Name: Second Sundays: September 2023
Start: 2023-09-10
End: 2023-09-10
Location: Pioneer Works

Since 2013, Pioneer Works has hosted Second Sundays, our monthly open house featuring live music, food and workshops that activate our campus in partnership with artists-in-residents and community members in Red Hook. 

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

NYC Cultural Affairs

, explores the shaking body as both a symptom and a cure for psychic distress. The newly commissioned presentation traces the lineage of psychosomatic disorders, from historical concepts of hysteria to contemporary diagnoses of nonepileptic seizures and spirit possession. Developed over nine years of intense conversation and friendship with the poet Ariana Reines, the exhibition comprises interactive videos offering therapeutic movement exercises, and a hallucinatory investigative report that feverishly pursues the cure for hysteria as it uncovers mysteries at Paris’s Salpêtrière Hospital—a site widely regarded as the birthplace of modern neurology and psychology.

Upon entering the exhibition, viewers encounter a hall of eight mirrored monitors, collectively titled 

that riff on the smart fitness mirrors popularized in recent years. The audience’s reflections become superimposed onto the pulsating bodies of somatic practitioners, which include the artist’s own mother, choreographer and Authentic Movement Practitioner Wendy Osserman. The guides appear on screen to demonstrate methodologies such as qigong, holotropic breathwork, Kundalini yoga, and GYROKINESIS® method. Though divergent in their cultural origins, these practices all use movement as vehicles by which individuals can reach euphoric and meditative states. Punctuated by solfeggio healing frequencies—electromagnetic tones reputed to have cellular healing and consciousness raising powers—Laser’s videos prompt viewers to become empathic imitators of the figures on screen.

The instructors on the mirrored monitors appear as apparitions, functioning as a movement chorus that synchronizes with elements in the central film 

(2023). In it, Laser examines various artworks, incidents, and art therapies uncovered at the contemporary Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. The artist searches for clues about the legacy of nineteenth-century hospital director Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, whose medical innovations were informed by his own pursuits in painting, photography, and proto-performance art. Recognized as the forefather of modern neurology, Charcot’s classroom presentations of patients demonstrating fits of hysteria became popular theatrical spectacles, drawing an audience of Parisian socialites along with pupils of his, such as Sigmund Freud; the spectacles also inspired the Surrealist movement, decades later.

Laser’s film links these historical narratives to more contemporary ideas and attitudes within psychotherapy. Filmed in collaboration with French journalist Laura Geisswiller, 

follows a television reportage style, featuring interviews with doctors, historians and dance therapists. These conversations are interwoven with meditative footage that spirals around the sculptures and images of Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, rendering visible the history of hysteria and its continuing influence demonstrated in recent events—including the outbreaks of TikTok ticks spread via social media, non-epileptic seizures in the suburbs of Buffalo, New York, and the convulsive cries issued from the balconies of a locked-down Shanghai.

Gradually, Laser’s cinematic gaze transitions from "objective” journalism to her subjective experience embodying the psychosomatic condition that she set out to study. Delving further into personal essay and auto-fiction, the film arrives at the artist’s suspicion that she has instigated her own hysteria. Laser invites us to question whether her embodiment of shaking is a discharging of individual trauma, or a conjuring of our enraged collective consciousness that compels our bodies to express resistance. She asks: Is hysteria and its current incarnation—the “psychogenic nonepileptic seizure”—a phenomenon of individual maladaptation, or the appropriate social-emotional response of our collective human organism?

