Get in the pool… No Swimsuits Required! Hosted at Hamilton Fish Pool–an Olympic-sized pool and architectural landmark on the Lower East Side–Water Works, a collaboration between Public Art Fund and The Film-Makers’ Cooperative in its first iteration, will explore water as a thematic framework. Conceived as an “expanded cinema” presentation, utilizing multiple projectors and screens, Water Works will feature experimental 16mm and digital films that explore bodies of water, from vast oceans and serene rivers to turbulent seas stirred by ships and quotidian drips from a leaky faucet.

Attendees will step inside the drained pool to encounter a range of moving image works, including cerebral structuralist cinema, hand-processed films tinged with ecocritical politics, and ravishing seascape and landscape works. Creating an experiential atmosphere to showcase the multiplicity of perspectives contained within artists’ visions of water, the films and video artworks will be accompanied by live audio performances by Eli Keszler (Sep 21) and María Chavez (Sep 28).

ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Water Works is a collaboration between Public Art Fund and The Film-Makers’ Cooperative; it is co-curated by Tom Day, Executive Director, NACG/The Film-Makers’ Cooperative and Gabriela López Dena, Associate Curator of Public Practice, Public Art Fund. Water Works will include films by Stan Brakhage, Dietmar Brehm, James Cagle, Mary Helena Clark, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, David Gatten, Helena Gouveia Monteiro, Vincent Grenier, Friedl vom Gröller, Ann Deborah Levy, Abinadi Meza, Youjin Moon, Mary Beth Reed, Dan Perz, Chick Strand, Gao Wei, and Joyce Wieland.

No Swimsuit Required is a series featuring films, performances, and sound installations in New York City public pools during their off-season. Pools and bathhouses have a long history as social spaces to cool off in the height of summer, and an essential part of New York City’s public infrastructure. In 1890, the city had already built fifteen floating baths along the Hudson and East rivers. These provided safe bathing and swimming at the highlight of the industrial era. By the early twentieth century, indoor bathhouses replaced floating baths, offering sanitation facilities for those living in overcrowded tenements. As the city transformed, bathhouses were no longer needed for hygiene purposes, but water continued to provide relief when the weather was hot and unbearable. Eventually, bathhouses, along with newly built outdoor pools from the Works Progress Administration era, became spaces to gather and play during the hottest time of the year. Currently, over fifty outdoor public pools within the five boroughs are utilized for swimming and other leisurely activities between June and early September. They remain inactive for the rest of the year –until now. No Swimsuit Required brings liveliness to these empty pools off-season to celebrate these spaces as vital environments of social interaction.

Additional Public Art Fund fall programs include a Dominos Tournament in celebration of Graft by Edra Soto at Central Park, in partnership with The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, and Artists Talks featuring Cannupa Hanska Luger, Huma Bhabha and Adrienne Elise Tarver at Cooper Union. Learn more at www.publicartfund.org/programs.

DATES AND LOCATION
Hamilton Fish Pool (Lower East Side NYC)
128 Pitt Street, New York, NY 10002

Saturday, September 21 (Eli Keszler; rain date 9/20) from 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Friday, September 27, 2024 (Maria Chavez; rain date 10/4) from 7:00 – 9:00 pm