Editors' note: This story was written for Underwater New York's January 24 event at Winter Shack, a temporary exhibition space designed by Alex Branch and Nicole Antebi, who curate a series of site-specific installations/readings/exhibitions that encourage audiences to engage with one another's work and to build community in the darkest hours of the year.
I once went to a New Year’s Eve party whose host, a burlesque dancer, handed each guest a dinner plate
to smash against a brick wall. I’ve never seen a roomful of people so suddenly awake, so reborn. Of course,
that was years ago, before we lost Brooklyn, before they came for Queens.
On the small kitchen table lay a set of objects: a vial of pills that looked prescription but bore no prescription; the scuffed cover of a punk CD of unknown origin; and one of the manuals, the writing on its cardboard cover Sharpie-scrawled and illegible. Like the pills, it had arrived from her mother the previous day. Vera Schiele Obek stood over it all, eyeing the items and wondering what the coming voyage would hold.
Read MoreFor 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.
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So it was written: the deeps covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone.
It goes like this. One person was chasing another. The sea split. There was a door. There was a crossing.
From one side to the other. Then the door slammed. It slammed in the face of the chaser. He was hit.
He was sunk. He went down.
1.
pure silver
it only feels right sometimes
when the moon comes in and the concrete
swells like waves
the scent of inland grasses
much sweeter than this sand
sometimes when the summer feels
just so
and the wind catches you
by the ankles
This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Elizabeth Velazquez was in residence on Governors Island from July 9-August 5, 2018.
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This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Carolyn Hall and Clarinda Mac Low were in residence on Governors Island in 2018.
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This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Lily Consuela Saporta-Tagiuri was in residence on Governors Island from August 20-September 16, 2018. Ayasha Guerin was in residence on Governors Island from October 15-31, 2018.
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This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Lily Consuela Saporta-Tagiuri was in residence on Governors Island from August 20-September 16, 2018.
Read MoreThis work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Kelly Sullivan was in residence on Governors Island from October 15-31, 2018.
Read MoreThis work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Rachel Stevens was in residence on Governors Island in 2018.
This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Micki Watanabe Spiller was in residence on Governors Island from May 21-June 24, 2018.
Read MoreThis work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Edmund Mooney was in residence on Governors Island from July 9-22, 2018.
This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Rena Priest was in residence on Governors Island in 2018.
This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Jianna Jihyun Park was in residence on Governors Island from September 4-30, 2018.
This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. /rive collective was in residence on Governors Island in 2018.
This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Edmund Mooney was in residence on Governors Island from July 9-22, 2018.
This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Lynn Neuman was in residence on Governors Island from June 25-July 8, 2015. Robin Michals was the photographer in residence on Governors Island.
This work was created during the WoW/UNY Governors Island Residency. Rejin Leys was in residence on Governors Island from May 21-June 24, 2018.