To expand on the themes of the exhibition, Pioneer Works will present a new iteration of Scientific Controversies, a signature series created and hosted by astrophysicist and Pioneer Works’s Director of Sciences, Janna Levin. The program, to take place on October 11th, features psychologist Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, who authored the celebrated book 

, and neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda. Laser will also facilitate a participatory workshop that invites viewers to partake in the therapeutic methodologies depicted on screen, as part of Second Sundays in November. Lastly, the Tate Modern in London will present a screening of 

 and host an online participatory program, as part of the Terra Foundation for American Art Series: New Perspectives.

 is a multimedia video and performance based artist from New York City. Her work intervenes in semi-public spaces such as bank vestibules, movie theaters and newsrooms, involving collaborations with actors, surgeons, political strategists and motorcycle gang members. Her recent work explores the efficacy of new age techniques and psychological methods active in both corporate culture and political movements. Laser’s work has been shown at venues such as The Smithsonian American Art Museum (2023); ICA Boston (2023); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2022); Guggenheim Museum, New York (2021); MUDAM The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg (2021); Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2019); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018); Metro Pictures, New York (2018); CAC Brétigny, France (2017); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2017); the Swiss Institute (2016); the Whitney Museum of American Art (2015); MoMA PS1, New York (2010); Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2015); Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (2013) the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany (2013); Lisson Gallery, London (2013); the Performa 11 Biennial, New York (2011). Laser is the recipient of grants from Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation, the Southern Exposure Off-Site Graue Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art. Sternberg Press published her monograph, 

Public Relations / Öffentlichkeitsarbeit

, in conjunction with a solo exhibition at the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Germany (2014). Her work has been critically acclaimed in publications such as 

 is made possible by generous funding from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation. It is also supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

 features cinematography by Laura Geisswiller; video editing by Isaac Goes and Michelle Yoon; sound design by Jared Arnold; musical recordings by GOBBY; Colorist: Nic Seago; Subtitle Translation by Charlotte de Mezamat; interviews with the staff of the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, including neurologist Dr. Martin Catala, psychiatrist Dr. David Cohen, Father Frederic Louzeau, neurologist Dr. Vincent Navarro, dance therapist Svetlana Panova, neurologist Dr. Emmanuel Flamand Roze, and dance therapist France Schott-Billmann; and additional interviews with artist and tai chi instructor Fabrice Brunet, journalist Hélène Combis, librarian and archivist Remi Gaillard, and journalist Virginie Girod. The artist offers special thanks to historian Asti Hustvedt for sharing research, the memory of Dr. Catherine Bouchara, who staged the seminal exhibition 

 at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, the School of Visual Arts MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department for equipment support, and Zhu Miansheng of Ars Asiatica and Emmanuel Roussille for supporting the participation of artist Fabrice Brunet. Additional thanks to Manuel David, Joan Dupont and Vanessa Gould.

 features performances by multidimensional medicine woman and physical therapist Eia Buenconsejo, birth doula Bonu deCaires, somatic acting technique professor Erica Fae, personal trainer and wellness coach Erik Potempa, dancer and massage therapist Cori Kresge, choreographer and Authentic Movement practitioner Wendy Osserman, GYROTONIC® Master Trainer Naoko Moriyama Robbins, and Kundalini yogi and competitive krumper Reuel Crunk Rogers; cinematography by Michelle Yoon; additional camerawork by Isaac Goes, Liz Magic Laser, and Grace Poppe; sound design by Jared Arnold; musical recordings by GOBBY; video editing by Isaac Goes and Michelle Yoon; choreographic consulting by Cori Kresge; and costume design and casting consulting by Felicia Garcia-Rivera. 

Convulsive States

Due to occasional programming, this exhibition will be closed on the following dates:

Liz Magic Laser: Convulsive States

 brings together a selection of artist-in-residence alumni Xin Liu’s recent and ongoing projects. Comprising sculptures, video, virtual reality, and an outdoor installation, the presentation expands upon the artist’s explorations into themes that include space travel, vitality, mutation, and immortality.

As a way of examining humanity’s innate desire to sustain and to perpetuate its species, Xin has created a new series of mixed-media sculptures inspired by biological and medical innovations such as cryonics and egg freezing, each designed to interfere with natural life cycles. Embedded with a cooling mechanism that causes thin layers of frost to appear on its surface, the works also reference scientists’ research into subglacial lakes in Antarctica and ice-covered oceans deep beneath the surface of moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn, where probing devices search for traces of life from ancient and unknown worlds.

