Open Studios, Closing Reception, and Performances

Join us for Open Studios, and Closing Reception for 'Alex Mari: Our heads stuffed with lies, Her Belly Full of Ice,' and the 2023 season on Governors Island. Work by Alex Mari, and Toisha Tucker, KODA Borders + Boundaries artists in residence.

Location: (map) KODA House, Building #404B, Colonels Row, Governors Island, New York.

Alex Mari: Emergent Void I (working title)

Durational Performance/Meditation Room

11am-4pm

Emergent Void I (working title) is a conceptual and durational work in progress examining forced voids born from the cross-examination of KODA’s borders + boundaries themed residency in New York City and the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences residency set in the rural north Georgia mountains, both in Fall 2023. Alex Mari chooses liminal borderlands within the city and woods to explore  “manic loops” heightened by the tension between urbanity and nature. Curious about the transpermeation of sound in site-specific environments accompanied by a long-form durational performance, Mari activates the collapsing of time through repetition of action as a reflection and reexamination of collective mental health. For their live open studios performance, Mari will alter sound and video elements from both residencies to create an ambient, immersive meditation room leaving space for audience members to contemplate ideas such as duality (environment/psyche), shadow work, atrophy v. sustainability, escapism, control, invisibility and becoming-new.

Toisha Tucker: undrowned (water/whale piece)

Participatory Art Piece

4pm-5pm

Using Undrowned Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs as a guide, undrowned (water/whale piece) will be a collective participatory action lasting approximately one hour. We will speak of our personal historical waterways, read specific passages from Undrowned, walk to a shore point on Governors Island and collectively return "embodied" water into the water system. Individuals would ideally bring water from their homes, but if they are unable to do so water will be provided.