Island Daydreaming

Sat­ur­day, June 7, 2025 | 3:00 PM, first floor of the house – Per­for­mance ​“LA CASA BONI­TA” by CON­SUELA DEL VALLE GRANDE

A week­end of artis­tic inter­ven­tions by Mile­na Keller, Noah Reuss­er, and Daniela Ruoc­co at the Res­i­den­cy Unlim­it­ed (RU) House on Gov­er­nors Island. Curat­ed by Data Chigh­o­lashvili, ​“Island Day­dream­ing” is the sec­ond edi­tion of ​“Liv­ing Room Port­fo­lio” – an exper­i­men­tal exhi­bi­tion for­mat, which reflects on res­i­den­cies as expe­ri­ences of exchange. Mile­na Keller, Noah Reuss­er, and Daniela Ruoc­co become tem­po­rary ​“hosts” over the week­end, and show­case works in the unique con­text of this exhi­bi­tion venue – a for­mer res­i­den­tial house on a mul­ti­lay­ered island, parts of which are now used as exhi­bi­tion spaces and artists’ stu­dios. It might feel a bit dreamy when one leaves busy NYC on a fer­ry and, in a few min­utes, walks on the island among for­mer forts, hous­es where nobody lives any­more, rustling trees, breeze from the water, and noise and silence often rapid­ly replac­ing each oth­er. The liv­ing rooms of the house, tem­porar­i­ly trans­formed by the artists, offer moments of island daydreaming.

The liv­ing room atmos­phere is brought back but with an eerie or mag­i­cal touch, depend­ing on how you choose to look at it, just like at the house itself. Noah Reuss­er presents draw­ings, texts, and sound, which are frag­ments from a work in progress. As he puts it, ​“on the island, these unequal parts gath­er to reform, be it a wish­list, a pre­scrip­tion, or all the mut­ed group chats which you nev­er left com­bined.” With views of green grass and trees out­side the win­dows, Mile­na Keller​’s video instal­la­tion takes a direc­tion of gal­lows humor. Pre­sent­ing two works that explore the notions of ​“nature” and ​“nat­ur­al,” she asks, ​“where do plants belong and what are peo­ple sup­posed to do?”

Daniela Ruocco’s CON­SUELA DEL VALLE GRANDE is a tem­po­rary host in anoth­er liv­ing room. She fills the walls with pho­tographs of a char­ac­ter explor­ing iden­ti­ty in flux, dif­fer­ent ver­sions of her­self on the stage, fic­tion­al­iz­ing on pur­pose to detach, to cre­ate a field of ten­sion, and over­come com­fort zones to explore gen­der and identity.

Ref­er­enc­ing Madonna’s hit from the 1980s, ​“La Isla Boni­ta” (“The Beau­ti­ful Island”), CON­SUELA inter­prets it through the idea of long­ing while also ques­tion­ing the stereo­typ­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Lat­inx cul­ture. At the house on the island, she will have a DJ set, share spo­ken words, and sing. Expe­ri­ence ​“poesía per­reado­ra” – where the works of Lat­inx poets are trans­formed into fem­i­nist reg­gae­ton songs by CON­SUELA. Sur­round­ed by the images of search­ing for the fic­tion­al char­ac­ter, she address­es Lat­inx top­ics that the artist fur­ther explored in the con­text of NYC. CON­SUELA offers aut­ofic­tion and ele­ments from drag cul­ture for explor­ing gen­der bina­ries, and beyond.

Per­for­mance pro­duc­tion assis­tants: RU interns Dan­ny Valera and Hort­ense Lévy

RU is one of the 2025 Gov­er­nors Island Arts Orga­ni­za­tions in Res­i­dence.