CALL CONNECTS - December 2025
Before we embark on our CALL 2025 Year in Review, we want to share an exciting opportunity to engage with Mary Miss' work from early in her career. Miss explains: "This exhibition was organized in 1972 by a group of women who were some of my colleagues at the time. Our willingness to take on existing systems, forge new paths, and find new venues for women artists laid the foundation that allowed me to imagine the City as Living Laboratory."
Zürcher Gallery at 33 Bleecker Street is re-staging 13 Women Artists, opening Sunday, January 11th and on view through February 28th, 2026.
LAYING THE GROUNDWORK: WATERWAYS WORKSHOP
In January of 2025, CALL hosted the first WaterWays WORKSHOP at the Queens Library. Designed to inform the foundation of artist/scientist-led community programs around cloudbursts in Corona, Queens, over forty members of the Corona community gathered to share rain, flooding, and water stories.
With the guidance of WORKSHOP attendees, CALL has inaugurated an advisory committee of local organizations and a community committee of residents to guide the project. Partnerships have been established with key stakeholders, including the Hall of Science, Queens Museum, Queens Economic Development Corporation, and the Guardians of Flushing Bay. These partnerships will ensure WaterWay's activities remain rooted in community needs and perspectives, directly influencing DEP's work.
City as Living Laboratory (CALL) and the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) are supporting the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to envision a network of site activation and long-term engagement around water, infrastructure, and resiliency through collaborations with artists, scientists, and the community. This work supports efforts already underway by DEP to implement Cloudburst infrastructure for flood mitigation in the Corona neighborhood.
CALL CONVERSATIONS
The end of 2024 and beginning of 2025 were a fruitful time for gathering and learning through our CALL Conversations. Many thanks to all of our panelists and generous hosts.
From top, left to right:
CALL Conversation #1
November 7th, 2024 | Hosted by Tom Bishop and Katie Ford | Panelists: Max Anderson, Christine Steiner, and Charles Birnbaum
CALL Conversation #2
February 12th, 2025 | Hosted by Gabriella de Ferrari | Panelists: Susannah Bieber, Amy Motzny, and Garnette Cadogan
CALL Conversation #3
April 16th, 2025 | Hosted by Izhar Patkin | Panelists: Tamsin Dillon, Eric Klinenberg, and Steward Pickett
Stay tuned for more information about 2026 CALL Conversations.
Tibbetts Brook
Artist Dennis RedMoon Darkeem spent 2025 leading public art-making workshops that will culminate in the creation of his zine Honoring the Ancestors: A Tibbetts Brook Tribute.
The Zine will include elements of the art-making workshops (prints and stamps by community members), quotes from community members (from interviews/workshops) as well as Darkeem's original work. Sections of the pages will be turned into banners displayed publicly along fences in accordance with NYCDOT's Artventions Program in the Bronx.
In Spring 2025, Dennis worked with teens afterschool at the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center. His research continued over the summer with art-making workshops at the James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center Farmers Market and into Fall 2025 at the Amalgamated Co-Ops.
WATERWAYS
CALL's inaugural WaterWays artist, Niceli Portugal, kicked off her summer of programming with a day of art-making at the Corona Library (bottom left). During the workshop, participants helped create an interactive flood map, banners, posters, costumes, and more to use in a ceremony procession at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Portugals project, Entre El Aire Y El Agua (Amid the Aid and the Water) seeks to deepen resident's personal and collective connection to water as a source of life, migration, memory, danger, and renewal. It explores water not only as an environmental concern, but as an emotional, ancestral, and cultural presence in their lives.
In July, Niceli led a joyful parade celebrating water's power and presence inspired by Eric Sanderson's Welikia Project. She also sought inspiration from the children in the Colombia páramos where they take care of the frailejon plant, aware of their vital role in retaining the water that flows into the Amazon. She brought this spirit of interconnectivity to families in Corona, as they explored how to better prepare for climate change and infrastructure challenges.
Finally, Niceli Portugal and CALL joined our friends at Guardians of Flushing Bay and Holes in the Walls Collective for a special walk in celebration of Climate Week. The walk began at the New York Hall of Science and travelled 2.5 miles through Flushing Meadows Corona Park and the streets of Queens, exploring the phenomenon of Cloudbursts and mitigation, and our connection to water from within the park.
Emilio Poppe Martinez has spent the last months of 2025 interviewing residents about their flooding experiences and collaborating with local hardware stores in Corona, Queens to feature flood-mitigation products in a community centric classified newspaper.
Stay tuned to see the final project unveiled in early 2026.
We are thrilled to congratulate Emilio on his inclusion in the 82nd Whitney Biennial opening in March 2026!
Thank you to all of those who have supported us this year. If you have not yet given, please consider making a year-end donation.
Grab a copy of the Pedestrian Observations map!
The Pedestrian Observations: Mapping Manhattan Chinatown's Public Realm pocket-sized resource map are still available!
In this pamphlet, you'll find an illustrated map by artists and designers Myles Zhang and Stephan Fan, along with extensive information and questions about the uses of public and private space.
We're more than happy to send a copy your way, just fill out the form through the button below.