THE ARTS CENTER AT GOVERNORS ISLAND
SET TO OPEN TO THE PUBLIC MAY 28 WITH EXHIBITIONS BY AMY KHOSHBIN & JENNIFER KHOSHBIN, ELISSA BLOUNT-MOORHEAD & BRADFORD YOUNG, SIMON BENJAMIN

AMY KHOSHBIN & JENNIFER KHOSHBIN: SUN SEEKERS

ELISSA BLOUNT-MOORHEAD & BRADFORD YOUNG: BACK
AND SONG

SIMON BENJAMIN: PILLARS

ADDITIONAL PUBLIC PROGRAMMING TO BE ANNOUNCED

ALL EVENTS AND PROGRAMMING ARE FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME

Today the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) is pleased to announce that The Arts Center at Governors Island—the first year-round, permanent home for the arts on Governors Island—will re-open to the public on May 28 with Sun Seekers, a new site-specific exhibition with performances by Amy Khoshbin & Jennifer Khoshbin; the first New York City presentation of Back and Song, a four-channel video installation by Elissa Blount-Moorhead & Bradford Young; and the first U.S. installation of Pillars, a participatory sculpture installation by Simon Benjamin. Exhibitions will run through October 30, with additional public programs to be announced. All programming and events at The Arts Center are free and open to the public, and all are welcome. Please see below for information on each of the exhibitions.

This season’s Arts Center exhibitions center around ideas of healing, offering audiences a range of perspectives related to how we manage our experiences—both individual and collective—and how we might find paths of recovery.

Conceived by LMCC as a creative gathering space for artists and the public, The Arts Center at Governors Island is located within the Governors Island Historic District, just minutes away from Manhattan by ferry. It features 40,000 square feet of space dedicated to public performances, exhibitions and artist residencies, as well as multiple visual and performing arts studios and a cafe. Artists are in residence year-round, with public programming taking place from May through the end of October.

As a welcoming hub for working artists and community engagement, The Arts Center hosts a broad range of events to convene artists and the public in an ongoing exchange of ideas and creative practice. Public programming will be announced in the coming month, including signature Open Studios events and the return of LMCC’s popular monthly Take Care series, a participatory workshop program that offers different approaches to the idea of caretaking, spearheaded by artists and other creative practitioners.

“We are thrilled to present three distinct exhibitions that address a range of interpretations of ‘healing,’ and we encourage everyone to visit The Arts Center and find what resonates with them in these projects,” said Jess Van Nostrand, LMCC’s Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs.

“The exhibitions at The Arts Center illuminate the richness of the theme of healing and its multitude of expressions, as it takes on many different forms and modalities. We see this exemplified in Elissa Blount-Moorhead and Bradford Young’s powerful video installation, which juxtaposes meditative archival and contemporary images of healers and their practices to create a lush narrative of how wellness is nurtured in the Black experience, while inviting viewers to consider from whose perspective the narrative is being told. We are thrilled to present their work at Governors Island and in New York City for the very first time,” said Nanette Nelms, LMCC’s Curator of Back and Song.

“The circumstances of COVID-19 have challenged all of us to be nimble and innovative across many fronts, but LMCC’s commitment to serve, support and connect artists and their communities remains steadfast. It is with great pride, as a result, that we announce the launch of The Arts Center at Governors Island’s third and most ambitious public season, an exciting opportunity for artists and audiences alike to explore creative pathways leading to healing, recovery and sustainability,” said Timur Galen, Chair of LMCC’s Board of Directors.

“LMCC’s Arts Center exemplifies the power of the arts to work as a vehicle to encourage meaningful dialogue about critical social issues and the systems that shape our society,” said NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Laurie Cumbo. “I am overjoyed for the diversity of engaging public programming and discussions centering these incredible artists and their work, as arts and culture continue to propel the revival of New York City and help envision our futures.”

“We are thrilled that Governors Island visitors and the city’s cultural practitioners will be able to engage with issues of equity and sustainability through LMCC’s compelling installations, accessible public programs and vital artist residencies,” said Clare Newman, President and CEO of the Trust for Governors Island. “In 2021, thousands of visitors enjoyed the thought-provoking works presented at The Arts Center at Governors Island. We look forward to welcoming even more this year to experience LMCC’s programs, as well as the Island’s diverse range of public art, cultural and educational programming.”

