Thursday, August 28, 8pm (Rain Date, August 29th)
Admission free, bring a lawn chair or blanket
NYACK, NEW YORK — A fleet of seven intricately crafted boats fashioned out of scrap wood and other salvaged materials, as they sail down the Hudson River from Troy, NY to Deitch Studios in Long Island City, Queens , will serve as the site for a live theatrical and musical performance at Nyack’s Memorial Park. This event is presented in collaboration with The Friends of the Nyacks, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established in 1974 for the betterment of the Nyacks.
The fleet, known as the ‘€œSwimming Cities of Switchback Sea,’€ was handcrafted by the international Artist SWOON, whose work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum.
Suitable for all ages, the performance, guided by OBIE award-winning playwright Lisa D’Amour, will be delivered from the decks of the vessels and the banks of the river. The crew of the rafts tells tales of the possible myths that might surround the vessels, the crew and the journey. Live music will also serve as an integral part of the performance.
Each raft is powered with alternative energy sources, including bio-fuels and solar power. SWOON’s larger-than-life “invented landscape” installation at Deitch Studios will receive the fleet September 7. The show opens to the public that day.
SWOON is a Brooklyn-based street artist who creates life-sized portraits of people she meets, using woodcut block prints and paper cutouts. SWOON’s galleries are city walls, often in the environments that inspired the prints. Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea is SWOON’s second solo exhibition with Deitch Projects. Inspired by influences ranging from German Expressionist wood block prints to Indonesian shadow puppets, SWOON is a master of using cut paper to play with positive and negative space to create conceptually driven explorations of urban street environments.
In the summer of 2006, SWOON and the Miss Rockaway Armada launched a similar project on the Mississippi river. The project was covered by dozens of local newspapers, radio, and television stations, and was featured in The New York Times and a number other national publications. The rafts — made out of recycled materials from New York City, New Orleans and San Francisco — floated for two summers and traveled approximately 800 river miles. More information appears at www.missrockaway.org.
‘€œSwimming Cities of Switchback Sea’€ is a two-part exhibit merging SWOON’s newest portraits, found objects of urban decay and a sculptural floating city. Please see the website www.switchbacksea.org for more tour dates. ‘€œSwimming Cities’€ will also stop in Troy, Albany, Kingston and Croton on its Hudson River journey.
For information on SWOON and Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea, contact A’yen Tran at ayen@switchbacksea.org. Deitch Studios is located at 4-40 44th Drive, Long Island City, NY. For information on the Nyack performance, contact Friends of the Nyacks, www.friendsofthenyacks.org, at 845-358-4973. Check www.friendsofthenyacks.org for any rain postponement on August 28 after 4 P.M.
