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SUMMARY:Urban Water Awareness Day: Hidden Systems, Shared Futures
UID:https://instytutpolski.pl/newyork/2026/08/25/urban-water-awareness-day-hidden-systems-shared-futures/
LOCATION:
DTSTAMP:20260918
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Warsaw:20260918
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Warsaw:20260920
DESCRIPTION:Public Program: Saturday, September 19, 2026 at 3:30-8:00 PMExhibition on
view: September 18-20, 2026Flux IV, 56-21 2nd St, Long Island City, NY
11101RSVP at this link
Urban Waterfront Walk: Hart Mankin, Environmental Educator, Newtown Creek
Alliance3:30–5:30 PM
Panel Discussion: Karolina Częczek (Only If), Marlisa Wise and Benedict
Clouette (Interval Projects), moderated by Paula Vilaplana de Miguel,
Assistant Curator at the Department of Architecture and Design, Museum of
Modern Art in New York (MoMA)5:30–6:30 PM
Screening: Sanctuary, Mist (2026) from series Remedies by Sasha Huber and
Petri Saarikko6:30–8:00 PM
Workshop: Water Portraits of Queens: A Community Ecology Archive with
Adelle Lin6:30–8:00 PM
Reception: drinks and light refreshments will be served6:30–8:00 PM
Exhibition: Source Materials by GBS Bioart, featuring Public Pools.
Drawings and design by Karolina Czeczek and Only If, and photography by
Anna Morgowicz.On view: September 18–20, 2026Gallery hours: Fri–Sun
12:00–6:00 PM
ECO Solidarity returns with its 5th edition in collaboration with Shared
Grounds initiative of the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York and Flux
Factory with an engaging diverse program centering on New Yorkers'
relationship with urban waters through art, architecture, public policy,
city walk and storytelling.
Taking the NYC Ferry at dusk, as glimmering sunrays soak into the East
River rippling beneath the fractured reflection of the Manhattan skyline,
one is reminded that New York is a city profoundly shaped by water. Beneath
its rivers, estuaries, canals, and harbors accumulate submerged layered
histories of industry, public life and ecological transformation. What
remains beneath the surface?
Urban Water Awareness Day is a public program consisting of an urban
waterfront walk, panel discussion, workshop, and film screening presented
in conjunction with New York Climate Week. The program brings together
artists, architects, urbanists, environmental advocates, and community
organizations, to examine water as a civic, social, and cultural framework,
not merely a technical system. Through public dialogue, site-based
learning, architectural design, and artistic practice, it reflects on
municipal water as space for environmental justice, climate resilience,
urban policy, and public health alongside models for ecological restoration
and climate-adaptive design. This program reveals how water continues to
shape everyday life and how some of the city's most pressing environmental,
social, and political challenges converge in the municipal waters of a
warming New York City. It is a joint initiative of Shared Grounds and ECO
Solidarity, a collaborative project represented by the Finnish Cultural
Institute in New York, Flux Factory, and the Polish Cultural Institute New
York.
Often hidden beneath streets and woven into the built environment, water
infrastructure remains largely invisible despite its profound influence on
public health, urban development, and climate adaptation. These systems,
ranging from reservoirs and waterways to public pools, waterfronts, and
estuaries, have shaped the growth, memory, and daily life of New York City
for generations. As rising temperatures, extreme weather events, and aging
infrastructure put increasing pressure on urban environments, questions of
stewardship and resilience become ever more urgent. Urban Water Awareness
Day proves that cultural programs play an important role in this context by
making invisible systems visible, fostering public awareness, and
encouraging new ways of imagining climate resilience in the city.
Through architectural research and drawings of Karolina Częczek and Only
If, and Anna Morgowicz’s photographs, the Public Pools project reimagines
New York City's municipal pools as essential civic and ecological
infrastructure beyond their seasonal use. The research explores the
history, form, and social and cultural aspects of the swimming pool as an
architectural type. The pool serves as a device to engage specific aspects
of public space and architectural invention while revealing the
undercurrents of urban policy.
The project is illustrated by a catalog of New York City public pools,
photographs and writings. Through the NYC Water Map, the project reveals
the city's interconnected watershed, from upstate reservoirs to
neighborhood pools, demonstrating how it influences public health, heat
mitigation, and everyday urban life.  The project also proposes practical,
climate-adaptive solutions built upon the city's existing water systems.
These speculative proposals applied to five distinct typologies of New York
City pools, ranging from programmatic extensions to architectural
interventions, foster use of public amenities and promote climate
resiliency. 