VISITOR INFORMATION

The Arts Center at Governors Island
110 Andes Rd, New York, NY 10004, Building 110
Google Maps: The Arts Center at Governors Island

May 28–October 30, 2022
Friday–Sunday, 12–6 p.m.

July–August: Summer Friday & Saturdays, 12–7 p.m., Sundays 12–6 p.m.
Open on Memorial Day (May 30), July 4, Labor Day (Sept 5)

The Arts Center at Governors Island is accessible by ferries operating to and from Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. It is a 2-minute walk from the Soissons Landing pier (ferries from Manhattan). For the Governors Island ferry schedule, please visit https://govisland.com/visit-the-island/ferry

COVID-19 Protocols:

At this time, we continue to require face coverings for visitors age 4 and older, regardless of vaccination status. To request an accommodation based on a medical condition or disability, please email Rosemary DeMarco here prior to your visit. LMCC will continue to closely monitor guidelines from Governor Hochul and the CDC as they are released. According to the CDC’s Community Level Guidelines, New York is currently at Community Level Medium.

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Amy Khoshbin & Jennifer Khoshbin
Sun Seekers

Island

May 28–October 30, 2022
Friday–Sunday, 12–6 p.m.

July–August: Summer Friday & Saturdays, 12–7 p.m., Sundays 12–6 p.m.
Open on Memorial Day (May 30), July 4, Labor Day (Sept 5)

Sun Seekers, created by sisters Amy Khoshbin and Jennifer Khoshbin, is a body of immersive installation, sculptural and performance work meant to promote healing through disconnecting with technology and reconnecting with the natural world. Central to it is a sci-fi narrative about an alternate world that maintains a direct correlation to our current experience of constant indoor on-screen life—the Wreck-tangle. The Sun Seekers pursue outdoor spaces filled with light while consuming botanicals to escape the Wreck-tangle, to collectively create a sense of empathy with the environment and to get back in touch with our bodies as a critical act of self-care. Gathering temporary communities together in physical space, the Sun Seekers engage with somatic analog sculptures that awaken senses left untapped in the Wreck-tangle. Over the course of the exhibition, there will be a series of participatory performances led by the Sun Seekers to induct the audience into their world through object-making and durational technology-free somatic experiences both inside the installation and outside in the sun.

Elissa Blount-Moorhead & Bradford Young
Back and Song
Lower Gallery at The Arts Center at Governors Island

May 28–October 30, 2022
Friday–Sunday, 12–6 p.m.
July–August: Summer Friday & Saturdays, 12–7 p.m., Sundays 12–6 p.m.
Open on Memorial Day (May 30), July 4, Labor Day (Sept 5)

Back and Song is a meditative four-channel film and art installation that reflects on how the pursuit of health is at the root of how life, breath, joy and pain manifest in black experience from cradle to grave. The kaleidoscopic installation considers the labor and care provided by generations of Black healers—doctors, nurses, midwives, morticians, therapists and health aides—and their histories of contribution to and resistance from the flawed and discriminatory structures of Western medicine. Working with archivists from around the world—including Elijah Maja of Future Together Lab, Rianna Jade Parker and Hudda Khaireh—Moorhead and Young synthesized images of quotidian Black family life into a time-based archive of expression. Paired with new footage, the archival compilations from across the African diaspora show how music, movement, sound therapy, ritual dance, rest and meditation are brought together as a spectrum of individual and communal pursuits of well-being.

Simon Benjamin
Pillars

Café at The Arts Center at Governors Island

May 28–October 30, 2022
Daily, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

July–August: Summer Friday & Saturdays, 10 a.m.–7 p.m., Sundays 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Open on Memorial Day (May 30), July 4, Labor Day (Sept 5)

LMCC proudly presents the first U.S.-based installation of Pillars by Jamaican-born artist Simon Benjamin. A new iteration of Diorama, an interactive video and installation work first exhibited at the 2017 Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Pillars continues Benjamin’s investigation into the dynamic between people of the African diaspora and their complex relationship with the sea as a site of historical trauma and labor, but also cultural and spiritual significance.

Benjamin’s new work at Governors Island focuses on migration, labor and forms of disembodied care between immigrants and their loved ones in their home countries. Benjamin takes shipping barrels traditionally filled with goods that family members back home depend on and transforms them into viewing portals or dioramas. Glimpsing through these portals, viewers encounter sightlines of U.S. seascapes—as their horizons face the direction of islands in the Caribbean, the vessels become thresholds between disparate localities.

