Governors Island -
Summer 2026
Noo Arts at Governors Island - Summer 2026
We are beyond excited to announce that Noo Arts is joining the prestigious Governors Island Arts program for the very first time in 2026, opening a new seasonal art house on Governors Island on 404A Colonels Row. From May through October 2026, our house becomes a vibrant gathering place for art, experimentation, ecology, performance, and community.
Set inside one of the Island’s historic houses, the Noo Arts space will host multidisciplinary exhibitions, artist residencies, performances, music, installations, workshops, and spontaneous encounters throughout the summer season. As part of our 2026 theme WE ARE NATURE: Transformation Stories, we invite visitors to experience art as a living, evolving dialogue between people, place, and planet.
Open Every Weekend
Our house is open to the public every Saturday and Sunday from 11 AM to 5 PM throughout the season, May – October 2026.
Come explore open studios, meet resident artists, discover works in progress, and spend the day immersed in creative energy on Governors Island.
Monthly Open House Events
Every third Saturday of the month, Noo Arts presents a special Open House celebration from 11 AM to 5 PM, featuring:
Vernissages and exhibitions
Live performances
Experimental music and sound art
Artist talks
Workshops
Installations and interdisciplinary happenings
Community, and unexpected encounters
These monthly gatherings are designed as immersive cultural afternoons where artists, audiences, and the Island itself come together in an atmosphere of curiosity, exchange, and celebration.
Join Us
Whether you are visiting for a ferry ride, a day in nature, or a deep dive into New York’s contemporary art scene, we warmly invite you to step into the world of Noo Arts on Governors Island this summer.
Come wander, connect, celebrate, and experience a new home for experimental art in New York City.
Season runs May to October 2026.
Open weekends, 11am to 5pm.
Monthly Open House events every third Saturday, 11am to 5pm.
Contact
For program inquiries, collaborations, artistic research projects, press, or artist participation related to the Noo Arts Governors Island residency and public programming, please contact Elena Greta Falcini, Chief Program Director. Elena is a visual artist and curator whose interdisciplinary practice bridges sculpture, science, and contemporary art, bringing a dynamic and visionary approach to the 2026 Governors Island season.
Email: elena.falcini@nooarts.org
Artist in residence at Noo Arts House on Governors Island –
Phase 1: May - July
Roni Aviv
Roni Aviv is a photographer and educator living in Brooklyn, New York. Aviv works with photography, text, and mark making to give form to a psychological space of re-processing experiences. She holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University.
Recent solo exhibitions include CEPA Gallery, NY (2025) and Real Art Ways, CT (2023). Recent group exhibitions include Voltz Clarke Gallery, NY, The Bronx Museum, NY, Center for Book Arts, NY, Longwood Art Gallery, NY, and The Jewish Museum, NY. Aviv is a grant recipient of Artis Contemporary (2025, 2021) and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2024). Residencies and fellowships include Mildreds Lane (2019), NARS Foundation (2021), Center for Book Arts NY (2022), AIM Bronx Museum (2023), Centrum (2024), ProjectArt (2024-25), Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts (2025), and Ellis-Beauregard Foundation (2026).
Aviv is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College and College of Staten Island, as well as a teaching artist with Josephine Herrick Project, Creative Aging NYPL, and the International Center of Photography - ICP.
Website: roniaviv.com
Sally Beauty Twin
Painting, Sculpture, Costume, Performance
Sally Beauti Twin has been a community activist and artist in Brooklyn and Queens since departing a career as an epidemiologist a decade ago. She has co-organized and co-directed many community organizations. Her art has been shown at Mizuma and Kips, Tomato Mouse, Stephen Street, LMCC, Flux Factory, Art Crawl Harlem, 7 Belvidere, Bullet Space, Woodbine, Shaker Museum, Spring/Break, 14C, DuYe Moves and more.
