! Alert

Governors Island Ferry Service will resume operations between the Battery Maritime Building and Soissons Landing beginning at 12pm on Monday, October 14. Click here for tickets, schedules, and more information.

Governors Island Ferry Service will resume operations between the Battery Maritime Building and Soissons Landing beginning at 12pm on Monday, October 14. Click here for tickets, schedules, and more information.

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May 21, 2023
Castle Williams - Governors Island National Monument - Castle Williams
Governors Island - Governors Island - Colonels Row Green

Resched­uled to Sun­day, May 21, due to weather. 

On the occa­sion of Charles Gaines’s mon­u­men­tal work Mov­ing Chains on Gov­er­nors Island, Cre­ative Time and Gov­er­nors Island Arts present a day-long pub­lic pro­gram on Gov­er­nors Island bring­ing togeth­er an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary group of artists, schol­ars, and edu­ca­tors work­ing on strate­gies for abo­li­tion in art, law, edu­ca­tion, and polit­i­cal action. This event is free with reg­is­tra­tion, click here to reg­is­ter.

The day’s work­shops, talks, pre­sen­ta­tions, and walk­ing tour cen­ter on the pos­si­bil­i­ties and lim­i­ta­tions of achiev­ing abo­li­tion through the law. The con­test­ed, mov­ing, and blurred lines between peo­ple and prop­er­ty per­sists today as one of the foun­da­tions of racial cap­i­tal­ism, the eco­nom­ic and struc­tur­al after­life of slav­ery. As schol­ar, and pan­elist, Saidiya Hart­man argues, while dis­cussing the specters of free­dom, the polit­i­cal and legal struc­ture of lib­er­ty is a per­mu­ta­tion of slav­ery — free­dom can nev­er be pos­sessed, only shared. Mov­ing Chains: Toward Abo­li­tion offers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­sid­er how free­dom can be defined out­side of the con­tours of prop­er­ty, con­sid­ers past exam­ples of move­ments using the law in the fight for free­dom, and ulti­mate­ly asks whether abo­li­tion and the law are com­pat­i­ble or not.

Event Sched­ule

10 – 10:45AM: Black Gotham Expe­ri­ence Guid­ed Tour, Sois­sons Landing

11AM-1PM: Morn­ing Ses­sion, Cas­tle Williams 

  • Ground­ing and Land Acknowl­edge­ment by Black Gotham Experience
  • Pre­sen­ta­tion by Tali Keren and Alex Stra­da, 28th Amend­ment Project
  • Pan­el Dis­cus­sion: Abo­li­tion and the Law with Amer­i­can Artist, Albert Fox Cahn, and Kamee­lah Janan Rasheed, mod­er­at­ed by Che Gossett
  • Pre­sen­ta­tion by Sarah Abde­laz­iz, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Abo­li­tion­ist Teach­ing Network

1 – 2PM: Lunch Break, Colonels Row

  • Black Gotham Expe­ri­ence Lunch Circle
  • 28th Amend­ment Soap Box Installation

12 – 3PM: Drop-In Work­shops, Colonels Row 

  • Drop into multi­gen­er­a­tional art­mak­ing work­shops and gath­er­ings to col­lec­tive­ly imag­ine free­dom while learn­ing about the pos­si­bil­i­ty, neces­si­ty, and stakes of teach­ing abo­li­tion today. This pro­gram is orga­nized by Tiffany Lenoi Jones with Akiea Ki” Gross and Noor Jones-Bey, grantees of the Abo­li­tion­ist Teach­ing Network.

2 – 5PM: After­noon Ses­sion, Cas­tle Williams

  • Pre­sen­ta­tion by artist Rus­sell Craig, Right of Return
  • Pan­el Dis­cus­sion: Archi­tec­tures of Free­dom with Tork­wase Dyson, Cameron Row­land, and Rinal­do Walcott
  • In Con­ver­sa­tion: Charles Gaines and Christi­na Sharpe

Orga­nized by Diya Vij, Cura­tor at Cre­ative Time, with Che Gos­sett, schol­ar of abo­li­tion and con­tem­po­rary Black art, co-orga­niz­ing the ses­sion pan­els; and artist and edu­ca­tor Tiffany Lenoi Jones, co-orga­niz­ing the drop-in workshops.

May 21, 2023
Castle Williams - Governors Island National Monument - Castle Williams
Governors Island - Governors Island - Colonels Row Green