The Floating Library is a pop-up, mobile device-free public space aboard the historic Lilac Museum Steamship berthed at Pier 25 on the Hudson River in New York City for September 6- October 3, 2014. The people-powered library is initiated by artist Beatrice Glow and brings together over seventy participants to fortify a space for critical cultural production by pushing boundaries under the open skies that are conducive to fearless dreaming.The ship’s main deck will be transformed into an outdoor reading lounge to offer library visitors a range of reading materials from underrepresented authors, artist books, poetry, manifestoes, as well as book collection, that, at the end of the lifecycle of the project, will be donated to local high school students with demonstrated need. Ongoing art installations include a Listening Room that will feature new works by six sound artists in response to literature, site-specific paper rope swings, The Line, by Amanda Thackray, and Leading Lights by Katarina Jerinic in the Pilot House.
During this action-packed month, there is free public programming with over twenty roundtables, performances and workshops that will shine a spotlight on maker culture, DIY politics, sustainability issues and community engagement.Some highlights include bookmaking with Center for Book Arts and Small Editions, a modular furniture building workshop with Reid Bingham, live recording session with HeritageRadioNetwork, a Sensory Walk Workshop with the Movement Party, Lighght Reading with Ugly Duckling Presse, a multimedia sound performance by Pauchi Sasaki in the Petty Officer’s Room – a space akin to being inside the belly of a whale—, and SeaChange: We All Live Downstream ( a participatory voyage initiated by Mare Liberum and 350.org) will disembark onboard for three days of office hours after traveling for three-weeks on small boats made of paper connecting climate change activists along the Hudson.