Untitled (Policy Writings)
2020

Monoprints

50” x various dimensions

Watercolor and gouache on paper with East River and Gowanus Canal water


This series of abstract monoprints made with pigment and water from the New York City harbor are meditations on the climate future of New York City and future policies that might be enacted. Made by flooding pigment with harbor water, these abstract prints imagine future policies that expand how New Yorkers engage with the waterways that make our city of water. They are dreams sculpted by embodied experience of the waterways and the policies that are our invisible interface with them.


Policy to fund community aquagardens
A policy to repatriate Governors Island to the Lenape 
and rename it ‘Pagganck’.
A policy to demap Buttermilk Channel and stop dredging
A policy to prioritize human-powered boating and blueway lanes around the city
Policy to reclaim harbor dredge for island-building, Upper Harbor
A policy to fund free swimming and boating programs for all New Yorkers
©2025 Nancy Nowacek
Nancy Nowacek artist is a research-based artist, designer, and educator working in visual art, public art, social practice, and socially-engaged contexts.