(2019-2020), a three-part project comprising a performance conducted in outer space, a two-channel video installation, and a virtual reality experience. Partially realized during Xin’s residency at Pioneer Works, the series centers on the fantastical journey of her wisdom tooth, which traveled aboard the International Space Station before returning to Earth. Carried by a crystalline robotic sculpture engineered by the artist, the tooth metaphorically becomes a newborn entity as it enters an infinite darkness. While the video installation mixes documentary footage with dreamlike imagery of Xin’s performance, the virtual reality component allows viewers to experience the tooth’s journey from a first-hand perspective.

The artist, together with collaborator Lucia Monge, similarly sent potato seeds into Earth’s lower orbit in March 2020, initiating a series titled 

(2020-ongoing). Even though more than four thousand varieties of the root vegetable exist in the world, only eight types are grown commercially in the United States, and only one has been selected by the Chinese National Space Administration to be cultivated in miniature ecosystems sent to the moon. Conceived as a response to the rise of homogeneity both in agriculture and in politics, Xin and Monge’s project casts potatoes as subjects that call for a diversified imagination of what the future can look like, particularly for space exploration in non-colonial terms. A selection of these spacefaring potatoes will be grown and harvested in Pioneer Works’s garden, where the outdoor installation will give way to a dynamic host of educational programming.

Executive producers: Gershon Dublon, Justin Durazzo

Producer: Reese Donohue, Qinya (Jenny) Guo, Jacky Tran, slow immediate LLC

EBIFA Sculpture engineers: Ross McBee, Noah Feehan, Amy Lemaire, Dave Seidman

VR Executive producers: Qinya (Jenny) Guo

VR artists: Kyle Szostek, Nate Turley, Lily Fang

is supported in part by VIVE Arts, as well as public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

was created with support from MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative, Sundance Institute New Frontier Story Lab, D-BOX Technologies, and Bose Corporation. It is additionally in the collection of X Museum and Kadist Foundation.

 (b. 1991, Xinjiang/China) is an artist, performer and engineer whose recent research and interests center on the verticality of space, extraterrestrial explorations and cosmic metabolism. She is the Arts Curator at MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative, a member of the inaugural ONX Studio program founded by the New Museum’s NEW INC and Onassis USA, and also a current artist-in-residence in SETI Institute. Xin is recipient of numerous award, including Porches Chinese Young Artist of the Year 2021, 30 Under 30 Asia, X Museum Triennial Award and the Van Lier Fellowship from Museum of Arts and Design, and has been commissioned by institutions such as M+ Museum (Hong Kong), Ars Electronica (Austria), Rhizome (USA), Media Art Xploration Festival (USA), Onassis Foundation Enter Program (US) and Abandon Normal Devices Festival (UK). An advisor for the LACMA Art + Technology Lab, Xin graduated from MIT Media Lab with a master’s degree in Media Arts and Sciences, after receiving her M.F.A from Rhode Island School of Design and B.E. from Tsinghua University in Beijing.


 is a Peruvian artist whose work explores the ways humans position themselves within the natural world and relate to other living beings, especially plants. For the past 13 years, she has organized 

, a yearly “walking forest” performance that has led to the creation of green spaces in Lima, London, New York, and Paris. Other recent projects include exploring vulnerability through plant respiration, and a "fungi broadcast" about deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon. Monge has shown her work internationally, including at the Queens Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art in Lima, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Ars Electronica, and the Havana and OCAT (Shenzhen) biennales. Her work has been featured in publications such as MoMA’s Uneven Growth, Global Performance Studies, and Eco-Lógicas Latinas, among others. She holds an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA from Universidad Católica del Perú, is a founding member of FIBRA collective, and Assistant Professor of Art at Amherst College.

 is supported in part by VIVE Arts, as well as public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Seedlings and Offsprings

Xin Liu: Seedlings and Offsprings

, the first institutional solo exhibition of artist Jenson Leonard, centers on a titular film that explores the velocity and momentum of Blackness as it relates to the philosophical concept of acceleration—the notion that the only way out of capitalism is through its intensification.

