2020 : WALKING THE EDGE
New York City is defined by its waterways but New Yorkers may see our city as more land than water.
Walking the Edge is a joint project of Culture Push, Works on Water and New York City Department of City Planning. Walking the Edge invites New Yorkers to reconnect to the diversity of the city’s shorelines and have a voice in the city planning process. Take a virtual or actual walk to your nearest waterfront, your closest edge. What is your waterfront? How do you get there? Have you ever walked there? Look on a local map and trace a path from your home to your nearest waterfront. Have you walked this path before? What is the waterfront? Send us your response by tagging us on Instagram, @works_on_water and @nycwaterfront or using the hashtag #WalkingTheEdgeNYC It can be a photo, a screenshot, a short video, a bit of text, or anything else collected along your journey.
2021 : TENDING THE EDGE
Caring for the NYC coastline and its communities, now and in the future.
This spring, as the city considers who will become our next mayor and we come face to face with our own future, NYC Department of City Planning (DCP), Culture Push (CP), and Works on Water (WoW), have come together, with the support of the Mayor's Office for Cultural Affairs to consider how we will collectively tend to the edges of our vulnerable coastal archipelago.
Artists from across the five boroughs, who each have deep roots in New York City’s coastal communities, will spend the next two months with the water’s edge, offering points of engagement and weaving relationships across the shoreline, through districts, wetlands, rivers, and boroughs, all the way to city hall.
The artists act as connective tissue, mediators, instigators, stewards and translators as they ask:
“What is your story with water?” “How do you care for the water?” “How does it help you care for yourself?” — Ella Mahoney
“How does the urban ear attune itself to the New York waterfront?” — Mayfield Brooks
“How do we, as interabled bodies, make our ways to the water’s edge?” — Zoey Hart
“What does Sunny Day Flooding in the Rockaways say about our future and how will it affect you?" — Sarah Cameron Sunde
“How do our efforts today play out in 2050? What edge will be left to tend?” — Sunk Shore
Tending the Edge coincides, intentionally, with the forthcoming primary election and the release of the next Comprehensive Waterfront Plan (CWP) which will define the city’s waterfront goals for the next ten years. Collectively, Tending the Edgeemphasizes that the CWP is not just a document, but a reflection of our lived experiences and aspirations and aims to bring the CWP into the public discourse during this critical moment. Most importantly, we are asking you - as a leader in the city, to act with urgency, to uphold the CWP and to prioritize issues of climate adaptation and resiliency planning.