Video — All Issues — Underwater New York

Yi Xin Tong is an artist and fisherman. He uses multimedia installation, site-specific projects, video, and sound to analyze seemingly disparate social conditions, and our contradictory relationships with ourselves and with other living beings, objects, and cultural entities. His experience living on the outskirts of New York City led him to a long-term multimedia fishing project that challenges the iconic image of the city as the pinnacle of human civilization, and seeks relief, nature, and weird things. Tong’s work has been exhibited at BRIC Biennial, Guangzhou Airport Biennale, UCCA, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, NARS Foundation, MOCA Shanghai, CAFA Art Museum, and chi K11 art museum.

Issue 17: Object PlayYi Xin TongOctober 14, 2020Video, Gravesend Bay, Dog Shark, Sea Robin, Clearnose Skate, COVID-19

My own island burns inside of me

Our collaboration reflects on the relationships—contemporary, historical, mythical, fictional, poetic—between people and the water that sustains us.

Issue 16: Governors Island Un-EarthedMary Giaimo & Rejin LeysApril 21, 2020Issue 16, Video

Water in the Desert 122° F

Water in the Desert 122°F is a meditation on the past and future of the miles of canals that thread through Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. The largest pre-Columbian irrigation system in North America, the canals were first engineered 2000 years ago by the ancestral Sonoran Desert people. This Native history was destroyed by the construction of the settler-colonial metropolis. This urban space of asphalt and concrete is ill-prepared for the heat that is coming. The summer now reaches 122°F. At 130°, what happens to the city’s vulnerable people, plants, and animals? Adaptation or abandonment?

Cleaning the Bridge

The maintenance of public infrastructure, such as bike lanes and pedestrian walkways, is critical to ensuring equitable recreational waterfront access. Flushing Creek Agency is a series of site-specific performances exploring the potential of personal agency and labor in a variety of situations along Flushing Creek.

Issue 15: Labor IssueCody Ann HerrmannNovember 10, 2019Flushing Creek, Video

Kosciuszko Bridge

The Kosciuszko Bridge spans the Newtown Creek and connects Brooklyn and Queens via the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. The first bridge in this location, the Meeker Avenue Bridge, opened in 1803.

Issue 15: Labor IssueBirgit RathsmannNovember 10, 2019Newtown Creek, Video

Survivalist Cinema 1 (Water)

This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Rachel Stevens was in residence on Governors Island in 2018.

Issue 12: Governors IslandRachel StevensOctober 7, 2019Governors Island, Video

Misdirected Flow

This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Edmund Mooney was in residence on Governors Island from July 9-22, 2018.

Edmund MooneyOctober 7, 2019Governors Island, Video

Aquapolis 2100

This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. /rive collective was in residence on Governors Island in 2018.

Issue 12: Governors Island/rive collectiveOctober 7, 2019Governors Island, Video

Riparianism

Issue 11: Gowanus CanalNicole AntebiOctober 2, 2019Gowanus Canal, Newtown Creek, Video

Submerged

Personal narratives reveal the minutiae of an event so epic in scale it escapes understanding. So it is here with the recollections of Sally and John: an artist and his muse. On May 3rd of 2013, they recounted their mutual affection and shared struggles with gentle ribbing and creative interplay.

Issue 9: Hurricane SandyCharis Emily ShaferOctober 1, 2019Hurricane Sandy, Video

Horse Seance

For all the ghost horses haunting Dead Horse Bay, this was made for an Underwater New York event as part of Marie Lorenz's Flow Pool at Recess Art in SoHo, April 21, 2016.

Issue 6: MenagerieMeredith DrumOctober 1, 2019Dead Horse Bay, Art, Video

Sea Elegy

Issue 6: MenagerieBobby GagnonSeptember 30, 2019Lower New York Bay, Video

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