, a spectral Michael Jackson Halloween mask recites a surrealistic quarterly earnings reports. Building on a 2017 essay by artist Aria Dean titled “Notes on Blacceleration,” the short film centers on the ways in which the Black subject grapples with its commodified status within the labor market despite—or, resultant of—its own history as a commodity, stemming back to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Completed during Leonard’s residency at Pioneer Works in 2021, the video utilizes uncanny humor as a mechanism to expose the shared grammars inherent in Afro-pessimism and speculative finance.

Within the exhibition, the film repeats simultaneously across two grids of computer monitors situated on ergonomic desks that flank the gallery, mimicking the workstations that can be found ubiquitously across stock trading floors and financial institutions. Sculptures modeled after computer keyboards and mouses are displayed on the desks, each rendered inoperable by concentric riffs that symbolize the erratic transformations caused by the flows of capital. The appearance of Jackson represents a transmogrification of its own; whereas many have aligned the controversial pop icon’s bleached skin and surgical procedures with Black self-hatred, Leonard positions his bodily modifications as a radical rupture from racial paradigms of being.

In Leonard’s own words, “Workflow is defined as the sequence of industrial, administrative, or other processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion. My film seeks to disabuse notions of completion, whether it be completion of the human, the nation state, or civil society. As Dean notes, Blackness is ‘always already accelerationist’ via its incongruence with Western humanism, a wrench thrown into the locomotive gears of ‘capital and subjecthood.’ Her essay prompts us to look toward the way that the Black has been historically constructed outside of the human, as coterminous with the slave. Slavery therefore represents a kind of proto-automation, a mass forced coercion of labor, and the Blacks’ transition from object to subject calls for a reappraisal of accelerationist ideas about the (non)human entity and its revolutionary potential.”

The artist continues, “There is something about going to work—the repetition of it—that gets inscribed at an epigenetic level, as an everyday, embodied violence. From there, I thought about the panoptic workplace (open air plan, transparent yet closely surveilled, management that does not have to be in the room to be monitoring you), the fetish of efficiency (ergonomic mouse and keyboards so you can work longer), biometric data of a labor force (fingerprint and facial scans to help reduce repeat processing tasks). All of these methods to maximize profits and production can be traced back to methods worked out and perfected in the cotton and sugar cane fields hundreds of years prior.”


Drawn to ideas of flight, escape, and poetic blur, 

’s (b. 1990, Detroit, Michigan) work takes form out of the collapsed context of the internet—often critiquing its slippage of meaning and techno-capital excess more generally, while pointing out its attraction at the same time. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Pratt Institute, and has completed residencies at Obracadobra (Oaxaca, Mexico), Squeaky Wheel (Buffalo, NY) and Pioneer Works (Brooklyn, NY). His work has been featured in 

is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Workflow

Jenson Leonard: Workflow

Paloma Izquierdo and Kyle Richardson work together. She examines techno-sociality through infrastructures, object animism and disrupting social spaces. She is concerned with surveillance and its relation to sex, labor, and the feminized body. She merges design and sculpture, using the disarming perception of feminized objects to subvert expectations by applying technologies of control. She went to the Cooper Union and to the Yale School of Art.

Paloma Izquierdo and Kyle Richardson

John Reynolds is a New York based artist. He has an MFA in painting from Brooklyn College CUNY, where he has taught 2-D design. Recently, John’s art practice has been influenced by emotional connections around issues of queerness and the global climate crisis. His paintings aim to reconcile the space between imagined futures of queer theory and futures in the era of global warming. His canvases represent a liminal space, where he contemplates human impermanence and landscapes that become less and less familiar.

