Third Saturday: Sestra Kuya Visual/Sonic Performance
Join us at the Climate Imaginarium on Governors Island for the final Third Saturday of the season!
We're hosting an outdoor art and sound performance on the Colonels Row lawn. (This event is not taking place inside the Climate Imaginarium.)
The clothing upcycling workshop with Juliana Castaneda has been postponed. If you previously registered for the workshop, we will send you an email when it is rescheduled.
The Sestra Kuya outdoor performance will still be happening at 2:30pm on the Colonels Row lawn!
Visual & Sonic Performance with Sestra Kuya:
Time: 2:30 - 3:30 PM
Location: Hay Park on Colonels Row (outdoors near Makina Cafe, not far from Climate Imaginarium house)
Details: Join us for a visual and sonic performance by the multidisciplinary duo of Olga Panchenko and Gerry Gonzales, Sestra Kuya, curated by Nicole Cooper and co-presented with Governors Island Arts.
The performance will showcase a process that Sestra Kuya invented and engineered in which raw electricity is applied through a brush to a titanium sheet that generates shifting colors while the same current is routed into modular synthesis. The result is a simultaneous act of visual and sonic creation!
Sestra Kuya is the multidisciplinary duo of Olga Panchenko and Gerry Gonzales, whose collaborative practice connects spirit, science, and art. Together, they are pioneering a new medium of art that transforms fluctuating electrical voltage into both painting and sound.
In 2025, they invented and engineered a custom process in which raw electricity, applied through a brush to titanium sheets, generates shifting colors while the same current is routed into modular synthesis. The result is a simultaneous act of visual and sonic creation, which was once hidden, but is now revealed expressing the fusion of energy, matter, and perception.
Drawing from Panchenko’s background as a classical pianist and a painter and Gonzales’s practice as a sound artist, music producer and a dj, Sestra Kuya bridges the material and the immaterial. Their work speaks to electricity as a living force: unpredictable, sensitive, and unique in every moment. Each performance is both an experiment and a ritual, co-created with the energy of life itself.
Sestra Kuya has presented their work in contexts spanning galleries, museums, and experimental music venues, situating their practice within broader dialogues on innovation, technology, and the metaphysics of art. Their mission is to offer audiences a direct encounter with energy - to make it visible, audible, and profoundly felt.
After the performance, stick around for additional programming:
3:30pm: Junkanooacom by Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow (Co-presented with KODA)
4pm: Mookntaka with Jarid Blue
6:30pm: Illuminated Species Parade by Sally Beauty Twin
7pm: Hometown XR by Wenjun Chen (Co-presented with AnkhLave Arts Alliance)
More details can be found here.
⛵Getting to the Colonels Row Lawn
For the weekend ferry schedule to Governors Island, please check here. Ferries run every 30 minutes. Take the ferry that’s most convenient for you from either Lower Manhattan (10 South Street), Brooklyn Bridge Park (Pier 6), or Red Hook/Atlantic Basin. Please arrive 15 minutes prior to your ferry departure time with your ticket ready to display.
Ferry tickets must be purchased at the ferry terminal or online. Fares from Lower Manhattan are $5 for a round trip and free for adults over 65, children 12 and under, Climate Imaginarium summer volunteers, and others. All passengers ride free before 11am on weekends. Cars are not permitted.
Governors Island is also accessible by the South Brooklyn NYC Ferry route. Brooklyn ferry tickets must be purchased in advance of boarding and are $4.50 each way. You can find the NYC Ferry Schedule for the South Brooklyn route here.
Once you get to Governors Island, you will either get out at Soissons Landing (from 10 South Street) or Yankee Pier (from Brooklyn). You can use this map of Governors Island to locate Colonels Row.
The performance will take place at Hay Park on Colonels Row (outdoors near Makina Cafe, not far from Climate Imaginarium house).