ABOUT AMY KHOSHBIN & JENNIFER KHOSHBIN

Amy Khoshbin is an Iranian-American Brooklyn-based artist. She pushes the formal and conceptual boundaries of artmaking to foster radical social change through performance, social practice, video, collage, rap music, writing and installation. She has shown at venues such as The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Guggenheim Museum, Times Square Arts, Artpace, The High Line, Socrates Sculpture Park, and festivals such as South by Southwest and River to River. She has received residencies at The Watermill Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Anderson Ranch and Banff Centre for the Arts, among others. She has received a NYFA Grant, Franklin Furnace Fund and Rema Hort Mann Grant. She is the current Fellow in Civic Engagement at Pratt Institute. Khoshbin received an MA in New Media Art from New York University and a BA in Film at University of Texas at Austin. She has collaborated with Laurie Anderson, Karen Finley and poet Anne Carson, among others.

Jennifer Khoshbin is a San Antonio artist and curator. Her work often aims to present a detail of the story of human diversity and community. The strength of the work comes from great attention to pictorial detail, seen in her drawings, murals and installations. The guiding inspiration in all Jennifer’s artwork is twofold: the public self and the private self. Her public works are created with a respect to the specific history of the site and its communities of settlers and wayfarers, past and present, human, plant or animal. Her private works are intended to explore personal identities through storytelling. Whether creating intricate personal drawings or large-scale public art pieces, there exists a simple phrase, idea or story worth telling. Jennifer has exhibited works in galleries and museums throughout the United States: Times Square Arts, Artpace, Southwest School of Art and Craft, TX; Blue Star Contemporary, TX; Artpace, TX; The Watermill Center, NY; Rose and Radish Gallery, SF; Bellevue Arts Museum, WA; 360SEE, Chicago; and Tinlark Gallery in LA, among others. Her work has been published and written about widely and has appeared in Newsweek, Readymade, House Beautiful, Glamour and in numerous art and craft books.

ABOUT ELISSA BLOUNT-MOORHEAD

Elissa Blount-Moorhead is an artist exploring the poetics of quotidian Black life. She was awarded the USA Artist and Saul Zaentz Fellowships, Ford Foundation/Just Films/Fellowship, The Baker Award and the Creative Capital Award. She is the creator of fiftyTWO, an episodic dramedy developed at the 2020-21 Sundance Episodic Labs. She is the director of As of A Now, PBS’ Apologue for the Darkest Gods, MTV’s 9 Things, and co-director of Jay Z’s “4:44” and Back And Song with co-director Bradford Young. She has been recognized with the Sundance Institute | Comedy Central Comedy Fellowship, and Adobe Women's Fellowship.

ABOUT BRADFORD YOUNG

Originally from Louisville, KY, Bradford Young, ASC is a cinematographer and visual artist.

His recent film contributions include: Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us; Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA for achievement in cinematography; Ron Howard’s Solo: A Stars Wars Story; Ava DuVernay’s Selma, for which Young was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography in a Motion Picture; JC Chandor’s A Most Violent Year; David Lowrey’s, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Andrew Dosunmu’s Mother of George, both of which won him Sundance U.S. Dramatic Competition Excellence in Cinematography awards (2013). Other films include Pariah, for which he won the 2011 Sundance U.S. Dramatic Competition Excellence in Cinematography award; Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere; Tina Mabry’s Mississippi Damned; Paola Mendoza’s Entre nos and Andrew Dosunmu’s Restless City. Young is also co-founder and CEO of TRIBE 7, a film optics company specializing in customizable lenses and color science for film production. He is a 2014 inductee into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a 2015 inductee into the American Society of Cinematographers.

ABOUT SIMON BENJAMIN

Simon Benjamin is a Jamaican artist and filmmaker, whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses multi-sensory installations, sculptures, video, photographs and printmaking. His practice considers how current realities are shaped by both visible and invisible histories. Using the framework of the sea and coastal space, his current body of work investigates the Caribbean’s complex relationship to trade, ocean travel, import-dominant consumerism, tourism and other neo-colonial relationships imposed by the United States and the West.