Before completing his MFA in 2023, John worked in other creative fields in New York–including advertising and branding–and decided to fully devote himself to being a painter.

John Reynolds

Magdalena Dukiewicz is a Polish-born visual artist based in Brooklyn. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and the Complutense University in Madrid.
Dukiewicz’s work is grounded in her process and the materials used. She juxtaposes organic and bodily products (her own blood and hair, among others) with upcycled and repurposed industrial components. Each piece provokes visceral reactions while welcoming open-ended associations and ambiguities. Dukiewicz plays with those culturally and politically charged bodily products, exploring how their perceptions linked to the changing contexts. She presents the body as a revolutionary space of antagonism and freedom, expression and research, self-definition and power, identity, and gender.

Magdalena Dukiewicz's work is supported by the Polish Cultural Institute New York.

Polish Cultural Institute New York

Magdalena Dukiewicz

Java Jones engages environmentally and virtually sensitive methods to sculpture, painting, and image making through an anti-disciplinary lens. Jones describes their process as an act of feeling and imagining innerwise, oscillating between figuration and abstraction. ‘Inner-’ here refers to irreducible spaces necessary for refusing, for living, for imagining beyond–tilling an autobiographical ground for discursive reflections and formations. The artist's practice traverses themes related to quiet photography and haptic memory, critical love and home buildin’, and abstraction and the burden of identity. Currently, Jones is working on their forthcoming monograph, “on the edge of a dream: one last dance with/in flesh.”

Java Jones

Utsa Hazarika is an artist and writer based in New York. Her research-based practice ranges across video, installation and sculpture, and explores how an interdisciplinary dialogue between art and social research can push us to think about power, memory and resistance. Her work has exhibited internationally, including at the Queens Museum (US), Cemeti Institute (Indonesia), and Museum of the City of New York (US). She has attended the Whitney Independent Study Program, and residencies in Asia and the United States, including MASS MoCA (US), Lijiang Studio (China), and Khoj (India). Her research has been published in Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology (UK), Trans Asia Photography Review (US) and The Caravan (India).

Utsa Hazarika

Vandana Jain is an artist and textile designer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work explores the intersections of pattern and symbol, and spirituality and consumerism. She uses a variety of materials, most notably sugar, shattered auto glass and artists tape.

Recently, she has started making weavings with things found in “free” piles around Brooklyn, used alongside more traditional weaving techniques and materials. Her compostions are improvised directly on the loom, inspired directly by the material on hand. She is interested in systems of value, such as how cheap it is to buy a mylar birthday banner, and how expensive it is to knit your own sweater.

Vandana Jain

Ryan Decker (b. 1997) was raised in Hendersonville, North Carolina. He received a BS from Appalachian State University in 2019. Primarily working digitally, Decker is a multi-disciplinary artist who creates animations, furniture, VR experiences, live projections, sculpture, and digital paintings. These works focus on the rapid oscillation between the digital and the physical that’s experienced in everyday life, blurring the line between what is real and virtual. Decker’s first solo show opened May 2022 at Superhouse Gallery in Manhattan, New York. He has also exhibited with Emma Scully Gallery (NY), Good Naked (NY), Jonald Dudd (NY), Superchief Gallery (FL/NY), and Nth Degree Gallery (NC). Decker lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

Ryan Decker

徐冠宇 Guanyu Xu (b.1993 Beijing) is an artist currently based in Chicago and a lecturer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the recipient of the Chicago DCASE Artist Grant (2022), CENTER Development Grant (2021), Hyéres International Festival Prize (2020), PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai Exposure Award (2020), Philadelphia Photo Arts Center Annual Competition (2019), Lensculture Emerging Talent Award (2019), and Kodak Film Photo Award (2019). He has received artist residencies including ACRE (Chicago, IL), Light Work (Syracuse, NY), and Latitude (Chicago, IL). His works have been exhibited and screened internationally including the Aperture Foundation, New York; International Center of Photography, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; New Orlean Museum of Art, New Orleans; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Wesleyan University, Middletown; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Mint Museum, Charlotte; 36th Kasseler Dokfest, Germany, and others. His work can be found in public collections including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, and New Orleans Museum of Art. His works have been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, ArtAsiaPacific, The New Yorker, W Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Dazed, and China Photographic Publishing House.