Expanding this perspective from citywide water infrastructure to
neighborhood landscapes, Interval Projects explores how architecture can
reconnect cities with ecological systems. The New York–based practice,
founded by Marlisa Wise and Benedict Clouette, works at the intersection of
architecture, urban ecology, and public space, transforming overlooked
sites into resilient civic landscapes. Their work on the Dutch Kills Loop
in Long Island City proves how ecological restoration, adaptive design, and
public access can reimagine post-industrial waterfronts in response to
climate change.  
Together, Karolina Częczek's Public Pools and Interval Projects' vision
for the Dutch Kills Loop reframe urban water as shared civic
infrastructure. Through architecture, ecological restoration, and cultural
programming, Urban Water Awareness Day explores how design can strengthen
public health, expand access to the waterfront, and foster more resilient
relationships between cities, freight rail, hidden waterways and
community-led reclamation.
Newtown Creek: case study of environmental justice in Long Island City and
Greenpoint
Newtown Creek, a 3.8-mile tidal estuary bordering Long Island City and
Greenpoint, has evolved from a vital wetland into one of New York City's
most polluted waterways and a federally designated Superfund site. Decades
of industrial contamination, combined sewer overflows, and aging water
infrastructure have made the creek increasingly vulnerable to rising sea
levels and more frequent extreme weather events. In response, the Newtown
Creek Alliance has led community-driven efforts to restore habitats, expand
waterfront access, and advance green infrastructure—exemplifying how
ecological restoration, civic stewardship, and public engagement can
contribute to a more resilient urban future.
PROGRAM
Saturday, September 19, 2026, 3:30–8:00 PM
Urban Waterfront Walk3:30–5:30 PM
Led by Hart Mankin, the Newtown Creek Alliance Environmental Educator, the
educational waterfront walk explores Newtown Creek and Dutch Kills as
living case studies of waterfront contamination, climate vulnerability, 
and environmental justice, tracing one of New York City's most historically
industrialized waterways as it undergoes ecological restoration. Starting
at Hunters Point Avenue, the route passes the Dutch Kills Loop beneath the
Long Island Expressway, continues along the Montauk Cut-Off rail corridor
and the Borden Avenue waterfront, before concluding at Flux IV. Together,
these sites reveal the layered relationship between freight rail, hidden
waterways and community-led reclamation. Experiencing the creek firsthand
transforms an often-invisible infrastructure into a living landscape where
environmental history, urban planning, and public space converge.
Panel Discussion & Q&A5:30–6:30 PM
A public conversation examining water as civic infrastructure and a
catalyst for environmental resilience, public health, and community
well-being. Participants include architect Karolina Częczek of Only If,
architects Marlisa Wise and Benedict Clouette of Interval Projects in
conversation moderated by Paula Vilaplana de Miguel, Assistant Curator at
the Department of Architecture and Design of the Museum of Modern Art in
New York (MoMA).
An exhibition featuring selections from Public Pools, drawings, the
architectural maquette of Kościuszko Pool by Karolina Częczek and Only
If, and photographs by Anna Morgowicz will be on view at Flux IV from
September 18-20, 2026.
and photographs by Anna Morgowicz will be on view at Flux IV from September
18-20, 2026.
Film Screening6:30–8:00 PM
Screening of Sanctuary, Mist (2026) from series Remedies by Sasha Huber and
Petri Saarikko. Through moving image, the work reflects on ecology,
healing, memory, and the complex relationships between humans and the
environments they inhabit. Sanctuary, Mist was commissioned by the 2nd
Helsinki Biennale in 2023 and this is the documentation of the generative
art installation filmed by Petri Saarikko. Its length is 18 min.
Workshop 6:30–8:00 PM 
Water Portraits of Queens: A Community Ecology Archive by Adelle Yingxi
Lin, is an interactive installation and performance that weaves together
community narratives, multilingual calligraphy, and Newtown Creek's
changing ecology into a collective portrait of Queens through gestures of
collective healing, and environmental care. 
Reception 6:30–8:00 PM
An informal gathering that brings together artists, architects, designers,
environmental advocates, researchers, and community members for continued
conversation and the exchange of ideas.
Exhibition: Source Materials presented by GBS Bioart featuring Public
Pools. Drawings and design by Karolina Czeczek and Only If, and photography
by Anna Morgowicz.On view September 18–20 2026
The Genspace Biomaterials Studio (GBS) presents the GBS Bioart Exhibition,
featuring artists who work with biomaterials such as mycelium, SCOBY,
biocement, natural dyes, and food waste. At the intersection of art,
science, and sustainability, the exhibition showcases emerging material
practices that address ecological challenges and envision new relationships
between design, the environment, and the living world. 
