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Stay safe in the heat: Drink plenty of water, spend time in the shade, and visit the first aid station at Soissons Landing if you feel unwell. Click here for important warm weather visitor information.

Ten­ant Spot­light: LMC­C’s Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island

Though Gov­er­nors Island is cur­rent­ly closed to the pub­lic until next spring, year-round ten­ants bring hun­dreds of peo­ple to the Island every week­day to work and study in this unique environment. 

One of these year-round ten­ants, LMCC’s Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island, opened this Sep­tem­ber with over 40,000 square feet of spa­cious gal­leries, wel­com­ing activ­i­ty space and ver­sa­tile artist stu­dios. Vis­i­tors perused the exhi­bi­tions at this ren­o­vat­ed for­mer muni­tions ware­house Thurs­days through Sun­days dur­ing the pub­lic sea­son and par­tic­i­pat­ed in a wide vari­ety of pro­grams at the Take Care series every Sat­ur­day. While it waits for vis­i­tors to return next year, LMCC’s Arts Cen­ter is far from dormant. 

Stu­dio space in LMC­C’s Arts Center

Six­teen artists-in-res­i­dence uti­lize the Arts Center’s stu­dio space year-round to work on a vari­ety of projects span­ning visu­al arts and writ­ing, while chore­o­g­ra­phers work on dance pieces in the Arts Center’s prac­tice spaces. The stu­dios, one of which is pro­vid­ed to each artist for free, are open Mon­days through Fri­days for the res­i­dents to use all year. These roomy, light-filled works spaces afford room for their res­i­dents to prac­tice print­mak­ing, videog­ra­phy, sculp­ture, writ­ing, and more, while the envi­ron­ment of the Arts Cen­ter and Gov­er­nors Island itself pro­vide a dis­tinc­tive set­ting for cre­at­ing art. 

The term incu­ba­tor’ very much res­onat­ed with us as we envi­sioned what LMCC’s Arts Cen­ter could be in this excit­ing new phase, and ensur­ing that res­i­den­cies were an inte­gral part of its iden­ti­ty feels like a nat­ur­al man­i­fes­ta­tion of that metaphor. It also feels impor­tant to sup­port as many diverse voic­es, artists, and prac­ti­tion­ers through these pro­grams so that we can build a cul­tur­al hub that is true to LMC­C’s mis­sion. Our hope is that through this unique tri­an­gu­la­tion of space, time, and locale afford­ed by LMCC’s Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island, we’re not only serv­ing artists but invit­ing them to help reimag­ine New York City’s cul­tur­al land­scape” — Bora Kim, LMCC Pro­gram Man­ag­er, Artist Residencies

For near­ly 50 years, LMCC has served, con­nect­ed and made space for artists and com­mu­ni­ty. The expan­sion of LMC­C’s Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island and its res­i­den­cy pro­gram is an incred­i­ble mile­stone for both LMCC and Gov­er­nors Island. LMC­C’s role in con­nect­ing Gov­er­nors Island’s audi­ences to the cre­ative process has grown as well, through pub­lic pro­grams and exhi­bi­tions as well as the sup­port of artists of all dis­ci­plines with oppor­tu­ni­ties to incu­bate and present work that focus­es on ecol­o­gy, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and resilience. We look for­ward to unit­ing artists and com­mu­ni­ties under our roof, an open and gen­er­ous sanc­tu­ary with a view!” — Lili Chopra, LMCC Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Artis­tic Programs

The cur­rent res­i­dent artists, who make up the inau­gur­al cohort of the res­i­den­cy pro­gram, have use of the space until Novem­ber 2020, when a new selec­tion of artists will move in. Vis­i­tors can see works cre­at­ed at LMCC’s Arts Cen­ter dur­ing Open Stu­dios week­ends held peri­od­i­cal­ly in the pub­lic season. 

Read what two of the cur­rent Res­i­dent Artists have to say about their Arts Cen­ter res­i­den­cies below. 


Avi­va Rahmani

Avi­va Rah­mani in her stu­dio at LMC­C’s Arts Center

What projects are you work­ing on at the Arts Cen­ter?
Blued Trees, Black Skies,” is about the ten­sion between fos­sil fuel use and the strug­gle for life on Earth to sur­vive. That will include cre­at­ing a series of 20’x3’ translu­cent ban­ners to sus­pend from groves of trees and branch­es trimmed and paint­ed to be installed prone in the space. The one pic­tured in my stu­dio is a 20’ long mul­ber­ry tree branch. Most of the new paint­ed branch­es will be from the local Eng­lish Plane trees culled at Earth Matter. 

Ren­der­ing of Blued Trees, Black Skies”

What unique oppor­tu­ni­ties or qual­i­ties does the stu­dio space at the Arts Cen­ter offer?
The most dra­mat­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty is to have the space to work for over a year rather than be con­stant­ly wor­ried about need­ing to leave or move my stu­dio. The cohort of fel­low artists share my con­cerns, mak­ing a con­vivial envi­ron­ment and the LMCC staff cre­ates a sup­port­ive frame to out­reach our work. 

How does hav­ing space at the Arts Cen­ter affect your work or process?