His work has been included in documenta 15, Kassel, Germany (2022); Kingston Biennial, National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica (2022); trinidad+tobago film festival, Trinidad and Tobago (2021); NYU Gallatin at Governors Island, New York, NY (2021); The 92nd St. Y, New York, NY (2020); Brooklyn Public Library, New York, NY (2019); Hunter East Harlem Gallery, New York, NY (2019); the Ghetto Biennial, Port Au Prince, Haiti (2018); Jamaica Biennial, National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica (2017); Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA (2019); New Local Space, (NLS) Kingston (2016); and Columbia University, New York, NY (2016). Benjamin will be an Artist-in-Residence at Light Work as well as Baxter St. CCNY in 2022, and has participated in residencies at Lighthouse Works, Fishers Island, NY, Shandaken Projects and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, both on Governors Island in New York.

ABOUT GOVERNORS ISLAND

Governors Island is a 172-acre island in the heart of New York Harbor nestled between Lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn waterfront. Eight minutes from the energy and excitement of the City, the Island is a popular seasonal destination open to the public May 1–October 31. An award-winning new park is complemented by dozens of unique historic buildings, educational and cultural facilities, a rich arts and culture program and a 22-acre National Monument managed by the National Park Service. Looking forward, the Island is envisioned to be accessible year-round, with extraordinary open space, arts and culture, and education and research opportunities focused on climate solutions.

Details regarding Governors Island’s public season will be announced shortly. For more information, visit govisland.org.

ABOUT THE ARTS CENTER AT GOVERNORS ISLAND

Conceived by LMCC as an incubator for creative exploration and a gathering space to engage in dialogue, The Arts Center at Governors Island is the first permanent home for artists and audiences on Governors Island. Year-round Artist Residency programs that provide artists with studio and presenting space to develop their work are featured alongside a broad range of exhibitions and public events that bring artists and audiences together in an exchange of ideas and creative practices. Concurrent to Governors Island’s ambitious plans for addressing climate change and environmental issues in the long-term, LMCC is proud to join in the effort of demonstrating the stake that artists must have in these timely issues. Applicants to The Arts Center’s residency programs may choose to address the thematic anchors of equity and sustainability explicitly or elaborate on the relevance of their own practice and/or projects to them. On the heels of a successful 2021 public season at The Arts Center, LMCC will focus on the principal theme of healing in 2022.

Building 110 at Governors Island was originally built in the 1870s as an ordnance warehouse and later used as military office space. In partnership with the Trust for Governors Island, LMCC re-envisioned the space for 21st-century artists and audiences. The interior renovation, designed by PEI Cobb Freed & Partners and Adamson Associates Architects and engineered by BuroHappold Engineering, features 40,000 square feet of artist studios, galleries, performance and rehearsal spaces and a cafe, and successfully reveals the stunning structure of the historic building while keeping its spaces flexible for a variety of uses.

Awards:

Winner, Cultural Projects, Global Design Awards—The Architecture Community

American Architecture Award—Chicago Athenaeum, 2020

Award of Merit, Cultural/Worship—Engineering News Record New York, 2020

SUPPORTERS

The 2022 season of programming at The Arts Center at Governors Island is made possible, in part, by the Charina Endowment Fund, Howard Gilman Foundation and Con Edison.

LMCC’s Arts Center Residency program is supported, in part, by Cowles Charitable Trust, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust, The Willem de Kooning Foundation, May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc., The Norman & Bettina Roberts Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), Teiger Foundation, Tiger Baron Foundation and YoungArts.

The Arts Center Residency is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

LMCC is also grateful to our many capital supporters. For a list of capital supporters, please visit lmcc.net.

LMCC additionally acknowledges our partnership with the Trust for Governors Island.

ABOUT LOWER MANHATTAN CULTURAL COUNCIL (LMCC)

Founded as Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, LMCC serves, connects and makes space for artists and community. LMCC Serves Artists through:

● Residencies that enable artists to experiment and develop their work and ideas, with professional development, financial training and networking opportunities

● Grant funding to artists that support local/neighborhood projects

● Presentation opportunities that allow artists to share their work and creative process with the public

LMCC Serves Community through:

● Free public programs in Lower Manhattan that activate neighborhoods and bring people together through performances and rich artistic experiences

● Access to artists and the artmaking process to build connections and dialogue between artists and audiences

● Grant funding for neighborhood arts and community-based organizations

Since 1973, LMCC has been the quiet champion for independent artists in New York City and the cultural life force of Lower Manhattan.

For more information please contact Chris Schimpf or Carla Sacks at Sacks & Co., 212.741.1000.

www.lmcc.net