ABOUT PARTNERS
Shared Grounds:
Shared Grounds is a recurring experimental exhibition initiated by curators
Elina Suoyrjö (formerly at the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York) and
Meghana Karnik (Flux Factory). Informed by eco-feminist thought, the
project speculates on placemaking through interspecies alliances and shared
knowledge, and imagines a public realm shaped by humans and nonhumans
alike. Each edition gathers a new group of Finnish and New York–based
artists, who begin their research independently but share a conviction to
live interdependently and to build ways of sharing space and understanding
one another.
The exhibition grew out of an interest in the complexity of public space in
a city like New York. It asks who has access to the public realm, how we
are allowed to use it, and how space is shared. The artists are politically
conscious and critical of the present, but approach these questions through
harmonious, humorous, empathetic, or devotional means rather than irony or
cynicism. Shared Grounds is a collaboration between the Finnish Cultural
Institute in New York and the Flux Factory artist collective.
ECO Solidarity:
ECO Solidarity is an award-winning international platform of the Polish
Cultural Institute New York, launched in 2020 in partnership with
WantedDesign and ICFF, and developed with Studio Rygalik and the European
Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC). Exploring the role of
design, architecture, and contemporary culture in addressing climate
resilience, public health, and environmental sustainability, the initiative
brings together leading architects, designers, artists, and researchers
through exhibitions, talks, workshops, and public programs.
Supported by two consecutive EUNIC Cluster Fund Awards in 2022 and 2023,
ECO Solidarity received the ICFF Editors’ Award for Best Booth in 2022.
In 2023, the initiative was recognized by Dezeen as one of the “12 Things
to See and Do” during NYCxDESIGN and by SixtySix Magazine in its “Best
of NYCxDesign” selection. The initiative’s name draws inspiration from
Poland’s historic Solidarność (Solidarity) movement, reflecting a
belief that collective action and cross-disciplinary collaboration can help
shape more resilient, equitable, and sustainable futures.
Finnish Cultural Institute in New York (FCINY):
Finnish Cultural Institute in New York works across the fields of
contemporary art, design and architecture, creating dialogue between
Finnish and American professionals and audiences. Founded in 1990, the
institute has grown from a residency program to an organization
commissioning large-scale projects and events that foster critical dialogue
and work to build support for professionals in architecture, design and
contemporary art. 
Flux Factory:
Flux Factory’s mis­sion is to sup­port emerg­ing artists through
res­i­den­cies, exhi­bi­tions, edu­ca­tion, and
col­lab­o­ra­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties. Flux is an artist-led space that
builds sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties and retains cre­ative
vital­i­ty in NYC. Since 1994 Flux has host­ed over 300
Artists-in-Res­i­dence, both local and inter­na­tion­al, as well as
staged over 700 exhi­bi­tions across all dis­ci­plines. Flux’s home
in Long Island City is a cre­ative hive that incu­bates
exper­i­men­ta­tion with col­lab­o­ra­tive process­es. Flux hosts
over 75 annu­al mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary events; all are free to the
pub­lic while all par­tic­i­pat­ing artists are com­pen­sat­ed.
Each year Flux selects 40 Artists-in-Res­i­dence to devel­op their
cre­ative prac­tices by offer­ing afford­able stu­dios, shared
work­spaces (such as a print shop, wood shop, and tech­ni­cal office), a
solo exhi­bi­tion, as well as pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment
opportunities.
Polish Cultural Institute New York:
Established in 2000, the Polish Cultural Institute New York is a diplomatic
mission of the Republic of Poland to the United States operating under the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The PCINY’s mission is to share Polish
heritage, history, and art with American audiences and to promote
Poland’s contributions to world culture. The Institute initiates,
supports, and promotes collaboration between Poland and the United States
in various fields, including visual art, design, film, theater, dance,
literature, and music, as well as other areas of intellectual and social
life. 
Newtown Creek Alliance is a community-based organization dedicated to
restoring, revealing, and revitalizing Newtown Creek, a 3.8-mile tidal
estuary and federally designated Superfund site bordering Brooklyn and
Queens. Since 2002, the Alliance has served as a catalyst for effective
community action, working to restore water quality, habitat, public access,
and commerce along the creek. Our programs combine hands-on ecological
restoration with environmental education, including school field trips,
guided walking tours, and public stewardship events. Through advocacy,
monitoring, and community partnerships, NCA works to ensure Newtown Creek's
recovery reflects the needs and voices of the neighborhoods it runs
through.
