The Take Care Series at The Arts Center at Governors Island
The Take Care Series offers audiences of all ages an opportunity to actively engage in performances, workshops, talks, and other interactive events that embrace ideas of caretaking. This series of free public programs aims to find artfulness in the everyday by exploring creative practices and community projects that emphasize care for ourselves, our communities, and our planet.
Through performance, workshops, talks, and Open Studios with our artists-in-residence and partnerships with local arts and cultural organizations, we explore creative practices and different ways to care for ourselves and world around us. Past partners have included Little Sun, The Climate Museum, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Earth Celebrations, poet and LMCC alum Asiya Wadud, and many others.
All exhibitions and events in The Take Care Series are free and open to all. We welcome anyone who is interested in engaging with the creative process and connecting directly with artists.
Our 2022 public season begins in May. Stay tuned and sign up for our mailing list for more information.
The Arts Center is also home to working artists all year long. For more information about our Artist Residency programs on Governors Island, click here.
2021 Take Care Series

Little Sun: Fast Forward Screening
Films screen on loop from 12pm - 5pm
Studio A4, Upper Level
Fast Forward is a series of short films that explore five artists’ dreams for a regenerative world. Featuring over 300 global voices, the films have been made by artists from Ethiopia, Senegal, and the United States. Films by Ghost of a Dream, Naod Lemma, Selly Raby Kane, Jessica Segall, and Ezra Wube will screen on loop throughout the day.

The Climate Museum:
Envisioning a
Climate-Safe Future
1pm and 3pm, 50 min workshops
Studio A4, Upper Level
The Climate Museum will also introduce a newly-launched participatory art initiative with collaborator and LMCC River To River 2020 artist Mona Chalabi, the Beyond Lies campaign, which explores the fossil fuel industry's wrongdoing and invites the public to take an active role in moving beyond business as usual and towards a future focused on climate progress. These explorations and stories will then be woven together into a collaborative group vision for a climate-safe future.

Jazz at The Arts Center:
Curated by Jazz at Lincoln Center
2pm - The Endea Owens Duo at The Cafe at The Arts Center
5pm - The Sasha Dobson Duo outdoor set at Island Oyster
Jazz at Lincoln Center swings into summer at The Take Care Series on Governors Island with a trio of diverse and intimate performances.

Amy Khoshbin and Jennifer Khoshbin: Sun Seekers
1pm and 3pm
Studio A4, Upper Level
The Sun Seekers is an ongoing body of work to promote reconnection with the physical realm as a form of healing. Amy and Jennifer Khoshbin, a sister duo in the arts collective House of Trees in collaboration with Wildcat Ebony Brown are presenting a public program meant to dissolve the heavy weight surrounding us during the pandemic into a greater awareness of the body and how to sustain our energy to keep fighting for justice.
This public program will incorporate the audience into the Sun Seekers sci-fi narrative, which is an alternate world maintaining a direct correlation to our experience of the pandemic and the re-emergence and connection with the natural environment and each other. Visitors will be inducted to the Sun Seekers community through somatic rituals and be instructed on how to make their own healing reflective objects to take with them using provided materials and guidance from the artists.
Swale + PublicArtAction will be leading tours directly after. The Sun Seekers installation will be on view by appointment only until October 13, 2021.

Jazz at The Arts Center:
Curated by Jazz at Lincoln Center
Kely Pinheiro's Sambinha Bom
2pm at The Cafe at The Arts Center
Jazz at Lincoln Center swings into summer at The Take Care Series on Governors Island with a trio of diverse and intimate performances.

Earth Celebrations: Natural Dye & Eco-Printing Workshop
From 1pm - 4pm
Studio A4, Upper Level
Create colorful prints with natural elements that don’t harm the environment and celebrate nature's abundance of color this fall. Learn the basics of natural dyeing and eco-printing fabric with natural pigments. Earth Celebrations artist Michele Brody will engage participants to work with silk and natural fabrics to dye and print with natural pigments such as indigo, fall leaves, fruits and flowers. Flowers and leaves are used to create a contact print releasing their shape and natural color into the fabric.

we touched the boat to bless it
A workshop led by Asiya Wadud in conversation with Muna Malik’s Blessing of the Boats
Café at The Arts Center at Governors Island
Muna Malik’s work, Blessing of the Boats, invites a series of questions about the kind of future that we desire and what it would take to arrive at that place. Inspired by Muna’s prompt “We have an opportunity to set sail towards a new future—what society would you build and how do we get there?” Asiya Wadud works with participants to respond to these two intertwined questions, weaving them into a collective poem.

Open Studios with Arts Center
Artists-in-Residence
From 12pm - 5pm
Artist Studios, Upper Level
Visit 2021 artists-in-residence at The Arts Center in their studios, where they will share works-in-progress as well as offer hands-on and engaging activities for attendees.
In 2019, we presented The Take Care Series, a fall public program that reframes art curation as a mindful practice stemming from the concept of care. Workshops included a workshop with Jérôme Bel on Isadora Duncan,Olafur Eliasson's Little Sun Sunlight Graffiti, a talk with Soul Fire Farm on Farming While Black, a performance of Anne Mourier's Taking Care Laundry and more. Learn more.
Health & Safety
LMCC is committed to ensuring the health and safety of all of our staff, artists, and visitors.
In accordance with the Key2NYC Executive Order, visitors seeking access to The Arts Center are required to comply with this order, and must show proof of vaccination. LMCC staff that interface with the public must also comply with this order, which requires they show proof of vaccination. Acceptable proof of vaccination includes:
- NYC COVID Safe App: Android | iOS
- Excelsior Pass
- CDC Vaccination Card (or photo)
- NYC Vaccination Record
- An official immunization record from outside NYC or the U.S
Individuals under the age of 12 may enter Key2NYC establishments without displaying proof of vaccination so long as they are accompanied by a legal guardian and wear a face mask, except when eating and drinking, whenever they are unable to maintain six feet of social distance from other people.