Healing color and detailed paintings predominate Sally's art. But it's increasingly focused on parades with ethereal music, weeks of free workshops and ecological discussion groups. All materials are upcycled from discards. Solar charged batteries run the lights, amplifiers and projectors. Born in New Orleans to a family that started a giant annual parade, in the past four years she has made eight NYC art parades - almost all on Governors Island with a focus on its native species. Her next is the 3rd Saturday in August '26.
Website: sallybeautitwin.cargo.site
Anahita Bagheri
Artist Statement:
My work explores the social, cultural, and political symbols of flowers and their historical appearance in Islamic art through Arabesque and Persian mythology that centers on nature. My practice encompasses sculptures, artist books, and multimedia installations, and navigates between abstraction and representation. My sculptures reverse the 2D tradition of arabesque into contemporary 3D existences. I cover a base of steel or wood with handmade paper paste and then paint on it. I create bodily forms, the base acts as the spine, and layers of painted, soft or rough, wounded paper paste as the skin. I use handmade paper for its historical use in lacquered artifacts across SWANA. I reclaim and subvert this material beyond its time and purpose to make work confronting the oppressive states and policies I lived under. I make sharp flowers. The sharpness is a statement of agency and defiance. Flowers are often seen as feminine and delicate (many femme names in Iran are those of flowers). My flowers regain their power through their dangerous edges and become symbols of active resistance. By merging historic and contemporary, beauty and violence, I create artworks to poetically explore resistance to systems of oppression.
Website: anahitabagheri.com
Agnes Lin
Artist Statement:
My name is Agnes Lin (she/ her) and I am a multidisciplinary artist working and living in Brooklyn. I was born and raised in San Diego and I received a BA in Art and a BA in Art History from UCLA in 2023. My sculptures, made from natural and foraged materials, are a connection between the emotions stored in my body, life cycles and climate catastrophe.
Currently, I am making sculptures from seaweed bioplastics draped and adhered to wire armatures. These often outdoor installed sculptures are memorials made to grieve our catastrophically changing environments. The seaweed itself cracks and biodegrades over time, mirroring the impermanence of life and the impermanence of our environment. For me, memories are stored in my material reality and in my physical experiences. For example, for my piece Inheritance I created an installation of cyanotype photographs employing my grandfather's Chinese brushtroke style to contemplate diaspora. The image, literally activated by the sunrays of her home state, serves as a metaphor for the way that the same landscape has also given life to her family and shaped her upbringing. In the installation and collaboration with Edward Rivas titled Modern Interpretation of Purgatory (2024) I laboriously make my own paper out of the iconic yet destructively invasive Californian Eucalyptus to meditate on the transition between life and death. The materiality of my work creates a feedback loop, imbuing it with rhizomatic meaning. Through this process, I ask: how can art intervene in existing life cycles and reshape our relationships with, and memories of, the ecosystems we inhabit?
Website: agnesmlin.com
Further guest artists and projects involved:
Jonah King
Honey Fungus, 9-minute interactive VR experience led by a queer mycelial guide (permanent installation season long)
Guided by a queer, sentient mycelial entity, users navigate interactive vignettes where sensory actions shape the environment and AI-generated poetic spores reveal the Earth’s hidden vitality. Rooted in queer ecology and post-humanist thought, the project challenges boundaries between human and non-human life, exploring intimacy, identity, and ecological responsibility. Through VR embodiment, participants shrink through fungal layers, merging with the environment in a radical meditation on relationality, resilience, and stewardship.
Honey Fungus Website: www.honeyfungusvr.com
Jonah King Website: jonahking.com
Michael McLoughlin
Welcome to the Island; Well Done, Everyone, Site-specific, spatial audio artwork
Welcome to the Island; Well Done, Everyone is a site-specific, spatial audio artwork developed in situ. The piece integrates sound, drawing, and social interaction, exploring migration cycles and connectivity across continents. Through a compelling analogy between the journeys of migratory birds and migrant people, the work raises urgent environmental and socio-political questions while inviting visitors to reflect on the interconnectedness of all systems—flora, fauna, and humans alike. Michael’s installation is on view for one month, offering visitors an ongoing experience of interaction, observation, and contemplation.