The Hunters Point Parks Conservancy enhances, activates, and advocates for
the parks and waterfront of Long Island City, bringing communities
together, protecting vital outdoor spaces, and ensuring lasting access for
all. Hunters Point Parks Conservancy was formed in 1998 by a group of 
dedicated Long Island City residents determined to improve the quality of
life at the waterfront in Hunter’s Point, Long Island City. We run over
200 free programs a year for the community, including yoga and fitness
sessions, kids programs, movie nights, and art classes, and bring
volunteers to the parks to help support the local ecosystem. We also run
environmental education, public paddle, and advocacy programs from the
Queens Landing Boathouse and Environmental Center. 
WantedDesign, founded in 2011, has evolved into a membership program. It is
a dynamic connector and amplifier for global design, fostering creative
synergy and serving as a pivotal crossroad for the international design
community.
PANEL SPEAKERS
Karolina Częczek, Only If Architecture, Public Pools
Karolina Częczek is a Principal of Only If—, a New York City-based
design practice for architecture and Critic at Yale School of Architecture.
Only If is a New York City-based design practice for architecture and
urbanism founded in 2013 and led by Adam Snow Frampton, AIA and Karolina
Czeczek, RA. Only If’s projects span a range of different types and
scales, from commercial interiors, to single- and multi-family residential,
to larger-scale urban planning, research, and speculation. In 2023 Only
If’s People’s Pool project was part of the inaugural exhibition at the
Museum of Modern Art, “Architecture Now: New York, New Publics,”
featuring projects that envision a more accessible, sustainable, and
equitable New York. Karolina is a 2013 Fulbright Scholar and 2023 recipient
of the New York State Grant for the Arts (NYSCA).
Czeczek is a registered architect in the Netherlands and Poland and
previously worked at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in
Rotterdam and Hong Kong.
Only If Architecture is a New York based architecture and design practice
founded by architect Karolina Częczek. Working across architecture,
urbanism, research, and public space, the studio explores how design can
address contemporary environmental and social challenges. Through projects
that connect civic infrastructure, ecology, and public life, Only If
develops innovative approaches to climate adaptation and urban resilience.
The Public Pools research explores the history, form, and social and
cultural aspects of the swimming pool as an architectural type. The pool
serves as a device to engage specific aspects of public space and
architectural invention while revealing the undercurrents of urban policy.
The research is organized as a catalog of New York City public pools, and
is illustrated by photographs and writings highlighting broader issues
related to urban waters. It is accompanied by speculative proposals,
ranging from architectural interventions to programmatic extensions,
applied to five distinct typologies of New York City pools. This project
aims to spark a broader public conversation around the importance of free
and accessible spaces for public recreation, as well as issues related to
climate resiliency and city planning.
Interval Projects, Marlisa Wise and Benedict Clouette
Interval Projects is a New York-based architecture and urbanism practice
founded by Marlisa Wise and Benedict Clouette. Working at the intersection
of design, public space, and environmental justice, the practice
collaborates with municipalities, advocacy organizations, and local
communities to develop projects that connect architecture with civic
engagement, ecological restoration, and public access to urban landscapes.
Their work spans adaptive reuse, community-led planning, environmental
remediation, and waterfront design. Notable projects include the Dutch
Kills Loop in Long Island City—a vision for transforming an overlooked
industrial corridor into publicly accessible open space—as well as
environmental restoration initiatives for the Silver Bow Creek Superfund
Site in Montana. Through research, design, and public collaboration,
Interval Projects explores how architecture can support more equitable and
resilient urban futures.
Moderator: Paula Vilaplana de Miguel, Assistant Curator at the Department
of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA)
Paula Vilaplana de Miguel is a curator, cultural strategist, and creative
director working across architecture and design, technology, and
contemporary art. Paula currently serves as Assistant Curator at The Museum
of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), where she has developed projects
including Peggy Weil: Core Memory; The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule
Tower; Down to Earth, and Body Constructs. She has developed projects for
institutions such as the Shanghai Art Biennial, The Victoria and Albert
Museum, The Venice Architecture Biennial, and Triennale Milano, and Ca2M,
among others and her work has been published internationally.
Workshop: Adelle Yingxi Lin
Water Portraits of Queens: A Community Ecology Archive
Adelle Yingxi Lin is a Malaysian artist and technologist whose work bridges
performance,   language, and participatory systems. Through installation,
embodied research, and public ritual, she explores how cultural memory,
technology, and collective experience shape meaning. Her practice develops
forms that foreground care, ritual, and relation.
