Moving Chains Closing Celebration

Oct 29, 2023

On the occa­sion of clos­ing week­end of Charles Gaines’s mon­u­men­tal work Mov­ing Chains on Gov­er­nors Island, Cre­ative Time and Gov­er­nors Island Arts will present a day-long pub­lic pro­gram. This event is free with reg­is­tra­tion, click here to register.

Event Sched­ule

12:15 – 1:15PM: Black Gotham Expe­ri­ence Guid­ed Tour, Sois­sons Land­ing (Gov­er­nors Island)

Artist, his­to­ri­an, and Black Gotham Expe­ri­ence Kamau Ware will lead a guid­ed ver­sion of Riv­er Years, the Black Gotham Expe­ri­ence audio tour com­mis­sioned on the occa­sion of Mov­ing Chains. This tour explores the colo­nial pat­terns that have informed a cen­­turies-long rela­tion­ship with what are known today as the East Riv­er, the Hud­son Riv­er, and New York Har­bor. Start­ing from the fer­ry ter­mi­nal at Sois­sons Land­ing and end­ing at the base of Out­look Hill, Riv­er Years pulls out key moments in New York his­to­ry that ask, what is the transat­lantic slave trade to a river?

The tour will con­clude at the site of Mov­ing Chains at the base of Out­look Hill, and par­tic­i­pants will be giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to jour­ney through the piece.

2 – 3PM: Artist Talk with Charles Gaines, Casa Cipri­ani (10 South Street, Low­er Manhattan)

Artist Charles Gaines will dis­cuss The Amer­i­can Man­i­fest, his first-ever pub­lic art instal­la­tion. This three-part project (Mov­ing Chains on Gov­er­nors Island is Chap­ter Two in the series) inter­ro­gates the dual role of the north­ern states in both main­tain­ing and abol­ish­ing slav­ery, and the endur­ing impli­ca­tions of the racial­ized sys­tems, myths, and log­ics that under­pin the nation’s eco­nom­ic and legal foun­da­tions that per­sist today.

Casa Cipri­ani is locat­ed in the Bat­tery Mar­itime Build­ing, next door to the Gov­er­nors Island fer­ry terminal.

Project Sup­port

Charles Gaines: The Amer­i­can Man­i­fest is made pos­si­ble in New York and Cincin­nati by the vision­ary sup­port of the Ford Foun­da­tion, Lam­bent Foun­da­tion Fund, a fund of Tides Foun­da­tion, the Mel­lon Foun­da­tion, VIA Art Fund, Foto­Fo­cus, The Stavros Niar­chos Foun­da­tion, Cha­ri­na Endow­ment Fund, Don­ald A. Pels Char­i­ta­ble Trust, the Jacques and Natasha Gel­man Foun­da­tion, Mor­gan Stan­ley, Wave Pool, and mediaThe Foun­da­tion, inc.

Major sup­port is pro­vid­ed by Hauser & Wirth, Suzanne and Bob Cochran, Marie Dou­glas, Karl Iag­nem­ma and Ann-Kris­ten Lund, Jacob and Deb­o­rah Kotzubei, Jon Nei­dich, Bob and Renee Par­sons, San­jeev Rathi, Eric Richter, Wad­dell Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion, Jed Walen­tas, Christo­pher Walk­er, Mar­garet Wang, Debi and Steven Wisch, and addi­tion­al anony­mous donors.

We are also grate­ful for the sup­port of the Nation­al Endow­ment for the Arts (NEA); pub­lic funds from the New York City Depart­ment of Cul­tur­al Affairs (DCA) in part­ner­ship with the City Coun­cil and May­or Eric Adams; and the New York State Coun­cil on the Arts (NYSCA) with the sup­port of Gov­er­nor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

Pho­to by Tim­o­thy Schenck