No Swimsuit Required
Public Art Fund
New York, NY | 2024
No Swimsuit Required is an ongoing project featuring films, performances, and sound installations in New York City public pools during their off-season. The first iteration, Water Works, took take place across two evenings in September 2024 and explored water as a thematic framework. These events were hosted at Hamilton Fish Pool–an Olympic-sized pool and architectural landmark on the Lower East Side–after it was drained following the summer season.
Conceived as an Expanded Cinema presentation utilizing multiple projectors and screens, Water Works featured experimental 16mm and digital films that explore bodies of water, from vast oceans and serene rivers to turbulent seas stirred by ships and ordinary drips from a leaky faucet. The audience stepped inside the drained pool, explored the empty space, and lounged on sunbeds while encountering a diversity of moving image works, including ravishing seascapes and landscapes, hand-processed films, Structuralist cinema, and works with an ecocritical perspective. These films created an experiential atmosphere and showcased the myriad perspectives contained within moving image artists’ visions of water.
Film and video artworks were accompanied by live performances by sound artists Eli Keszler (September 21) and Maria Chávez (September 27), who employed the films’ audio for their interventions. Water Works featured films by Stan Brakhage, Dietmar Brehm, James Cagle, Mary Helena Clark, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, David Gatten, Helena Gouveia Monteiro, Vincent Grenier, Friedl vom Gröller, Ann Deborah Levy, Abinadi Meza, Youjin Moon, Mary Beth Reed, Dan Perz, Chick Strand, Gao Wei, and Joyce Wieland.
No Swimsuit Required is curated by Gaby López Dena.
Water Works was a collaboration between Public Art Fund and The Film-Makers’ Cooperative; it was co-curated by Tom Day, Executive Director, NACG/The Film-Makers’ Cooperative and Gaby López Dena, Associate Curator of Public Practice, Public Art Fund.
Press
Feedback Loop: On the Floor
About the series
Pools and other social spaces to cool off in the height of summer have a long history in New York City and are an essential part of its public infrastructure. By 1890, the city had already built 15 floating baths along the Hudson and East Rivers. These structures provided safe bathing and swimming at the peak of industrialization. By the early 20th century, indoor bathhouses replaced floating baths, offering sanitation facilities for those living in overcrowded tenements. As the city transformed, bathhouses were no longer needed for hygiene purposes, but water continued to provide relief when the weather was hot and unbearable. Eventually, bathhouses, along with newly built outdoor pools from the Works Progress Administration era, became spaces to gather and play during the hottest time of the year. Currently, over 50 outdoor public pools within the five boroughs are utilized for swimming and other leisurely activities between June and early September. They typically remain inactive for the rest of the year.
No Swimsuit Required brings liveliness to New York City’s empty pools and celebrates these spaces as vital environments for social interaction.
New York, NY | 2024
No Swimsuit Required is an ongoing project featuring films, performances, and sound installations in New York City public pools during their off-season. The first iteration, Water Works, took take place across two evenings in September 2024 and explored water as a thematic framework. These events were hosted at Hamilton Fish Pool–an Olympic-sized pool and architectural landmark on the Lower East Side–after it was drained following the summer season.
Conceived as an Expanded Cinema presentation utilizing multiple projectors and screens, Water Works featured experimental 16mm and digital films that explore bodies of water, from vast oceans and serene rivers to turbulent seas stirred by ships and ordinary drips from a leaky faucet. The audience stepped inside the drained pool, explored the empty space, and lounged on sunbeds while encountering a diversity of moving image works, including ravishing seascapes and landscapes, hand-processed films, Structuralist cinema, and works with an ecocritical perspective. These films created an experiential atmosphere and showcased the myriad perspectives contained within moving image artists’ visions of water.
Film and video artworks were accompanied by live performances by sound artists Eli Keszler (September 21) and Maria Chávez (September 27), who employed the films’ audio for their interventions. Water Works featured films by Stan Brakhage, Dietmar Brehm, James Cagle, Mary Helena Clark, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, David Gatten, Helena Gouveia Monteiro, Vincent Grenier, Friedl vom Gröller, Ann Deborah Levy, Abinadi Meza, Youjin Moon, Mary Beth Reed, Dan Perz, Chick Strand, Gao Wei, and Joyce Wieland.
No Swimsuit Required is curated by Gaby López Dena.
Water Works was a collaboration between Public Art Fund and The Film-Makers’ Cooperative; it was co-curated by Tom Day, Executive Director, NACG/The Film-Makers’ Cooperative and Gaby López Dena, Associate Curator of Public Practice, Public Art Fund.
Press
Feedback Loop: On the Floor
About the series
Pools and other social spaces to cool off in the height of summer have a long history in New York City and are an essential part of its public infrastructure. By 1890, the city had already built 15 floating baths along the Hudson and East Rivers. These structures provided safe bathing and swimming at the peak of industrialization. By the early 20th century, indoor bathhouses replaced floating baths, offering sanitation facilities for those living in overcrowded tenements. As the city transformed, bathhouses were no longer needed for hygiene purposes, but water continued to provide relief when the weather was hot and unbearable. Eventually, bathhouses, along with newly built outdoor pools from the Works Progress Administration era, became spaces to gather and play during the hottest time of the year. Currently, over 50 outdoor public pools within the five boroughs are utilized for swimming and other leisurely activities between June and early September. They typically remain inactive for the rest of the year.
No Swimsuit Required brings liveliness to New York City’s empty pools and celebrates these spaces as vital environments for social interaction.
