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36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea (2013–present) is a series of nine site-specific participatory performances and video artworks, taking place in nine different bodies of water around the world. In each, I stand in a tidal area for a full tidal cycle as water slowly engulfs my body and then recedes. The public participates in all aspects of making the work. Each work in the series consists of a live performance event, a long-form cinematic video work, and varied ephemera. The project examines the temporary nature of all things and our contemporary relationship with water in urban environments—as individuals, as communities, and as a species.

SeMutOnge

“SeMutOnge” is a sound poetry piece that came out of my Works on Water/Underwater New York residency project, MuTonges. This piece was an experimentation with anagrams where I took each line of a previously written poem inspired by the enslaved Africans who were thrown overboard at sea during the Atlantic Slave Trade and rearranged the letters in each of the words to create a new language.

Down for the Day & A Further Shore

This selection of photographs is drawn from two distinct bodies of work, “Down For the Day” and “A Further Shore.” Both series are part of larger cycle of projects that look at New York City’s intricate and complicated relationship with its waters: the beaches, bays, and rivers where its diverse citizenry comes in contact with nature and each other. While “Down For the Day” and “A Further Shore” frequently depict people engaging in leisure activities, those who labor on the water are also present, enabling the quest for respite, for a momentary paradise along our urban shorelines and waterways.

Issue 15: Labor IssueSusannah RayNovember 10, 2019Jamaica Bay, Pelham Bay, The Rockaways, Art

Words for Water

On a Sunday in late September I spent the day as I often do, moving shore to shore with Jonah, my seven-year-old son. Days are long, years are short, or so the adage goes, though both can stretch the bounds of the tolerable to me.

Issue 15: Labor IssueNicki PombierNovember 10, 2019Jamaica Bay, Nonfiction

Flight 1

Hey Brooklyn, come home

with me. Traffic makes the parade

look bigger. My mother says

if you can’t feel your cheeks,

it’s time to stop.

Issue 4: ShipwreckedDolan MorganSeptember 30, 2019Jamaica Bay, Poetry

Underwater New York is a platform for writing, art, and music inspired by the waterways of New York City.