Guanyu Xu

Ciarra Black is a music producer, sound artist, and DJ specializing in experimental sounds. After spending 5 years in Berlin, Ciarra recently moved back to Brooklyn where she continues to develop her artistic practice. During her time living in Europe, Ciarra toured extensively and was able to test her work on state of the art sound systems. These experiences gave new visions and inspirations to her work in the fields of immersive sound, sound design, and club music.

Ciarra has performed at many notable venues and festivals including MoMA PS1, Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Berghain (Berlin), Sound of Stockholm Festival (Sweden) and Unsound Dislocation Festival (Armenia).

Ciarra Black

Kenseth Armstead has created provocative conceptual art for three decades. Historic exhibitions that feature his work include: 

Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary Art

It’s Happening! Celebrating 50 Years of Public Art in NYC Parks

 in Central Park, NY, NY, presented by NYC Parks, Art in the Parks; 

 at the Studio Museum in Harlem (their first video exhibition in 2003); 

 at the Brooklyn Museum; and Modern Heroics, 

75 years of African American Expressionism

Kenseth Armstead has created provocative conceptual art for three decades. Historic exhibitions that feature his work include: Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art; It’s Happening! Celebrating 50 Years of Public Art in NYC Parks in Central Park, NY, NY, presented by NYC Parks, Art in the Parks; Race in Digital Space at the MIT List Visual Arts Center; Veni Vidi Video at the Studio Museum in Harlem (their first video exhibition in 2003); Open House: Working in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Museum; and Modern Heroics, 75 years of African American Expressionism at the Newark Museum.

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08_armstead_boulevard_of_african_monarchs - kenseth armstead

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05_armstead_boulevard_of_african_monarchs - kenseth armstead

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Kenseth Armstead

Come view the student made documentary Chew On This focused on the American school lunch system. Chew On This was made possible by Pioneer Work’s partnership with Red Hook Initiative, The Learn & Engage team, the Broadcast department and our incredible educators Mónica Torres and Victorious DeCosta. Pioneer Works is excited to highlight the work from our very first intensive summer film program. 

RHI Freedom School Summer Film Screening: Chew On This

Our students have been working hard embracing the world of STEAM with our Ideas in Animation and Bookmaking programs. Come view the beautiful creations designed by our students at the Miccio Center and PAVE Academy. Special shoutout to our fabulous summer educators Robin Pak and Umber Majeed!

Learn and Engage: Summer Programs Showcase

Allow sound to guide your mind with former artist in residence Samer Ghadry. In this two hour workshop participants will have the opportunity to experience the healing power of sound, and create their own gong orchestra for a miniature performance. From 1-1:15 luxuriate in a 1x1 vibro-acoustic experience between two gongs. Later on sit back and relax while Samer treats you to a meditative gong concert. Finally, he’ll end the workshop with a group orchestra and performance activity.

Sound Meditation and Workshop with Samer Ghadry

Join us to make art and explore the microscopic world with Alison Dell--an artist and Lead Community Scientist with BioBus. Investigate and draw everyday objects and organisms like coins, keys, peppercorns, ants, shells, flowers, rocks, leaves and soil. Appreciate the things in your pockets and the living things around you in a new way. Drawing supplies provided or bring your own.  

Microscope Station with BioBus

Get your bike fixed by staff mechanics and volunteers, who will provide free direct repairs, maintenance, and diagnostic services.

