South Street Seaport Museum Presents Works on Water: A Conversation on Water Art + Maritime Heritage

South Street Seaport Museum announces Works on Water: A Conversation on Water Art and Maritime Heritage, a free event scheduled for Thursday, October 9, 2025 at 6:30pm. For more information, and to preregister, please visit seaportmuseum.org/works-on-water

Join the Seaport Museum and artists Sarah Cameron Sunde, Carolyn Hall, Clarinda Mac Low, and Nancy Nowaceck, representing Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Works on Water 2025 Triennial, for an evening conversation exploring the intersections of maritime heritage and contemporary “Water Art.”

As part of the discussion, the artists will highlight Walking the Edge—a citywide project that invites New Yorkers to collectively walk all 520 miles of the city’s coastline. Framing walking as a creative act, Walking the Edgeencourages participants of all ages and abilities to experience the waterfront with attention, intention, and renewed perspective.

In collaboration with Works on Water, the Seaport Museum has added three contemporary Water Art pieces on view interspersed throughout the Maritime City exhibition as an intervention and reaction to the Museum’s collection. Attendees are invited to view these works beginning at 6pm, before the program starts, or after the conversation until the galleries close at 8pm. The growing genre of Water Art is an environmental art form of the 21st century, exploring themes of access, exploitation, conservation, remediation, and care. Featured artists include Mary Mattingly, Sarah Cameron Sunde, and the Works on Water Art Collective. These works are on loan courtesy of their creators.

A wine reception will follow the program. Preregistration is encouraged. Walk-ups will be accommodated as space allows.

About the Works on Water 2025 Triennial

Works on Water is an experimental organization and triennial exhibition dedicated to artworks, performances, conversations, workshops and site-specific experiences that explore diverse artistic investigation of water in the urban environment. We seek to strengthen and nourish the community of artists working on and with bodies of water and to provide a platform to increase awareness of artists and organizations working on and with the waterways. Made possible with support from the Cultural Development Fund, Invoking the Pause, exhibiting artists, and Works on Water’s partner organizations. worksonwater.org

About Maritime City

The Seaport Museum’s latest exhibition Maritime City highlights how New York City, as we know it today, arose from the sea. Throughout the extensive three-floor exhibition, 540 deliberately-selected objects on view underscore how the city’s identity as a global capital of culture and finance is rooted in its origins as a seaport. By sharing the material culture of New York and its people, the exhibition highlights stories of the working class people employed by ships, shipping lines, and other local industries throughout history, as well as the emigrant workers and immigrant families that came through the port as their first stop in America. seaportmuseum.org/maritime-city

Enjoy More That the Museum Offers

Access to the Maritime City exhibition in A.A. Thomson & Co. located at 213 Water Street is included with this event. Access to the historic ships and introduction galleries at the Seaport Museum is not included with this event. If you would like to explore more that the Museum has to offer, book in advance or ask Museum staff about admission tickets, available Wednesday through Sunday from 11am to 5pm when you check in. Museum admission tickets grant access to the 1885 tall ship Wavertree and 1908 lightship Ambrose at Pier 16 as well as all current exhibitions on view in the introduction galleries inside Schermerhorn Row located at 12 Fulton Street. And, make sure to check out the temporary outdoor exhibition Signs of Origins while it is on view from October 1 through November 30! seaportmuseum.org/admission

About the South Street Seaport Museum

The South Street Seaport Museum, located in the heart of the historic seaport district in New York City, preserves and interprets the history of New York as a great port city. Founded in 1967, the Museum houses an extensive collection of works of art and artifacts, a maritime reference library, exhibition galleries and education spaces, working 19th century print shops, and an active fleet of historic vessels that all work to tell the story of “Where New York Begins.” seaportmuseum.org

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