Teresa Diehl: Breathing Waters, a NLE Solo project, is an immersive video and sound installation that takes the historic site where two bodies of water merge—the Hudson and East Rivers—as a point of departure. Diehl’s poetic visualizations touch on leitmotifs of water, ranging from creation myths and ritual cleansing to the very cycles of life itself. The artist links water to womb time: submerged in fluid, we are disrupted by the trauma of birth from our ability to breathe in water. This association perhaps explains the universal yearning to return to the source of water, and as Ishmael says in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, “Water and meditation are wedded forever.”

Diehl views the installation as a site of healing, an oasis or refuge within the urban jungle of commerce and concrete. Floor-to-ceiling scrims of monofilament lines—receptacles and passages for multiple layers of projected images—form a maze-like structure. The movement of bodies within the installation activates sound elements composed for Breathing Waters, creating unique corporeal experiences.

Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 16, 7–8pm

Seaport Culture District Open House Party: Thursday, September 17, 6–9:30pm

Viewing Hours:
August 26–October 25, 2015
Tuesday–Sunday, 12–7pm
*** The exhibition will be closed Thursday, November 26 ***

In conjunction with the installation, No Longer Empty will offer free programming for adults, children and families.

#BreathingWaters #SeaportCulture

About the Artist

Teresa Diehl was born in Tannourine, Lebanon, raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and now lives in Miami, Florida. Diehl’s L’Aber-Into (2015) was recently commissioned for the No Longer Empty exhibition When You Cut into the Present the Future Leaks Out, curated by Regine Basha at the Old Bronx Borough Courthouse. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including Museum Montanelli, Prague, Czech Republic; Glass Curtain Gallery, Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois; Estacionarte, Mexico City, Mexico; National Gallery of the Cayman Islands, Cayman Islands; Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, Hollywood, Florida; Slocumb Galleries, East Tennessee State University; the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida; and Museo de Artes Visuales, Caracas, Venezuela. She received her BFA in Photography at Florida International University in 1985 and an MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1989.

About NLE Solo

NLE Solo is a series of presentations of a single artist’s project or body of work. Expanding on No Longer Empty’s model of curating site-responsive group exhibitions in underutilized spaces, NLE Solo provides the framework for an in-depth site-responsive interaction between the artist, a site, locality and interconnected histories.

About the Seaport Culture District

From late August to December 2015, the Seaport Culture District will transform the area’s historic upland blocks by bringing together a distinguished group of New York cultural institutions to activate a half-dozen reimagined indoor and outdoor spaces across the neighborhood. Developed by The Howard Hughes Corporation under the direction of architect James Sanders, AIA, and located in a series of ground-floor spaces transformed by notable designers, architects, and artists, the partners’ activations include exhibitions, installations, projection projects, and public programs, including lunchtime and after-work events, K-12 educational programs, and weekend family activities. Outdoor elements will help provide the district a new identity and direct visitors.

The goal is to create not only a destination for visitors and New Yorkers, but also a true cultural incubator, hosting events and conversations about the future of art, architecture, design, tech, photography and fashion, film and video, books and publishing—and the city itself. For additional information on the Seaport Culture District, visit www.southstreetseaport.com.

Photos: Josh Simpson and Sakeenah Saleem