Pop-Up: Bike Repairs with Mechanical Gardens Bike Coop

Wroes Botanic specializes in small-batch, handmade herbal goods. Founded by sisters Emily and Maggie Wroe, Wroes Botanic focuses on true lavender— lavendula angustifolia— grown on the family’s croftland in the Scottish Highlands. This curative lavender is highly coveted and distinguished among other varietals for its finer fragrance, making it ideal for a wide range of uses— from the medicinal or cosmetic, to nuanced culinary applications.

Visit https://wroesbotanic.com to learn more!

Pop-Up: Wroes Botanic

Join the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York at the sidewalk across from the Pioneer Works entrance for solar viewing. Telescopes will be provided between 1:00 and 4:00 pm. *Weather permitting*

Solargazing with the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York

Stop 'N' Swaps® are free community events produced by Grow NYC where you are invited to bring clean, reusable, portable items such as clothing, housewares, games, books, & toys that you no longer need, and take home something new-to-you, free! You don’t have to bring something to take something.

Please do NOT bring: furniture, large items, tube televisions, expired or open food, unsealed personal care products, medicine, dirty or ripped clothing, fabric scraps, incomplete toys and games, non-working electronics, magazines, or sharp objects. 
Learn more at https://www.grownyc.org/swap

GrowNYC Stop N Swap

It's time to harvest! Artists Xin Liu and Lucia Monge invite you to join them in harvesting their space-faring potatoes, which were initially grown from seeds once sent aboard the International Space Station in 2020. Now in their third generation, the plants have been growing at Pioneer Works over the duration of Liu’s exhibition Seedlings and Offsprings. Participants will be able to learn about the harvesting, archival, and storage of the potatoes. Please note that this workshop will be for adult learners. 

Unearthing Futures: Potato Harvest

Learn the fundamentals of photogrammetry as you create 3D models from 2D images using your iPhone in this drop-in session. 

Beyond the Frame: Exploring Photogrammetry with Java Jones

Get to know our current artists-in-residence in their work through Open Studios.

Open Studios

Can you spot the tooth in Seedlings and Offsprings? This is one of the many hidden gems to be discovered throughout Pioneer Works current arts exhibitions. Grab a scavenger hunt sheet in the North Hall and enjoy an in depth exploration of Xin Liu’s Seedlings and Offsprings (Garden, Second floor) and Jenson Leonard’s Workflow (Third floor). Once you’ve completed your hunt, return your sheet and claim your prize! A special prize will be awarded to the first participant to accurately guess how many dimples exist on the space potato sculpture in the garden. 

Exhibition Scavenger Hunt

Anthropologist and movement artist Aimee Meredith Cox joins PW Senior Arts Editor David Everitt Howe and artist Liz Magic Laser to discuss therapeutic movement, hysteria, and Laser's PW exhibition Convulsive States. Listen to the livestream at https://youtube.com/live/_46V9HI8zCU?feature=share.

PW Broadcast Radio Hour with Aimee Meredith Cox, Liz Magic Laser, and David Everitt Howe

Like humans, astronomical objects have all kinds of relationships. Stars form in families, planets go around stars, and planets in turn may host their own moons. Understanding how these associations form and interact reveals the connections that underlie the formation of solar systems, galaxies, and even the universe. Join us in the Science Studios for a special edition of Astronomy On Tap dedicated to celestial companions, featuring astronomers from the American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University.

Astronomy on Tap: Celestial Companions

Founded in 2006 by Vincent Bertholet (Hyperculte), the Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp is a large-scale project. Designed as a real orchestra, the size of the ensemble has varied over time. Now with 12 members, 14 in the past or 6 at the beginning, the ensemble has scoured the stages of Europe to demonstrate that the formula "the more the merrier" has never been more true than on stage.

Whether in prestigious festivals (Paléo Festival de Nyon, Fusion Festival, Incubate, Womad, Bad Bonn Kilbi, Jazz à la Vilette) or on the four albums released since its launch.. The band embraces the forms of its musicians while pushing them to their limits. The result is a powerful, experimental, unstable and terribly alive, organic sound.