If These Walls

In the summer of 2010, A.I.R. Gallery, which has been advocating for women in the visual arts since 1972, transformed one of the 19th century houses in Governor's Island's Nolan Park with a series of site-specific works including painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper and more. Alongside their annual group exhibition was the Underwater New York Project Room, where seven A.I.R. Gallery artists exhibited work based on the NYC waterways. Underwater New York invited three poets—Hossannah Asuncion, Morgan Parker and Katy Lederer—to write new work inspired by the visual art of A.I.R. artists Melissa Murray, Erica Stoller and Maxine Henryson. Read the poems and view the artwork that sparked them below.