Currently on view in downtown Manhattan, NYC:
Sarah Cameron Sunde
100 Practices for a Changing Landscape
A multi-year public art project inviting the Battery Park City and greater New York community to engage and practice long-term timescales at the waterfront—past, present, and future
The project begins with a simple proposition: How do we practice for a changing landscape? A landscape that has already been changed by climate and human intervention, and one that will inevitably keep changing?
Battery Park City is itself an extraordinary experiment in adapting land to water. The neighborhood was created from landfill and built through layers of engineering, planning, infrastructure, and ongoing maintenance. Much of this infrastructure is invisible: beneath the ground, behind walls, and below the water. Today, as sea levels rise and extreme weather becomes more frequent, Battery Park City is undergoing another major transformation as it adapts to a changing climate.
100 Practices for a Changing Landscape makes this process of adaptation visible through language, embodied attention, listening, and participation. Rather than asking the public simply to learn about climate change, the project invites people to slow down, notice where they are, remember what has been here before, imagine what may come next, and consider how our bodies and communities might prepare for an uncertain future.
Phase 01: Climate Week 2026 at Battery Park City, through the fall, until the water or weather determines tells us it’s over
WALKWAY PROVOCATIONS
Wagner Park, Rockefeller Park Handball Court, and Battery Park City Ball Fields (West Street)
Reflect on questions and prompts on walkways and walls in three key locations within Battery Park City’s 92 acres. Use the map to walk-through the park on your own time.
Participant responses will inform Phase 02. Please respond to Walkway Provocation questions and prompts with a text or voice message: 917-284-8172, or leave your response in the contact form below.
CLIMATE WEEK ACTIVATIONS 9/22-9/25
CONVERSATIONALISTS
Throughout the week, the artwork was activated by a team of Conversationalists who were stationed at the Ballfields, the Handball Court and Wagner Park, engaging the Battery Park Community and visitors in the Walkway Provocations questions and prompts, recording responses and handing out MEET AT THE FLOODGATE AT HIGH TIDE (temporary) tattoos. As an identifier, everyone wore shades of blue and a beautiful denim seascape scarf created by René Stewart-Pearce.
FLOODGATE RITUAL
On Wednesday, September 23, at high tide (6:30-6:52pm), the community gathered at the Wagner Park Pavilion to practice raising one of Battery Park City’s new floodgates as a collective ritual.
ARTIST TALK & PANEL
After the ritual, Sunde gave a short artist talk and then led a dialogue with some of her favorite thinkers, about the role of public art, ritual, and listening in preparing for extreme weather, and to consider what should happen at this site next year: Una Chaudhuri, Tom Finkelpearl, and Catherine Seavitt.
VIDEO PROJECTION
The evening ended with an experiment in projecting 36.5/A Durational Performance with the Sea and text from 100 Practices for a Changing Landscape onto the walls of the Wagner Pavilion.
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Lead Artist: Sarah Cameron Sunde
Designer: Lauren Helpern
Producer: Gretchen Burger
Projectionist: Adriana Guiman
Public Art Advisor: Emily Blumenfeld
Lead Conversationalist: Pamella Allen
Denim Seascape Designer: René Stewart-Pearce / Marz’Anay
Conversationalists: Phil Alexander, Fernanda Omi Arias, June Frances Coleman, Justin Daniels, Edo Nunez Marshall, Kellye Smith, Catherine Ventura
Production Support: Christopher Bisram, Bella Gallo, Eric Matthews, Jennella Young
Installation: Raul Gordon / Think Lab 1
Material/Printing: Micah Causey / Alumigraphics by FloorSignage
All materials are aluminum and will be re-used.
Layered images: USGS 1947 map, 1979 Battery Park City Plan, 1865 Viele Map, Engineering plans/proposals. Images courtesy of: Allan Tannenbaum / Soho Blues Gallery, Carl Glassman / Tribeca Trib, Wikicommons, The South Street Seaport Museum.
Documentation Photography: Walter Wlodarczyk
Additional Documentation Photography: Jonathan Gross, Battery Park City Authority
Documentation Videography: Erick Stoll
Thanks to everyone at BPCA, Turner / SPC, Poet’s House Community, Marine Solutions
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