Water Portraits of Queens: A Community Ecology Archive is a participatory
installation and performance project in which Queens residents create
calligraphic textiles shaped by community stories and Newtown Creek’s
shifting water chemistry. The work explores how place, language, and
environmental conditions co-author a shared cultural archive. For this
workshop, Adelle invites participants to write gestures of healing in their
own languages and place them into water, where they are transformed into a
collective portrait of the borough shaped by memory, ecology, and care.
Film: Sasha Huber & Petri SaarikkoSanctuary, Mist (2026) from series
Remedies
Sasha Huber (b. 1975) is a Helsinki-based internationally recognised visual
artist-researcher of Swiss-Haitian heritage. Huber's work is concerned with
the politics of memory, care and belonging in relation to colonial residues
left in the environment. Connecting history and the present, she uses and
responds to archival material within a layered creative practice that
encompasses performance-based reparative interventions, video, photography,
and collaborations. Huber also usurps the staple gun, aware of its symbolic
significance as a weapon, while offering the potential to renegotiate
unequal power dynamics and the possibility of repair, symbolically
stitching wounds together (pain-things). Known for her artistic research
contribution to the “Demounting Louis Agassiz” campaign, she is aiming
at reassessing the glaciologist’s contentious racist heritage. She holds
an MA in visual culture from Aalto University in Helsinki and is presently
undertaking a practice-based PhD in artistic research at Zurich University
of the Arts. 
Petri Saarikko (b. 1973) is Helsinki-based artist and designer. In his
site-specific installations, Saarikko combines social commentary with his
work as a designer and his background in new media. His work is highly
performative in nature. Saarikko does not shy away from provocation. He
often challenges ideas of national identity, artistic authorship or
official political discourses by changing their context and thus showing
the true, artificial nature of these phenomena. His work seeks to expose
power relations, to make room for individual narratives, and takes a stand
on behalf of equality. 
Sasha Huber and Petri Saarikko collaborate regularly in a creative
partnership under the name Remedies. Together they have initiated the
long-term project Remedies Universe (since 2011) which explores aural
family-knowledge in different geographical and cultural contexts and been
invited to artist residencies around the world. In 2018, Huber was the
recipient of a State Art Award from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland. In
2021–2024 her work is touring under the title “You Name It”, produced
by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto and Autograph in
London. A comprehensive book with the same title was published by Mousse
Publishing in November 2022. Sasha Huber’s work is continued to be
supported by Arts Promotion Center Finland through a long-term grant. At
Urban Water Awareness Day, Remedies will be showing Sanctuary, Mist (2026),
from series Remedies, a one channel video, initially part of the
commissioned installation for the Helsinki Biennial in 2023. The new video
work was commissioned for their exhibition in Germany, entitled Shelter on
view September 18-November 8, 2026 at the Galerie für Gegenwartskunst,
Freiburg, Germany. It focuses on colonial power structures and their
lasting impact. Through their work, the two artists explore artistic and
Indigenous practices that open up new narratives of solidarity.
Urban Waterfront Walk: 
Newtown Creek Alliance is a community-based organization dedicated to
restoring, revealing, and revitalizing Newtown Creek. We work to restore
community health, water quality, habitat, access, and vibrant commerce
along Newtown Creek. Since 2002, the Alliance has served as a catalyst for
effective community action.
Exhibition: About GBS at Genspace Bioart
GBS (Grow Beyond Soil) is a community-driven biomaterials research group at
Genspace Bioart exploring the intersection of biology, design, and material
innovation. Through collaborative research, experimentation, and its annual
six-month Bioart Incubator, GBS brings together artists, designers,
scientists, and community biolabs to develop sustainable biomaterials and
imagine future ecological approaches to making. Founded in 2009, Genspace
Bioart is the world's first community biology laboratory. Based in New York
City, it provides hands-on STEAM education, public programs, and
collaborative research opportunities that make the life sciences accessible
to artists, researchers, educators, entrepreneurs, and the broader public
while fostering innovation across biotechnology, neuroscience, genomics,
and environmental science.
Urban Water Awareness Day is presented by Shared Grounds and ECO
Solidarity, a collaborative initiative of the Finnish Cultural Institute in
New York, Flux Factory, and the Polish Cultural Institute New York.
Program partners: Only If Architecture, Interval Projects, Newtown Creek
Alliance, and Genspace Bioart.
Cultural partners: WantedDesign, Hunters Point Park Conservancy
END:VEVENT
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