BGX Sweet Sixteen Boat Ride

October 10th | 3pm - 5:30pm

Pier 16 (past the 1885 Tall Ship Wavertree)

89 South Street NY, NY 10038

_______________________________________________________________ 

In addition to producing the NYC activation for Art Project Armazoen, Black Gotham Experience will be celebrating its 16th year throughout October. We started as a Black historical walk in 2010 that started on Wall Street and have grown to producing international projects about the impact of the African Diaspora. We will take moments in reflecting on our journey that started with a question - “Where were the Black people?” The question and response are communal, intergenerational, and international. 

Art Project Armazoen is based on an excerpt from an entry in the Dutch slave ship Hof van Zeeland, which was part of the Middelburgse Commercial Company (MCC) making its first triangular voyage between Middelburg, Angola and the Caribbean between 1732 and 1734. MCC is the Zeeland counterpart of the United East Indian Company and West Indian Company, which contested the sovereignty of Lenapehoking when it established the company outpost New Netherland in 1624. New Amsterdam was the capital of New Netherland and the antecedent to New York City. This excerpt from the ship describes five Angolan women who chose to jump overboard rather than be enslaved. One of them died. These few sentences in the archive, describing this experience, became the basis for Art Project Armazoen – an ode to their resistance.

The experience will be live-streamed to and/or recorded.

_______________________________________________________________ 

This will be our first public boat experience. We hope to develop programs that bring our community to the sacred waters to reflect on the waters that brought us from differing points on the Black Atlantic. We can't do this without you.