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Ten­ant Spot­light: LMC­C’s Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island

Nov 21, 2019 12:18 pm

Though Gov­er­nors Island is cur­rent­ly closed to the pub­lic until next spring, year-round ten­ants bring hun­dreds of peo­ple to the Island every week­day to work and study in this unique environment. 

One of these year-round ten­ants, LMCC’s Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island, opened this Sep­tem­ber with over 40,000 square feet of spa­cious gal­leries, wel­com­ing activ­i­ty space and ver­sa­tile artist stu­dios. Vis­i­tors perused the exhi­bi­tions at this ren­o­vat­ed for­mer muni­tions ware­house Thurs­days through Sun­days dur­ing the pub­lic sea­son and par­tic­i­pat­ed in a wide vari­ety of pro­grams at the Take Care series every Sat­ur­day. While it waits for vis­i­tors to return next year, LMCC’s Arts Cen­ter is far from dormant. 

Six­teen artists-in-res­i­dence uti­lize the Arts Center’s stu­dio space year-round to work on a vari­ety of projects span­ning visu­al arts and writ­ing, while chore­o­g­ra­phers work on dance pieces in the Arts Center’s prac­tice spaces. The stu­dios, one of which is pro­vid­ed to each artist for free, are open Mon­days through Fri­days for the res­i­dents to use all year. These roomy, light-filled works spaces afford room for their res­i­dents to prac­tice print­mak­ing, videog­ra­phy, sculp­ture, writ­ing, and more, while the envi­ron­ment of the Arts Cen­ter and Gov­er­nors Island itself pro­vide a dis­tinc­tive set­ting for cre­at­ing art. 

“The term ​‘incu­ba­tor’ very much res­onat­ed with us as we envi­sioned what LMCC’s Arts Cen­ter could be in this excit­ing new phase, and ensur­ing that res­i­den­cies were an inte­gral part of its iden­ti­ty feels like a nat­ur­al man­i­fes­ta­tion of that metaphor. It also feels impor­tant to sup­port as many diverse voic­es, artists, and prac­ti­tion­ers through these pro­grams so that we can build a cul­tur­al hub that is true to LMC­C’s mis­sion. Our hope is that through this unique tri­an­gu­la­tion of space, time, and locale afford­ed by LMCC’s Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island, we’re not only serv­ing artists but invit­ing them to help reimag­ine New York City’s cul­tur­al land­scape” — Bora Kim, LMCC Pro­gram Man­ag­er, Artist Residencies

“For near­ly 50 years, LMCC has served, con­nect­ed and made space for artists and com­mu­ni­ty. The expan­sion of LMC­C’s Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island and its res­i­den­cy pro­gram is an incred­i­ble mile­stone for both LMCC and Gov­er­nors Island. LMC­C’s role in con­nect­ing Gov­er­nors Island’s audi­ences to the cre­ative process has grown as well, through pub­lic pro­grams and exhi­bi­tions as well as the sup­port of artists of all dis­ci­plines with oppor­tu­ni­ties to incu­bate and present work that focus­es on ecol­o­gy, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and resilience. We look for­ward to unit­ing artists and com­mu­ni­ties under our roof, an open and gen­er­ous sanc­tu­ary with a view!” — Lili Chopra, LMCC Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Artis­tic Programs

The cur­rent res­i­dent artists, who make up the inau­gur­al cohort of the res­i­den­cy pro­gram, have use of the space until Novem­ber 2020, when a new selec­tion of artists will move in. Vis­i­tors can see works cre­at­ed at LMCC’s Arts Cen­ter dur­ing Open Stu­dios week­ends held peri­od­i­cal­ly in the pub­lic season. 

Read what two of the cur­rent Res­i­dent Artists have to say about their Arts Cen­ter res­i­den­cies below. 

Avi­va Rahmani

What projects are you work­ing on at the Arts Cen­ter?
​“Blued Trees, Black Skies,” is about the ten­sion between fos­sil fuel use and the strug­gle for life on Earth to sur­vive. That will include cre­at­ing a series of 20’x3’ translu­cent ban­ners to sus­pend from groves of trees and branch­es trimmed and paint­ed to be installed prone in the space. The one pic­tured in my stu­dio is a 20’ long mul­ber­ry tree branch. Most of the new paint­ed branch­es will be from the local Eng­lish Plane trees culled at Earth Matter. 

What unique oppor­tu­ni­ties or qual­i­ties does the stu­dio space at the Arts Cen­ter offer?
The most dra­mat­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty is to have the space to work for over a year rather than be con­stant­ly wor­ried about need­ing to leave or move my stu­dio. The cohort of fel­low artists share my con­cerns, mak­ing a con­vivial envi­ron­ment and the LMCC staff cre­ates a sup­port­ive frame to out­reach our work. 

How does hav­ing space at the Arts Cen­ter affect your work or process?

