Pep Rally for the Trees at Mass MOCA for Cheryl's Story

Climate Week 2026

at LMCC's Arts Center at Governors Island

Close out NYC Climate Week with an action-packed weekend of fun at The Arts Center.

On Friday, September 25, LMCC and Stony Brook University co-host a Climate Week Evening Celebration with a roundtable discussion, music quartet under the direction of Eugene Drucker, and reception.

On Saturday, September 26, LMCC's culminating Climate Week event, Homecoming: For the Harbor will harness the unbridled cheer and collective spirit of the American pep rally to root for environmental resilience. Through humor, spectacle, and participation, Homecoming invites everyone into climate engagement, celebrating New York Harbor as an environmental hero at the heart of the festivities. The day features a climate-action tailgate fair, creative activities, a participatory parade, pep rally speeches, and an afterparty.

Alongside Homecoming, LMCC will host a final Open Studios with our 2026 Cohort of Arts Center Residents. The months-long Arts Center residency hosts 20 artists deeply engaged in the intersection of art and climate change. Our Climate Week programming also includes the last weekend of Leslie Wayne's new exhibition, The Unintended Blues, eaturing large-scale paintings of melting icebergs in the Arctic Circle and aerial views of at-risk U.S. shorelines, as well as multimedia works engaging viewers with issues around present day climate science.

Saturday, September 26

20260411 - Maryvale Shade Pep Rally - Phoenix

The image has been fully released; the model release is on file with Media Relations & Strategic Communications.

Maryvale High School students with the SpiritLine Cheerleaders and Theatre Troupe 480 take part at the Maryvale Pep Rally for Trees, a high school-style homecoming pep rally, on Saturday, April 11, 2026. The community celebration of shade drew a few hundred neighborhood residents to watch a brass band, Maryvale High School cheerleaders, high school theater students led by an ASU graduate and a pony pulling a cart carrying a tree. The event celebrated the City of Phoenix’s tree-planting program, which planted 186 trees in Maryvale over the weekend. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News

10:30am - 3:30pm

Homecoming: For the Harbor

On Saturday, September 26, The New York Climate ExchangeLMCC, and hundreds of New Yorkers will gather on Governors Island for Homecoming: For the Harbor to cheer for the New York Harbor!

Together with artists, musicians, and partner organizations, we’ll wrap up Climate Week NYC 2026 with the full spirit of a Pep Rally—marching bands, cheerleaders, and art-making workshops, plus climate scientists and environmental advocates! Homecoming: For the Harbor invites us to combine climate action with pom-poms—proof that hope is overflowing and the water that connects our cities, our communities, deserves a cheering section! Bring your friends, bring your family, and catch the ferry!

Homecoming: For The Harbor is the latest public art project in a series designed by Minneapolis-based artist Amanda Lovelee to use the joyful language of pep rallies, parades, and collective celebration to strengthen our relationship with the natural world.

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12pm - 5pm

Open Studios: Arts Center Residency

The final Open Studios of the 2026 Season. With Open Studios, LMCC invites the public into the workspaces and creative processes of the 2026 Cohort of Arts Center Residents. These open house events are free and welcoming, informal, and accessible to all ages. Artist activations will take place throughout the day, more information coming soon.

Open Studios is part of a full weekend of Climate Week programs at The Arts Center at Governors Island! Join us for a pep rally for New York Harbor presented with New York Climate Exchange, an end of Climate Week Celebration with Stony Brook University, and more.

LMCC’s 2026 Arts Center Residents are: Garrett Allen, Rachel Garber Cole, Nicole Cooper, RedMoon Arts Movement Inc, Duy Hoàng, Derek Lee McPhatter, Tijay Mohammed, Sari Nordman, Sabrina Merayo Nuñez, Phoebus Osborne, Marie Lloyd Paspe, Gabriela Salazar, Lisa Ann Schonberg, Sara Stern, Nora Treatbaby, Tanika I. Williams, Darla Migan (Stony Brook University) Nobuho Nagasawa (Stony Brook University), Seaweed City, (Organization-in-Residence), and Noga Cohen (On-Site Assistant).

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography.

4pm - 5pm

Open Studios: Work-in-Progress Showing

Anh Vo: A sign, a signal, a delivery, a deliverance

A sign, a signal, a delivery, a deliverance brings Ca Trù, a rare northern Vietnamese chamber music tradition, into dialogue with possession rituals. Drawing from Ca Trù’s austere, trance-like soundscape and its precise rhythmic structures, the project explores quieter states of losing oneself. Here, possession emerges through discipline and devotion rather than abandon and catharsis, where control itself becomes the condition for being overtaken. This work will premiere at Danspace in Fall 2026.

Unintended Blues

Saturday 10:30am - 5pm | Sunday 12pm - 5pm

Leslie Wayne: The Unintended Blues

Leslie Wayne's new exhibition, The Unintended Blues, documents rising sea levels through aerial landscape paintings of vulnerable US shorelines and melting icebergs in the Arctic Circle. In these works, Wayne captures the beauty of our natural environment and renders with graphic clarity one of our greatest existential threats.

The exhibition in the Upper Gallery at the Arts Center at Governors Island runs from July 24-September 27. Free and accessible to all.

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Homecoming: For the Harbor is presented by LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council), The New York Climate Exchange, and Stony Brook University with major support from Bloomberg Philanthropies and additional support from Trust for Governors Island.

Learn more about LMCC's Climate Week partners, participating artists, and program offerings here.