NOoSPHERE Arts to Present WE ARE NATURE: TRANSFORMATION STORIES This Summer

NOoSPHERE Arts (Noo Arts) will present their multidisciplinary summer series, We Are Nature: Transformation Stories at the Kingsland Wildflowers Rooftop and the Colonels Row Building on Governor's Island, May 16-October 25.

The only constant in life is change. This summer, Noo Arts will celebrate this concept by expanding their rooftop programming in Brooklyn across the river to a house full of arts on Governors Island. At a time when uncertainty and fracture can feel overwhelming, it is especially important to remember that breakdown precedes transformation-and that collective imagination and action shape what comes next.

Running from May through October, Noo Arts' multidisciplinary summer series explores transformation across interconnected scales: ecological, urban, social, and artistic. Performances, artist residencies, exhibitions, workshops, and public programs invite artists and audiences to experience two distinct sites as living ecosystems: places formed by active use and ongoing change.

Noo Arts' Greenpoint location, an industrial plant turned wildlife sanctuary, and Governors Island, a former military base now public parkland, offer resonant contexts where natural habitats, cultural experimentation, and urban redevelopment intersect. Anchored in these evolving environments, Transformation Stories reflects on how landscapes and communities are continually negotiated and reshaped, inviting all comers to experience transformation as a shared, relational process.

Welcome to the Island; Well Done, Everyone

Site-specific, spatial audio artwork by Michael McLoughlin

Welcome to the Island; Well Done, Everyone is a site-specific, spatial audio artwork developed in situ. The piece integrates sound, drawing, and social interaction, exploring migration cycles and connectivity across continents. Through a compelling analogy between the journeys of migratory birds and migrant people, the work raises urgent environmental and socio-political questions while inviting visitors to reflect on the interconnectedness of all systems-flora, fauna, and humans alike. Michael's installation will remain on view for one month, offering visitors an ongoing experience of interaction, observation, and contemplation.

Honey Fungus

9-minute interactive VR experience led by a queer mycelial guide created by Jonah King

Guided by a queer, sentient mycelial entity, users navigate interactive vignettes where sensory actions shape the environment and AI-generated poetic spores reveal the Earth's hidden vitality. Rooted in queer ecology and post-humanist thought, the project challenges boundaries between human and non-human life, exploring intimacy, identity, and ecological responsibility. Through VR embodiment, participants shrink through fungal layers, merging with the environment in a radical meditation on relationality, resilience, and stewardship.

Mushroom Music by Willow Gatewood

An immersive Mushroom Music installation which explores the hidden rhythms of fungi, creating a sensory environment where sound, space, and ecological imagination intersect.

Mothership NYC Presents PICK A CARD, ANY CARD

A Tarot-Themed Traveling Show

For every third Saturday, the deck of artworks will be reshuffled, with new artworks 'drawn' and reconfigured in the exhibition space.

520 Kingsland Ave Programming

Saturday, May 30th, 5pm-8pm

Right to Flight

Rooftop Performance & Installation Invites NYC to Reimagine the City for Migratory Birds

Presented in collaboration with the Pratt Institute

Join us for Right to Flight, a collective act of care for the more-than-human city. Bringing together architecture, historic preservation, textiles, and sustainability, we respond to a hidden urban tragedy: the hundreds of thousands of migratory birds who die in NYC due to building collisions each year. Participants will create bird-safe nesting boxes inspired by iconic buildings, weave a human-scale grief nest, and cast small memorial forms-transforming loss into collective memorialization and policy activism.

Led by international author, architect, artist, and Pratt Institute professor, Dr. Harriet Harriss, in collaboration with fashion and textile designer, Brooke Garner, artist Leslie Ruckman and students from the Pratt MS Historic Preservation Program, the project brings together architecture, public art, and collective ritual to raise awareness about the hundreds of thousands of migratory birds that die each year colliding with New York City buildings. The opening night performance features live music by Celine Du Tertre, drawn from the songs of four extinct migratory birds: the Passenger Pigeon, Bachman's Warbler, the Eskimo Curlew, and the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker whose costumed reincarnations will dance across the rooftop. Audience members will be invited to move together as a "flock," reflecting on interdependence between human and avian life.

The installation, including the sculptural bird feeders inspired by NYC skyscrapers, a large woven grief nest embedded with handwritten community messages, and cast bird carcass memorials, will remain on view throughout the summer as part of Noo Arts' annual Public Art Residency Award.

Growing Takes Time: Games, Grapples, and Growth Grit

Interactive arcade and immersive performance by Karley Wasaff

Saturday, June 20th

Immersive Performance 7-8pm (doors 6pm), Rooftop Dance Party 8-10pm

Movement artist Karley Wasaff presents Growing Takes Time, a life-sized interactive arcade and immersive performance world where the audience becomes the astronauts. Presented on the rooftop, this experience unfolds against stunning NYC sunset skyline views.

Inspired by Pikmin, performers are PIKMII inside a living environment where collective survival depends on responsiveness, care, and collaboration. Participants move through childhood anxiety-driven game structures - including slap hands, floor is lava, rock paper scissors, and hot potato - which function as levels that build respect, trust, and community coordination. Blending contemporary dance with jiu-jitsu-inspired partnering, the work uses conflict, resistance, and cooperation as engines for collective growth. Tensions build. PIKMII grapple in real-time duets. Resolution becomes necessary for progression. Work together and the group levels up. Lose coordination and the game stalls. Through navigating friction and repair, the audience collectively shapes the evolving world.

Alongside the arcade, audiences can explore a digital art gallery installation in collaboration with Josh Sauceda, showcasing visuals that extend the Growing Takes Time universe. Growing Takes Time merges play, conflict, and collective decision-making into a participatory experience where strangers become teammates and growth is earned through shared effort. The audience doesn't watch the world - they power it. Following the performance, audiences are invited to remain for a rooftop dance party overlooking the NYC skyline.

10th Annual Kingsland Wildflower Festival

A Day of Music, Dance, Art & Ecology Atop Greenpoint's Iconic Rooftop Meadows

Saturday, August 1st, 1pm-6pm FREE

Free and open to all ages, the festival celebrates the intersection of ecology, community, and contemporary art against the backdrop of one of New York City's most singular urban landscapes. The Kingsland Wildflowers Festival is a partnership between Kingsland Wildflowers, Noo Arts, Newtown Creek Alliance, Alive Structures, and Broadway Stages. Set amid wildflower meadows once rooted above an ExxonMobil industrial plant on the banks of the Newtown Creek Superfund site, the festival has grown into one of North Brooklyn's most beloved annual gatherings - a space where environmental advocacy, artistic experimentation, and community joy converge.

The Kingsland Wildflowers Festival invites local residents to explore 24,000 square feet of green roofs, experience art in many forms, and engage with community organizations tabling and hosting family-friendly, all-age activities throughout the space. The festival provides a rare opportunity for NYC residents to learn about local environmental initiatives while moving through green infrastructure dedicated to native ecology - all alongside rotating food and beverage partners and organizational collaborators who help bring this beloved annual gathering to life.

Now in its landmark tenth year, the festival brings together live music, dance, immersive art installations, film, and community activations across multiple rooftop stages and indoor spaces, weaving together the natural world and the creative one in Noo Arts' signature multidisciplinary spirit.