Website: mmcloughlin.org
Federica Patera, Andrea Sbra Perego, Jacopo Arrighi, Florence Benichou
After Black:
After Black is a multi-part performance combining live-generated video, live music, and dance. It traces the emergence of a new screen environment — one without color. The visual and sonic environments are both created live, unfolding in real time in dialogue with the performer's presence and movement.
The only element that remains outside this environment is a human presence: a three-dimensional figure of whom we perceive only the shadow, and who seeks to enter and interact with this world, gradually coming to believe it can inhabit— and ultimately govern - it.
This impulse becomes so strong that the figure begins to generate other versions of itself, which accumulate across the screen like puppets. It continues to believe in this interaction until no space remains within what appears dimensionless, and the new environment ultimately collapses in on it, ready to begin again alone, as nature does.
The work unfolds as both a condemnation of the human drive for control and a eulogy to life's capacity for regeneration. In this sense, the performance becomes a meditation on self-recreation - physical, spiritual, and intellectual - echoing the artist's own process of continual transformation and rebirth.
Websites: pateraperego.com | yugenpunk.cargo.site
Willow Gatewood
Biosonificaton sound performance
Willow is an environmental scientist, interdisciplinary artist, and storyteller from the US. New media, sound, and performance weave science, gender and social issues with an autobiographical exploration of nature, and it is their passion to inspire reverence for the more-than-human realm. Their research practice explores relational technologies, ecologicizing AI, and living systems as models forconstructed environments and regenerative societies.
Willow's work has been featured in publications including Ambient Receiver | Journal of Creative Ecologies, Grand | The Journal of One Grand Books, and the Rachel Carson Council's website, among othersand they have performed at festivals including Earth Celebrations Ecological City, NYC, Scranton Fringe, Deep Water Literary Festival ('22,'23, and '24), and at the MonViso Institute in Ostana, Italy. As educator-in-residence with Global Writes, they teach new media and sound through the lens of the more-than-human to fourth grade, and independently lead workshops in environmental art and biological imagination.
Notes on Biosonificaton:
Biosonification involves turning biological processes within organisms into music or sound. Electrodes and a midi-data biosonification device convert changes in micro-conductivity in plants and fungi to midi notes, which "play" digital instruments. Willow's interest in biosonification lies both in producing rich sonic landscapes that intrigue and connect viewers to the world around them and as a novel method for researching processes that influence micro-conductivity, including ion transport, water transport, and electrical activity in the body of the organism.
Alan Long
London born artist Alan has lived and worked in Hamburg, Germany since July 2020.
Alan’s artistic journey is characterised by a dynamic exploration of form and medium, where each piece is meticulously crafted to encapsulate its conceptual essence. Through experimentation and adaptation, he seamlessly transitions between mediums, ensuring that his work remains true to its foundational solidity while evolving in captivating newdirections. Confident in his embrace of simplicity, Alan deftly navigates intangible themes such as emotions, feelings, and relationships, imbuing his creations with unexpected depth and resonance. His approachinvolves a delicate balance of reduction and removal, where techniques of subtraction unveil layers of meaning beneath the surface. By eschewing traditional methods of layering and addition, Alan uncoversbeauty and hidden significance, emphasising depth and richness in his work.
His artistic repertoire spans a diverse array of mediums, each offering a unique avenue to explore abstract forms. As boundaries blur between the physical and digital realms, he embraces emerging technologies, incorporating augmented reality to augment and elevate his artistic vision. With an inherent curiosity for the intersection of art and technology, Alan explores the intriguing possibilities of digital expression while remaining rooted in the tangible allure of traditional artistry.
Website: alanlong.art
Nathaniel and Janelle Roots - T.V.C
Tribe and Vibe Collection is a community-centered organization focused on sustainability education, indoor food production, and environmental engagement through hands-on learning experiences.
