Header image: Alan Michelson, Paggank, 2026.

More Art presents Reframing 1776: Land, Water, and the Work of Repair, its 2026 public art program, on Governors Island from July 30-November 30, 2026. Timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the United States, the program brings together new commissions by Alan Michelson, Danielle Jagelski, and Ortiz y Sanchez (Patty Ortiz + George Emilio Sanchez).

Together, these projects consider how Indigenous histories have been overlooked, how environmental damage can be addressed, and how public art can challenge dominant narratives of American history. As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, More Art has commissioned this program as an opportunity to reflect on the past and reconsider what a more inclusive future might look like. Taking place on Governors Island, known to the Lenape as Paggank (“Nut Island”), the program is grounded in a place long home to Indigenous communities and once rich with oyster reefs, making it a meaningful site for this work.

Throughout the season, three interconnected commissions approach these themes from distinct perspectives—land and ecology, historical reckoning, and ceremonial gathering—through installation, performance, and events.

July 30-November 30

Alan Michelson (Mohawk, Six Nations of the Grand River) presents The Oyster, a monumental public sculpture installed on the western shore of Governors Island. Created in partnership with the Billion Oyster Project and Governors Island Arts, the project continues Michelson’s longstanding engagement with the fraught ecological and Indigenous legacies of New York waters.

Drawing inspiration from the immense oyster reefs that once graced New York Harbor, and the Lenape shell middens that testified to the communal abundance nourished by healthy waters, Michelson reimagines the oyster as a sculptural commons. Part landform, part forum, The Oyster invites visitors to gather within and around the work while reflecting on histories of extraction, displacement, and environmental change embedded in the harbor itself.

Throughout the exhibition, the site will host performances, conversations, and public programs, with project ambassadors engaging visitors on weekends.

September 12-13

Ortiz y Sanchez (Patty Ortiz + George Emilio Sanchez) will create Acknowledgement & Reclamation, a public performance and temporary installation. Drawing on and expressing solidarity between Indigenous traditions rooted in both South Texan and Ecuadorian cultures, the work speaks to a shared global inheritance of dispossession—one that began locally with the founding of the United States on stolen land and extends across the Americas and beyond through global colonial projects. The work asks how acts of acknowledgment might move beyond symbolic gestures toward genuine solidarity between Indigenous communities worldwide and the local populations who share this land. Their collective practice proposes deep historical research and textual reading as a form of reckoning and accountability.

October 10-11

Holy Ground: The Oyster is a site-responsive sound performance by Danielle Jagelski (Red Cliff Ojibwe and Oneida) that activates Alan Michelson’s large scale public artwork, and explores the wisdom of the oyster, land, and human relationship to the Earth. The work brings together voice, percussion, and spatial movement to create an immersive sonic experience rooted in land, ancestry, and collective gathering. Inspired by Indigenous traditions in which music, sound, storytelling, and ritual function as interconnected systems, the performance considers how these forms can serve as vessels for cultural continuity and communal reflection.

Holy Ground was selected via More Art’s 2025/26 Engaging Artists Commission open call, which supports emerging artists creating socially engaged work in the public realm.

About More Art

More Art is a New York–based nonprofit organization that commissions socially engaged public art. The organization works in collaboration with artists and communities to develop public projects and educational programs that engage critical social and cultural issues. Through public art and digital media, More Art creates experiences that bring together individual and collective perspectives on topics such as immigration. All projects are developed through long-term partnerships with community-based organizations. Learn more at moreart.org.

About Governors Island Arts

Governors Island Arts, the public arts and cultural program presented by the Trust for Governors Island, creates transformative encounters with art for all New Yorkers, inviting artists and researchers to engage with the issues of our time in the context of the Island’s layered histories, environments, and architecture. Governors Island Arts achieves this mission through temporary and long-term public art installations and exhibitions, an annual Organizations in Residence program in the Island’s historic houses, and the curated multidisciplinary INTERVENTIONS performance series. Learn more at govisland.org/arts.

About Billion Oyster Project

Billion Oyster Project is a nonprofit restoring New York Harbor’s oyster reefs and rebuilding the conditions that once made it one of the most productive ecosystems in the world. To date, the organization has restored more than 150 million oysters across nearly 18 acres of reef, recycling over 3 million pounds of shell from New York City restaurants. Oysters can rebuild the harbor’s ecological foundation, but people determine if it lasts. That’s why the Billion Oyster Project connects restoration with education—engaging students, teachers, and communities across the city. By putting people at the center of the work, the organization is helping New York rediscover itself as a water city. Learn more at billionoysterproject.org.

Press Contact
Madison Markham | madison@moreart.org | moreart.org