Liquid Cartographies:
Reshaping the Banks of the Possible
[past ten events]
Liquid Cartographies – ten’s 2025 seasonal festival in Red Hook, Brooklyn – offered participants the opportunity to experience ideas and places in processes of constant flux. Dominant systems of knowledge-production and dissemination have not trained humans to be fluid, to see ourselves as co-emergent with and within ecosystems of constant movement, change and fluctuation. We asked: how do our ideas about land and water shape and inform our lives and imaginations? How might propositional thinking and playing together open up possibilities, beyond rigid frameworks that center human exceptionalism, for more fluid forms of confabulating?
Liquid Cartographies was a 4-day experimental gathering sited in Red Hook, Brooklyn which unfolded from September 18th – 21st, 2025. The event was a co-creative endeavor supported by ten and Krista Dragomer, interdisciplinary artist and Red Hook community member. It was a festival with an emergent agenda based on propositions from participants, organizers and community partners from the local to the trans-local. Our invitation was to work with the waters and lands of this specific neighborhood to offer place-based practices in order to understand and experience commonly-held concepts differently.
The morning the event was scheduled to start, the team learned of a five-alarm fire in the main venue space. In the midst of devastation, shock, and grief, the curatorial team made the decision to move forward with Liquid Cartographies. After all… THIS is why The Emergence Network exists. We ask:
- How do we adapt to difficult circumstances with agility and care?
- How do we respond to crises with new sensibilities and attention?
- What does a truly emergent sense of making look like, one that is both porous and deeply intentional?
- How is intentionality a fluid state?
Thanks to the incredible generosity of the local Red Hook Community, we managed to resituate all of the sessions in other venues. Liquid Cartographies was a completely emergent event, more-so than we ever could have imagined. The team, proposition-makers, volunteers and participants came together to navigate the experience with grace, generosity and flexibility, as the festival and the place itself asked of us.
The event was comprised of 14 experimental, open-ended propositions hosted by Red Hookers and current & former New York residents; an inaugural aquatic shindig open to artists and other locals who suffered losses in the fire; a salty, sea shanty sing-along; a performance inspired by the Hudson River, an Algonquin song, Biosignatures, and Lake Sebu in the Philippines; a lively son jarocho show from Pulso de Barro on a barge; and an exquiste closing fiesta complete with Argentinian asado, Steve’s key lime pie, and a rocking performance from Yoni Gordon and The Goods.
For a taste of the Liquid Cartographies, check out the festival field guide and map, peruse a gallery of photos from our time together (below) and see a short clip from the performance Longing for Water (above). To learn more about the event in its entirety, visit the festival website.
Liquid Cartographies offered in experience what words cannot capture nor name – an opening into a different ontology, a respite from the mundane, and a beautiful, eclectic weaving of interdependencies.
– Volunteer
What marked me most was the uniqueness of the location. Having lived in NYC for 27 years, I had not known these particular places… I loved having an opportunity [to] gather around [something other than] a similar interest… [There was] space for total deviation from that initial interest and a willingness to follow impulse. I also really liked the porousness of the festival – as opposed to a retreat, where things feel very contained.
– Participant
Liquid Cartographies was produced and co-created by Aerin Dunford (Amphibiweaver / Project Manager), Krista Dragomer (Abyssal Cartomancer / Artistic Director and Local Anchor), Pooja Kishinani (Orca-strator / Administration & Communications Support), Nzingha Clarke (Deep-Sea Synthesizer / Curatorial Support), Stephanie Severe (Wave Conductor / Movement Coordinator), Yoni Gordon (Logistics SeaEO), and Sofia Batalha (Tentacle Weaver / Graphics and Webdesign). We also relied on the support of resilient crew of volunteers, proposition-makers, and local partners: Red Hook Arts Project(RHAP), Brooklyn Waterfront Arts Coalition (BWAC) and The Waterfront Museum.