On October 29, Underwater New York hosted a reading in conjunction with Silent Beaches, Untold Stories, an exhibit curated by Elizabeth Albert at St. John’s University. The evening featured original work written for Underwater New York by St. John’s faculty members Robert Fanuzzi, Steve Mentz, Gabriel Brownstein and Lee Ann Brown, and special guest Nelly Reifler. UNY contributing poet Nicole Cirino read a poem to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, which fell on the same evening as the reading.

Listen to the readings below (and please forgive some recording idiosyncrasies and ambient sound...)

UNY is so pleased to be organizing a reading in conjunction with contributing artist Elizabeth Albert's exhibition Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: NYC's Forgotten Waterfront.  She has spent years meticulously researching some of our city's strangest shorelines to curate this show. Among other featured artists are UNY's own Mary Mattingly, Marie Lorenz and George Boorujy.

The reading will feature St. John's faculty members Gabriel Brownstein, Bob Fanuzzi and Steven Mentz, as well as special guest Nelly Reifler. In addition, Nicole Cirino will honor the one year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy with a poem. It will take place on Tuesday October 29th, at 6pm, in the gallery.  

We can't wait to see you there!  

On the evening of July 20th, about fifty people assembled at Chelsea gallery PPOW to hear an amazing roster of Underwater New York contributing artists speak about their work.

Amy Jean Porter, whose show OF LAMB was up in the project room of the gallery, kicked off the event by tying the humpback whale she drew for UNY into a larger narrative of her exploration of the natural world versus human culture.

Elizabeth Albert took it from there, explaining how her research of NYC’s fringe shores such as Dead Horse Bay and Coney Island Creek was sparked, in part, by Underwater New York and piquing everyone’s interest in a waterway-themed exhibition she is curating for the fall of 2012.

Marie Lorenz made us all feel like we were traveling NYC’s waterways on her Tide and Current Taxi, being inspired equally by the objects we encountered, the people we met and the ebb and flow of the water itself.

George Boorujy closed out the event with a talk followed by a bottle toss into the Hudson River, all of which was luckily captured on video by the very talented Stacey Szewczyk of the blog Hudson River Stories. Watch her piece below and be sure to follow up to track the fate of George’s project NY Pelagic!