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A lovely visit from my friend, the writer @lizzieskurnick and her NYU students! She brought them on a field trip to BLACK CHERRY LANE: PRESENCE as part of their course, “Writing Family History: Memoir, Storytelling, and the Art of the Personal.” Heather Quinlan, director of AMERICAN GRAVEYARD gave the class an excellent primer on the film and each unique work in the corresponding exhibition, including Thomas Doyle’s miniature, “Ascension” and Beverly Y. Smith’s quilt, “The Origin of My Descent: Beyond the Grave.” We even tucked away into the listening room together to experience my sound installation, “What Remains,” turning the tiny minimalist theater into a confessional.

We’re at the halfway mark, and would love to have you stop by the gallery with a class, a friend or family before we close. The exhibition runs through Sunday 10/25 with two remaining programs: Common Ground (with Debbie-Ann Paige, Public Historian) on Sunday 10/18 at 2PM, and AMERICAN GRAVEYARD New Footage Screening (with Heather Quinlan, Director) on Friday 10/23 at 6:30PM

The exhibition and programs are all FREE and open to the Public.

🔗 blackcherrylane.org

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Are you one of the quarter million people who viewed this CBS News story? AMERICAN GRAVEYARD director Heather Quinlan gave an insightful interview about the documentary and its artistic companion, BLACK CHERRY LANE: PRESENCE. The multimedia exhibition, running through 10/25 in a pop-up gallery/film set at Empire Outlets on Staten Island, responds to the paving over of a 19th Century Black cemetery and churchyard. What was once a center of Black life on Staten Island is now a strip mall. Through nine distinctive artworks which will be part of the film, the site has been reimagined, honored and back in public conversation.

Link available in comments and CBS on YouTube. 📺

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Last night, I got to attend the opening of the art exhibit "Black Cherry Lane: Presence", at the Empire Outlets center in Staten Island.

This show is a companion piece to Heather Quinlan's upcoming documentary film "American Graveyard", about Cherry Lane Cemetery— a former African-American burial ground that is now a strip mall in Staten Island.

I didn't take many photos, but I did snap this shot of Ruth Ann Hills and David Thomas, posing in front of a painting which shows them holding the photo of their great-great-grandfather Benjamin Prine, one of the island's original residents. (A few minutes later, the artist, @timokamura, gifted them the painting.)

The exhibit @blackcherrylane runs through Oct. 25th, at Empire Outlets, 55 Richmond Terrace, five minutes from the ferry.

For much more info about "American Graveyard" and its contributors, please visit @americangraveyardmovie

#blackcherrylane
#americangraveyard

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Please join us tonight, October 1st at 6:30 PM, for the opening night of "Black Cherry Lane: Presence."

This exhibition honors the lives, legacy, and enduring presence of Cherry Lane Cemetery—a 19th-century Black burial ground erased by urban development. Nine artists spent the past year creating work in response to its erasure and rediscovery. Their creative process was documented in the film "American Graveyard," which will be released next year in conjunction with the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in New York State. The opening will serve as the final chapter of the documentary.

Event Details:

⌚ Tonight, October 1st at 6:30 PM
📍 Empire Outlets, Level 3, Waterside, 55 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY
Across from the Staten Island Ferry Slip. Ample on-site signage will guide you.
🔗blackcherrylane.org

Black Cherry Lane: Presence was made possible by a DCLA Art Fund Grant from Staten Island Arts, with public funding from the New York Department of Cultural Affairs.

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Boat Creak Dream

Field recordings and creaks from my apartment, creak accompaniment by my upstairs neighbors. A sound I often hear while drifting off into sleep. Composed with geofón and hydrophone recordings along Lake Michigan, sister soundscapes, and bowed electric guitar.

Dozing off while catching a glimpse of @maryedwards field record on a ship in the Arctic thinking to myself what a dream, I then dreamt of Mary, Gerry Formicola @secondcitysound and @elanlafontaine. All of us on a ship in the Arctic, gathered around a vessel type hole where we had pulled up an ambisonic microphone with no protection, capsules fully exposed. I looked at Gerry and Elan and said idk about this? The rest is fuzzy. What a gift to dream to be on a ship recording the depths of sea.

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MEET THE ARTIST: MARY EDWARDS

Staten Island’s own sound artist and composer Mary Edwards creates immersive work that explores memory, temporality, impermanence, place and the natural world. Her practice begins with listening—and with the idea that sound can become a space we enter and inhabit.

For Black Cherry Lane: Presence, in a nod to Mid-Century broadcast studios, a darkened sound room becomes a theater for the mind. Visitors are invited to draw the curtains, sit on the bench, put on the headphones and listen.

Her featured piece, “What Remains,” reimagines the sounds of Cherry Lane Cemetery across 150 years of change, erasure and rediscovery. There is no starting point and nothing to adjust: the work plays continuously, surrounding the listener with a landscape that is no longer visible, but is not gone.

It’s a fitting way to encounter a place whose physical traces were almost entirely erased—and to experience history through something other than photographs, maps or words.
Mary is also the composer for American Graveyard.

Black Cherry Lane: Presence was made possible by a DCLA Art Fund Grant from Staten Island Arts, with public funding from the New York Department of Cultural Affairs.

#soundartist #statenislandarts #blackcherrylanepresence #americangraveyard #environmentalcomposer #sifoundation
#givepresence

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MEET THE ARTIST: MARY EDWARDS

Staten Island’s own sound artist and composer Mary Edwards creates immersive work that explores memory, temporality, impermanence, place and the natural world. Her practice begins with listening—and with the idea that sound can become a space we enter and inhabit.

For Black Cherry Lane: Presence, in a nod to Mid-Century broadcast studios, a darkened sound room becomes a theater for the mind. Visitors are invited to draw the curtains, sit on the bench, put on the headphones and listen.

Her featured piece, “What Remains,” reimagines the sounds of Cherry Lane Cemetery across 150 years of change, erasure and rediscovery. There is no starting point and nothing to adjust: the work plays continuously, surrounding the listener with a landscape that is no longer visible, but is not gone.

It’s a fitting way to encounter a place whose physical traces were almost entirely erased—and to experience history through something other than photographs, maps or words.
Mary is also the composer for American Graveyard.

#soundartist #statenislandarts #blackcherrylanepresence #americangraveyard #environmentalcomposer #sifoundation

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Zooms in the wild

Moments from this years residency, photos by @joeiano

#fieldrecording #soundart #artistresidency

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Last Chance to See “Outside Linear Time”

📅 Date: Sunday, August 23rd, 2026
🕓 Time: 2:00 PM
📍 Location: Governors Island, Nolan Park, Harvestworks Building 10a

Celebrating the close of the Outside Linear Time exhibition, sound artist and composer Mary Edwards @maryedwards joins exhibition artist Seth Cluett @sethcluett for a performance engaging the environmental soundscape of Governors Island exploring their mutual investment in ecological systems and spatial perception.

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It's already been 2 months since we said goodbye to our 2026 residents 🤯

What are you missing most? 🐛

#artistresidency #soundart #deeplistening

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Excited to join this @women_innovating_sound bill at Purgatory @purgatory.bk tonight 8/8, doors at 7pm :) rescheduled from the rain and smoke sickness, to the right place and time. Fell off my bike last night and cant really use my left wrist much but let's see what happens. Hope to see some friends and comrades ❤️ 📸 by @variousartists_ from "Caress of A Cave" at Long Play

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Upcoming : Aug 8 2026 at @purgatory.bk for @women_innovating_sound

✨✨✨

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