It means I have time and space to not only focus my stu­dio pro­duc­tion but to deeply con­tem­plate each step towards the real­iza­tion of my present project with­out dis­trac­tion. It means vis­i­tors can see and dis­cuss my work in progress with me in a very impres­sive and acces­si­ble venue. It means I can close­ly observe the local trees that inspire me for over a year. 

Has the Arts Cen­ter or Gov­er­nors Island itself inspired any aspects of your work?
The groves of trees, the pres­ence of Earth Mat­ter; the com­plex his­to­ry of the island: trans­form­ing a mil­i­tary base to a cul­tur­al base; the pres­ence of so many oth­er cul­tur­al cen­ters and the view of the riv­er from my stu­dio are all pro­found­ly, imag­i­na­tive­ly mov­ing. The steady stream of sum­mer tourists has giv­en me many ideas about design­ing space for human traf­fic as a dis­creet­ly inform­ing experience. 

Had you been to Gov­er­nors Island before begin­ning your Arts Cen­ter res­i­den­cy?
Once.

Learn more about Avi­va Rah­mani on her web­site.


Hilary Lorenz

Hilary Loren­z’s desk in her stu­dio at LMC­C’s Arts Center

What projects are you work­ing on at the Arts Cen­ter?
I am work­ing on mul­ti­ple projects while on GI. My orig­i­nal pro­pos­al to LMCC was inves­ti­gat­ing how water holds the ulti­mate fan­ta­sy of escape; whether by lux­u­ry ship or logs cob­bled togeth­er, water offers pas­sage, trans­for­ma­tion and renew­al. In 2016, I had the priv­i­lege of being fer­ried from Man­hat­tan to Gov­er­nors Island for my first LMCC res­i­den­cy. The trip became a med­i­ta­tion on the water and sparked my quest for boat build­ing, ship­ping lane nav­i­ga­tion, and acces­si­bil­i­ty, not just for trans­porta­tion but phys­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al transformation. 

I became obsessed with the idea of build­ing my own canoe. And liv­ing in Red Hook, I am only a few hun­dred meters from GI. My fan­ta­sy is to carve my own boat to pad­dle back and forth. But for now, I am mak­ing pro­to­types from paper along with numer­ous draw­ings and linoleum block carv­ings of the water. 

Coin­ci­den­tal­ly I was invit­ed by two sep­a­rate cura­tors, one in the US and one in Aus­tralia, to cre­ate an art piece deal­ing with water and con­ser­va­tion. The water piece, and specif­i­cal­ly paper boats, is for an exhi­bi­tion in San Juan, Puer­to Rico. The fragili­ty of the paper boats is sig­nif­i­cant for the island iden­ti­ty, not­ed for resource­ful­ness and respect for the water that defines its edges and bound­aries, not unlike GI. The Aus­tralian work is more spe­cif­ic to the prob­lems of plas­tics in the ocean. Both of these will be paperworks. 

What unique oppor­tu­ni­ties or qual­i­ties does the stu­dio space at the Arts Cen­ter offer?
Num­ber one is year-round access to GI and a com­plete­ly qui­et stu­dio with beau­ti­ful views onto the har­bor. I love the fer­ry ride. I could sim­ply ride the fer­ry back and forth all day long. I ride the fer­ry from Red Hook to Wall Street, then the GI fer­ry. I love being on the water, and hav­ing this oppor­tu­ni­ty allows me to inter­act and expe­ri­ence NYC, my home, in a whole oth­er dimension. 

How does hav­ing space at the Arts Cen­ter affect your work or process?
Hav­ing space at the Arts Cen­ter shows me a whole new way I can approach my work. I get hours of unin­ter­rupt­ed time. It is qui­et. I can watch the weath­er change and the water churn all day long. The view­point from my desk lines up the win­dowsill to the water and it is as if I am on a ship. I feel like I am being rocked by the water’s cur­rents. I am more relaxed and that allows me to be more thought­ful and delve into my work deeper. 

A tug­boat carv­ing by Hilary Lorenz used at Open Stu­dios for vis­i­tors to make their own prints

Has the Arts Cen­ter or Gov­er­nors Island itself inspired any aspects of your work?
The ren­o­va­tion of the Arts Cen­ter is spec­tac­u­lar, the gal­leries are gor­geous. I sim­ply love being on the Island. I love the forts, the his­to­ry, and I love run­ning around the Island. I am a per­son of rep­e­ti­tion and I can run pret­ty long dis­tances, so dur­ing my break I take in the whole island by run­ning around it sev­er­al times, just a method­ic, repeat­ing loop. 

Had you been to Gov­er­nors Island before begin­ning your Arts Cen­ter res­i­den­cy?
I have been com­ing to GI since 2006, but only once or twice a sum­mer. Then in 2016 I had my first LMCC res­i­den­cy. I worked there dai­ly from March to June. It com­plete­ly changed my art­work and opened up a whole new world. I made three sig­nif­i­cant friends as we were there dai­ly togeth­er. It was one of my best oppor­tu­ni­ties. I feel tremen­dous­ly lucky to be there now. 

Learn more about Hilary Lorenz on her web­site.