First Street Green Art Park

First Street Green is excited to kick start its 4th season with an exciting collaboration with the New Museum, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and as always NYC Parks!

May 28 – 30th, 2015

ETH Zurich brings an exciting Temporary structure to First Street Garden constructed out of waste materials for the IDEAS CITY Festival 2015. The ETH Pavilion, where talks, workshops, and other events will take place over the course of three days, will redefine waste as a resource for the construction of our future cities. Using one of New York’s waste products: paper as its construction material, the expressive, compression-only surface structure has been designed to visually float in the narrow slot between the buildings of the First Street Garden. Food and Drinks will be provided by Cafe Select.

For more information on the events click here.

CPI in collaboration with First Street Green, is producing a series of public roundtable discussions, architectural installations, and activities in July and August 2014.

Click the link for more info!

CPI_Public Geometry_

August 9th, 2014, we will be hosting a live spoken word event at the park!

For Immediate Release:
Screening of Ensemble by Mel O’Callaghan

Tuesday, July 29th 9:00 PM
Wednesday, July 30th 9:00 PM

First Park, 33 East First Street, Manhattan, New York

Curated by OSMOS in collaboration with First Street Green

With Mel O’Callaghan’s Ensemble we are witness to an act of struggle, triumph and retreat. Three men move into the frame and prepare their hose to fire. We watch as they lean into and against the elemental force of the water. After some time a lone man moves into frame and walks improbably against the extreme force of the hose. He fights against it yet ultimately prevails as he pushes forward and the men begin to retreat.

The man is pushed to his physical limit and accordingly the space he is in speaks of this struggle. It is in the liminal threshold between the two screens that the greatest action takes place. Man protests against the violence of man and triumphs.

“By sculpting bodies of stone and water with one’s own body, the physical labor might not only be seen as repetitive and violent, but also as introspective and meditative. In this way, the figures seem to be distancing themselves mentally from the act and the site of endurance.” Anja Isabel Schneider

Born in 1975 in Sydney, Australia, Mel O’Callaghan lives and works in Paris, France. Her work was presented in 2014 at The 19th Biennale of Sydney. In 2014 she will have solo exhibitions at the Museum Medeiros e Almeida and Encontros Da Imagem, Lisbon, Portugal. She is represented by Galerie Allen in Paris.

For more information contact: Cay Sophie Rabinowitz / [email protected]

The WorkGroup from CPI has organized two Public Interface. LaTableRondes.
PI-LTR brings together 30 participants; some invited, some not to engage in a public discussion. There will be open seats if you wish to drop into the discussion.

Sunday July 20th, 3:30PM – 5:00PM: “On Public Space and the Commons” Prompt by Tal Berry and Matej Vakula

“Places also provide a location for creative praxis that can help instigate the formation of new political subjectivities.”
-Beyond Zucotti: “Emplacing Democratic Design” By Michael Rios

We will discuss the limits and possible futures of urban public spaces, the function of the commons and whether it exists today, architectures of inclusion and exclusion, and share tactics for re-commoning spaces.
What are the driving forces behind the privatization of public space?
What kinds of public spaces will be needed in the future and how can activation and use be encouraged and accommodated in new and inventive ways?
How can Architectures of Inclusion support cultural forms of citizenship?

Sunday July 27th, 3:30PM – 5:00PM: Mary Mattingly “On What Comprises A Site”

Public space is a battleground. Art can be a cognitive tool to access complexity and mediate agencies with communities, collaborate with non-profits and government institutions. There is a possibility for creating a new political language through recording engagement and working towards new micro-policies. How have we seen this work, and not work? How can we reconfigure sites of intervention? What road blocks have we come across in our own work, and how can we work together to tackle them?