but here we are.
For me, the water's edge has always been a place of solace.
So I keep thinking; what would it look to explore my waterfront when I'm not leaving my apartment?
Where does your imagination go along the water’s edge?
What might we learn about the history of our water's edge that can inform the future we want…
Learn more about Eve: www.evemosher.com
Week 1: Introduction
Works on Water, Culture Push and Dept of City Planning, Waterfront Division
What is your waterfront?
How do you get there?
Have you ever walked there?
Is it a canal, a river, an estuary, a bay, a creek, the ocean?
Is it accessible?
Is it a beach, a dock, a greenway, fenced off?
Look on a local map (hard copy or online) and trace a path from your home to your nearest waterfront.
Have you walked this path before?
What are some familiar sights? Name them.
If you feel safe going outside once a day, is this a walk you would choose to do?
From here, you can imagine your walk with your map or take an actual walk to the edge.
Pause at some point on your journey.
Look around.
What do you see?
What do you hear? What do you smell?
How much sky can you see?
How many trees are there?
What lines, what shapes, what light, what shade?
Continue to the water’s edge.
How many twists and turns were there?
Do the sky, trees, lines, shapes, and light change as you get closer to the edge of the water?
Can you get to the water?
In person or on your screen in streetview - is there a barrier?
What is the waterfront?
Is your water’s edge what you hoped it would be?
If not, what would you want it it to be in the future?