UPCOMING EVENTS
Wallkill Futures Exhibition
Friday, July 17- Saturday, August 22
Unison Arts, 9 Paradies Lane, New Paltz
Opening reception Friday, July 17, 5-7pm
Open Thursday, Friday, & Saturdays, 1-5, and by appointment.
Power Objects & (Im)Possible Demands: A Wallkill Ritual
Saturday, July 18, 10:30-11:30am
Sojourner Truth Park, New Paltz
A ritual to offer a power object (created in a June workshop) to the river in a gesture of collective intention and possibility. Each object will flow through the Wallkill to the Rondout, the Hudson, the Atlantic, and beyond, summoning the unseen forces that encircle the planet. With artist Nancy Nowacek.
Liquid Future video creation workshops
Saturday, July 18, 1pm - 4pm
Unison Arts, 9 Paradies Lane, New Paltz
Join a collective video project to imagine the Wallkill River in the future!
What does the Wallkill River look like 50 years from now, 100 years from now, 1000 years from now, after climate change? Artist Lize Mogel invites you to imagine fantastic scenarios about the social, environmental, and political future of the Wallkill River, and to create short videos enacting those speculative futures in, on, and around the river. The videos will be part of a community-created artwork for the Wallkill Futures exhibition at Unison Arts in New Paltz this summer.
During these 3 hour workshops on July 11 and July 18th, we’ll make videos from start to finish. We'll brainstorm ideas, write outlines, make costumes and props, and do some filming! No experience necessary.
Bring: your ideas and your smartphone (or other kind of video camera). Materials, costumes, snacks & drinks provided.
Selected videos will be shown as part of the Wallkill Futures exhibition at Unison (opening July 17), in a special screening on August 22, and in future exhibitions & screenings
RSVP for Liquid Futures workshop
Listening to the Wallkill River : A Sonic Paddle & Performance
Saturday, August 15, 5-7:30pm
Join artist sTo Len and the Wallkill River Watershed Alliance for a paddle on the Wallkill River, culminating in collaborative sound art performance. Each participant will keep a mental listening journal while paddling, focusing their attention on consciously listening to the entire field of sound in their surroundings. We will convene for an interactive sound performance by sTo Len that uses ambient sounds captured along the river as the basis for a live sound collage. Bring Your Own Boat, or rental available. Details and RSVP here.
Liquid Futures Screening
Saturday, August 22
Join artist Lize Mogel for a screening of the futuristic videos created during the Wallkill Futures exhibition. Please check back for details!
More events are being planned, please check back for a full schedule, or follow us on Instagram for updates.
PAST EVENTS
Liquid Future video creation workshops
Saturday, July 11, 10am-1pm & Saturday, July 18, 1pm - 4pmPower Object Sculpture workshop
June 13, Unison Arts, 9 Paradies Lane, New PaltzInspired by ancient rituals and contemporary political unrest, this workshop invites participants to sculpt small clay objects that represent a need or desire for transformative change, working in kinship with the Wallkill River and the more-than-human world.
Each sculpture will be molded in Wallkill River ice to create a power object.
On July 18, a procession will lead people to the Wallkill, where they can cast a power object into the river in a gesture of collective intention and possibility. Each object will flow through the Wallkill to the Rondout, the Hudson, the Atlantic, and beyond, summoning the unseen forces that encircle the planet.
No prior experience is needed—only a deep desire for change.
Participation in the July 18 event is optional. Sculptures will be available to take home after July 17.
Led by artist Nancy Nowacek with MJ Nusbaum
The river remembers every choice we make
June 14, Sojourner Truth Park, New PaltzAs part of the New Paltz Regatta, members of the ecological design collective Spurse (Matthew Friday & Ian Kerr in collaboration with Carolann Paszek) will host a natural dyeing workshop to build biodegradable origami boats that will carry seeds selected to stabilize eroded riverbeds.
Future Waters Commons reimagines rivers as shared ecological commons and sites of collective learning. Using a repurposed boat as a floating research platform and classroom, the project brings students, artists, educators, and community members into direct engagement with the Wallkill river through storytelling, creative practice, and ecological exploration. The boat will serve as a centerpiece for public engagement during the New Paltz Regatta and upcoming events in Kingston.
Floating Treatment Wetland Design / Build / Install Workshop
May 16, DeJoux House, New Paltz
May 23, Nyquist-Harcourt Wildlife Sanctuary, with Wallkill Valley Land Trust
Learn to design, build, and install floating treatment wetlands with locally available and inexpensive biomaterials for water stewardship! With artist collective FICTILIS.
Friends and stewards of the Wallkill River and New Paltz neighbors are invited to join this free workshop to learn about the ecological benefits of Floating Treatment Wetlands, and build and install a series of prototypes in local water bodies. Led by FICTILIS studio, the workshop will cover materials, tools, plant species,water testing, and best management practices, equipping participants with the knowledge and hands-on skills to create their own FTWs for the waters they steward.
Floating Treatment Wetlands are small raft-like buoyant structures used for mitigating nutrient and chemical pollution in waterways through root and microbial uptake, mitigating algae and harmful bacteria, turning nutrients to usable and sequestrable biomass, as well as providing wildlife habitat and a self-watering growing medium for native sedges, willow, and other species for use in riparian restoration planting. We are studying locally-sourced, low-cost designs for scalable FTW applications in HAB prevention, stormwater and wastewater pollution, and pre-and post-treatment of agricultural irrigation and runoff, and other remediation of rural and urban waters.