From now through October, Tribe and Vibe Collection’s Indoor Sustainable Food Growing Program will partner with Noo Arts at Governors Island to transform a rustic kitchen space into an interactive educational hub for indoor gardening. Utilizing hydroponic growing techniques, the space will feature indoor food-growing systems, workshops, and harvesting events, all designed to empower and reconnect people with food and sustainability.
Throughout the season, visitors will have the opportunity to participate in hands-on hydroponic gardening workshops and learn how to grow vegetables, herbs, and flowers indoors. The project blends sustainability, education, art, and community engagement into a living growing space designed to inspire curiosity, creativity, and knowledge.
Join the Tribe @tribeandvibecollection
OPEN CALL
Studio Residency 2026
Submission deadline: March 16, 2026 | All applicants notified by early April
OPEN CALL | WE ARE NATURE
Transformation Stories
Artist Residency 2026 – Noo Arts @ Governors Island, NYC
Opportunity Type: Call for Entry / Open Call
Disciplines: Interdisciplinary/Hybrid, Visual Arts, Performance, Sound, Installation, Social Practice
Description
Noosphere Arts, aka Noo Arts, invites NYC-based artists to apply for a rent-free studio residency as part of WE ARE NATURE: Transformation Stories taking place May-October 2026 at our art house on Governors Island.
WE ARE NATURE is our annual summer series of multidisciplinary experiences at the intersection of arts and eco-awareness. For 2026, we expand from our Brooklyn rooftops to Governors Island: across performances, exhibitions, workshops, and residencies, we explore transformation as an ecological process, urban shift, social change, and artistic evolution.
Selected artists receive a private studio workspace in this unique historical site for three months. The residency is designed as a working studio program supporting research, experimentation, and production, as well as monthly open studios/public presentations.
The program is divided into two phases:
Phase 1 (May–July 2026):
Subtopics: Nature, Material Composites, and Metamorphoses, with an emphasis on artistic research. For this phase, we encourage proposals that investigate ecological processes, hybrid materials, and states of transition, foregrounding experimentation, process-based inquiry, and material exploration as central components of the work.
Phase 2 (August–October 2026):
Subtopics: Rooted in Governors Island’s past as a military base, the theme Monuments, Nature, and Transformation asks what a monument means today and what function it serves in a time shaped by ecological change, shifting power, and evolving collective memory. What do we choose to honor, and what remains as social, cultural, and ecological values shift over time?
Every third Saturday (May 16, June 20, July 17, August 15, September 19, October 17), we host public events, including open studios, performances, installations, lectures, and experimental formats.
Resident Artists Must:
Be NYC-based (during the time of residency)
Actively use their studio
Be present 10am–6pm every third Saturday for public engagement
Please note: Studios have no running water; nearby communal facilities are available. Overnight stays are not permitted.
We expect artists to engage openly and respectfully with the residency community and environment on Governors Island, working mindfully across race, gender, class, and ecology, and fostering a collegial, self-directed, and collaborative spirit grounded in mutual respect.
How to Apply
~To apply for free studio space, submit one PDF (max. 10 MB) including:
Contact data, preferred phase (1 or 2), and optional demographic info (race, gender, age, social background)
Artist Statement (max. 300 words)
Motivation (max. 300 words)
Project Proposal (max. 500 words)
Portfolio (5–10 works)
CV/Artist Bio (max. 2 pages)
~We also welcome proposals from artists seeking to present during public events without studio space. For such presentations, applicants only need to submit 1) Artist Bio with Contact Info, and 2) Project Proposal with links and available dates.
Please name your PDF in the following format:
~ For studio residencies:
STUDIO PHASE [followed by 1 or 2 for your desired period]_ Your Last Name_First Name_WAN26
~ For Open House presentations only:
PRESENTATION_Your Last Name_Your First Name_WAN26