It means I have time and space to not only focus my stu­dio pro­duc­tion but to deeply con­tem­plate each step towards the real­iza­tion of my present project with­out dis­trac­tion. It means vis­i­tors can see and dis­cuss my work in progress with me in a very impres­sive and acces­si­ble venue. It means I can close­ly observe the local trees that inspire me for over a year. 

Has the Arts Cen­ter or Gov­er­nors Island itself inspired any aspects of your work?
The groves of trees, the pres­ence of Earth Mat­ter; the com­plex his­to­ry of the island: trans­form­ing a mil­i­tary base to a cul­tur­al base; the pres­ence of so many oth­er cul­tur­al cen­ters and the view of the riv­er from my stu­dio are all pro­found­ly, imag­i­na­tive­ly mov­ing. The steady stream of sum­mer tourists has giv­en me many ideas about design­ing space for human traf­fic as a dis­creet­ly inform­ing experience. 

Had you been to Gov­er­nors Island before begin­ning your Arts Cen­ter res­i­den­cy?
Once.

Learn more about Avi­va Rah­mani on her web­site.

Hilary Lorenz

What projects are you work­ing on at the Arts Cen­ter?
I am work­ing on mul­ti­ple projects while on GI. My orig­i­nal pro­pos­al to LMCC was inves­ti­gat­ing how water holds the ulti­mate fan­ta­sy of escape; whether by lux­u­ry ship or logs cob­bled togeth­er, water offers pas­sage, trans­for­ma­tion and renew­al. In 2016, I had the priv­i­lege of being fer­ried from Man­hat­tan to Gov­er­nors Island for my first LMCC res­i­den­cy. The trip became a med­i­ta­tion on the water and sparked my quest for boat build­ing, ship­ping lane nav­i­ga­tion, and acces­si­bil­i­ty, not just for trans­porta­tion but phys­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al transformation. 

I became obsessed with the idea of build­ing my own canoe. And liv­ing in Red Hook, I am only a few hun­dred meters from GI. My fan­ta­sy is to carve my own boat to pad­dle back and forth. But for now, I am mak­ing pro­to­types from paper along with numer­ous draw­ings and linoleum block carv­ings of the water. 

Coin­ci­den­tal­ly I was invit­ed by two sep­a­rate cura­tors, one in the US and one in Aus­tralia, to cre­ate an art piece deal­ing with water and con­ser­va­tion. The water piece, and specif­i­cal­ly paper boats, is for an exhi­bi­tion in San Juan, Puer­to Rico. The fragili­ty of the paper boats is sig­nif­i­cant for the island iden­ti­ty, not­ed for resource­ful­ness and respect for the water that defines its edges and bound­aries, not unlike GI. The Aus­tralian work is more spe­cif­ic to the prob­lems of plas­tics in the ocean. Both of these will be paperworks. 

What unique oppor­tu­ni­ties or qual­i­ties does the stu­dio space at the Arts Cen­ter offer?
Num­ber one is year-round access to GI and a com­plete­ly qui­et stu­dio with beau­ti­ful views onto the har­bor. I love the fer­ry ride. I could sim­ply ride the fer­ry back and forth all day long. I ride the fer­ry from Red Hook to Wall Street, then the GI fer­ry. I love being on the water, and hav­ing this oppor­tu­ni­ty allows me to inter­act and expe­ri­ence NYC, my home, in a whole oth­er dimension. 

How does hav­ing space at the Arts Cen­ter affect your work or process?
Hav­ing space at the Arts Cen­ter shows me a whole new way I can approach my work. I get hours of unin­ter­rupt­ed time. It is qui­et. I can watch the weath­er change and the water churn all day long. The view­point from my desk lines up the win­dowsill to the water and it is as if I am on a ship. I feel like I am being rocked by the water’s cur­rents. I am more relaxed and that allows me to be more thought­ful and delve into my work deeper. 

Has the Arts Cen­ter or Gov­er­nors Island itself inspired any aspects of your work?
The ren­o­va­tion of the Arts Cen­ter is spec­tac­u­lar, the gal­leries are gor­geous. I sim­ply love being on the Island. I love the forts, the his­to­ry, and I love run­ning around the Island. I am a per­son of rep­e­ti­tion and I can run pret­ty long dis­tances, so dur­ing my break I take in the whole island by run­ning around it sev­er­al times, just a method­ic, repeat­ing loop. 

Had you been to Gov­er­nors Island before begin­ning your Arts Cen­ter res­i­den­cy?
I have been com­ing to GI since 2006, but only once or twice a sum­mer. Then in 2016 I had my first LMCC res­i­den­cy. I worked there dai­ly from March to June. It com­plete­ly changed my art­work and opened up a whole new world. I made three sig­nif­i­cant friends as we were there dai­ly togeth­er. It was one of my best oppor­tu­ni­ties. I feel tremen­dous­ly lucky to be there now. 

Learn more about Hilary Lorenz on her web­site.