Governors Island Ice Sculpture Show

Governors Island Arts

Feb 7, 2026

12-3PM

Governors Island - Governors Island - Colonels Row Green

Gov­er­nors Island Arts presents the fifth annu­al Gov­er­nors Island Ice Sculp­ture Show on Feb­ru­ary 7, 2026. Ten artists will be paired with a pro­fes­sion­al ice carv­er from Okamo­to Stu­dio dur­ing the free pub­lic event, where vis­i­tors are invit­ed to wit­ness this real-time ice carv­ing. The Ice Sculp­ture Show will also fea­ture ice carv­ing work­shops from Okamo­to Stu­dio, a DJ set from Miss Ali­cia with sound by Kar­lala Soundsys­tem, and more activ­i­ties for vis­i­tors. Mak­i­na Café will be open in Colonels Row along­side addi­tion­al food trucks with win­ter-themed treats. 

Meet the Participants:

• Takashi Hara­da and Kae Sato (@studiotakashiharada): ​“Trans­bound­ary” – This design emu­lates the wild beta fish that live in the great Mekong Riv­er, evok­ing the move­ment and ener­gy of the nat­ur­al world. 

• Rhea Mar­men­ti­ni (@rheamarmentini): ​“The Free­thinker” – This design address­es real­i­ty through cre­ative think­ing with a col­lec­tion of stacked spheres that ebb and flow togeth­er, rep­re­sent­ing the idea as an ephemer­al and chang­ing concept.

• Cath­leen Luo (@catluo27.art): ​“Con­ver­gence Deity” – This design explores move­ment as both phys­i­cal motion and col­lec­tive change, with the form of human hands sym­bol­iz­ing the human abil­i­ty to take action that can make and remake the world. 

• Kris Thomas (@kristhomas.art): ​“Flight of the Yel­low-crowned Night Heron” –Depict­ing a bird in flight, this work aims to high­light the diverse ecosys­tem of Gov­er­nors Island and New York Har­bor, and the impor­tance of the work done on the Island to pro­tect and restore ecosystems. 

• Lizzy Chemel (@lil_s0uth): ​“Sacral Col­umn” – This ice design depicts the ver­te­bra from the spine of a hump­back whale, which serves as both the locus of move­ment and a rem­nant from a mam­malian ancestor.

• Zyia Zhang, Kir­il Bejoulev, Elias Grif­fin, Michael Luck Schnei­der (@volvoxlabs): ​“Hybrid Bio­ta” – This design explores move­ment through the chore­og­ra­phy of a robot­ic arm carv­ing ice, which will shape the block in ges­tures unique to the machine. The result­ing work is both process and per­for­mance, becom­ing a kinet­ic sculp­ture in its own right. 

• Sal­vador Gomes da Sil­va Fil­ho (@salvadorgomesart): ​“Not Mov­ing Back­ward” – This design explores the unset­tling beau­ty of the human body through a sculp­tur­al tor­so with its head turned back­ward, ques­tion­ing the notion that mov­ing back­ward is inher­ent­ly com­fort­able or unproductive. 

• Kari­na Man­ta (@karinamanta): ​“Busk­ing Stage” – This design cre­ates a phys­i­cal venue where a fig­ure skater will debut a per­for­mance. Busk­ing plays an inte­gral role in the cul­ture of New York City; after the skater per­forms, the sculp­ture will become a phys­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of their move­ments before melt­ing away.

• Wei Xiong, Shan­shan Zhang (@xiongweiii_studio): ​“The Birth of Us” – This design, based on the clas­sic image of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, replaces the god­dess with a human baby and replaces the scal­lop shells with oys­ter shells to indi­cate the char­ac­ter­is­tics of Gov­er­nors Island and New York Harbor. 

• David Green (@dgreenco): ​“Unti­tled” – The same way a sculp­ture of a gal­lop­ing horse reflects move­ment frozen in time, this design of a break­ing wave reflects water frozen into ice. As it melts, it will give the impres­sion of the wave com­plet­ing its cycle — there­by unfreez­ing time. 

Rain date: Feb­ru­ary 8, 2025