Governors Island - Current Installations

“The Air Between Us”

Matthew H James & Claire Unabia

We live in a world strangled by noise yet starved for true connection. “The Air Between Us” seeks to cut through the static — to create a room, a breathing space, a living conversation between cultures, histories, and bodies in motion.

“The Air Between Us” is envisioned as an immersive installation designed to foster a dialogue between diverse cultural traditions, histories, and contemporary experience. At its heart, the project centers on the Hawai’i experience — a place whose cultural identity is profoundly shaped by centuries of indigenous heritage, immigration, global exchange, and ongoing transformation.

In this space, viewers will not merely observe art; they will enter an environment animated by the presence of performers highlighting Hawaiian culture — a tapestry woven from Native Hawaiian roots, Polynesian voyaging, Asian migrations, European influences, and American transitions — offers a vital example of how identities are complex, fluid, and deeply interconnected. As well as performances from the western perspective.

The installation in contrast draws from the atmospheric beauty of Yuan dynasty Buddhist wall paintings and other ancient Asian arts, employing their timeless, transcendent qualities as a visual backdrop to the multiple cultures presented. In order to explore how culture mediates our perception of time, space, and community. The traditional references create a sense of historical continuity, suggesting that the processes of cultural blending and adaptation are not unique to any one place or time, but rather a universal human experience.

The installation offers a contemplative space for viewers to reflect on the rich multicultural legacy of Hawai’i — not as a static narrative, but as an evolving, resilient, and vibrant dialogue that continues to shape our world today. To spark a conversation on multiculturalism as not merely a demographic reality but a living, breathing force that shapes memory, identity, and belonging. “The Air Between Us” invites audiences to experience how layered histories inhabit the present, how different traditions speak to one another across time, and how art can serve as a powerful site for honoring, questioning, and celebrating cultural complexity.

Dan Taulapapa McMullin

Dan Taulapapa McMullin is an artist and poet from Sāmoa i Sasa'e (American Samoa). Their artist book The Healer's Wound: A Queer Theirstory of Polynesia (2022, 2nd edition 2024) was published by Pu'uhonua Society and Tropic Editions of Honolulu at HT22 the Hawai'i Triennial. Their book of poems Coconut Milk (2013) was on the American Library Association Rainbow List Top Ten Books of the Year. The Bat and other early works received a 1997 Poets&Writers Award from The Writers Loft. They co-edited Samoan Queer Lives (2018) published by Little Island Press of Aotearoa. Their work was shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Metropolitan Museum, De Young Museum, Musée du quai Branly, Auckland Art Gallery, Bishop Museum, and Honolulu Museum of Art. Their film Sinalela (2001) won the 2002 Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival Best Short Film Award. Their film 100 Tikis was the opening night film selection of the 2016 Présence Autochtone in Montreal and was an Official Selection in the Fifo Tahiti Film Festival. Taulapapa's art studio and writing practice is based in Muhheaconneock lands / Hudson, NY, where they live with their husband.

Reuben Paterson

The world-bending art of Reuben Paterson (b. 1973, Auckland, New Zealand: Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāi Tūhoe, Tūhourangi, Scottish) reaches back to his childhood experiences of the glistening waters and sparkling black sands of Tamaki Makarau's West Coast. His signature use of glitter carries all these memories and the people, presences, and histories to which they connect. Always pushing what he describes as the 'limitless' material and conceptual possibilities of glitter, Paterson's paintings, sculptures, animations, and installations share an optical energy that harnesses the mesmerising effects of pattern, colour, and texture.

Paterson uses the transformative properties of light to reach beyond appearances and pry open the complex histories and tensions that sit just beneath the surface of all things. His art is made in celebration of exchange and encounter, hybridity and fluidity, spirituality and sexuality, and is especially attuned to the dynamics of queer identity and whakapapa (genealogy)-based modes of cultural knowledge. 

Based in New York, Reuben Paterson has exhibited nationally and internationally since 2000. He has staged recent solo exhibitions at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi (2023), Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū (2022) and The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt (2020), and has featured in significant group exhibitions such as the largest survey of contemporary Māori art, Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (2020); Contemporary Asian and Pacific Art, The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia (2016); and E Tu Ake, the Musee du quai Branly, Paris, France; the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand; Museo Nacional las Culturas, Mexico City, Mexico; and Musee de la Civilisation, Quebec City, Canada (2011-13). Paterson has participated in major international art fairs and biennales, including The Beauty of Distance: Songs of survival in a precarious age, 17th Biennial of Sydney, Sydney, Australia(2010); Asia Pacific Triennial, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia(2009); nEUclear Reactions, Prague Biennial, Czech Republic (2010); and the 9th Pacific Biennial, Republic of Palau (2001). Paterson’s recent public art commissions include Guide Kaiārahi at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (2021-26); Te Maiea, Aotea Square, Auckland (2021); and The Golden Bearing, Puketerata Garden of National Significance, Taranaki, New Zealand (2016). His works are housed in major public and private collections across Australasia. Paterson’s commitment to reaching outside of the art world and connecting art, industry, fashion and politics has led to long term collaborations with WORLD Fashion house and Dilana Rugs.

Tommy Hite

Hawai’i based contemporary artist. Hite was born and raised in Hawai'i on the Island of O’ahu in the city of Honolulu. He has produced multiple solo exhibitions as well as participated in various group shows since 2017. Hite’s work utilizes a variety of mediums and includes Paintings, Drawings, sculptures, and other mixed-media works. Hite’s work is primarily portrayed in oil paint and influenced by his direct surroundings in Honolulu and the subcultures of his environment. Hite will often employ iconography he has an affinity for. He creates a language through diverse combinations of imagery. Being Hapa (a hawaiian term meaning of mixed ethnicities), caucasian philipino, Hite juxtaposes elements of the tropical pacific with old european classical paintings as a representation of his ethnic Identity.

paulawpARTS

Paula Walters Parker is an artist who loves to experiment with materials and see where they lead her. From everyday foraged pigments and natural textures to bold colors and layered strokes, she lets her art unfold as a playful dialogue, exploring how each element interacts and surprises. Drawing on family stories, music, and daily experiences, her work is a celebration of resilience, curiosity, and connection.

Through what she calls “active imagination,” Parker lets materials take the lead, embracing spontaneity and accidents that bring unexpected beauty. She describes her practice as creating a scenario whereby she relinquishes control to the materials, allowing herself to be attuned to the accidents and opportunity to change in those moments. Her pieces invite viewers to pause, look closer, reflect, and enjoy the richness of what they might discover.

Originally from Kingston, Jamaica, and now based in Brooklyn, Parker studied art in London and New York City and is currently pursuing a Masters in Creative Art Therapy. When she’s not in the studio, she’s sharing her passion for creativity with public high school students in Manhattan.

Center for Cultural power:

Sonja John

This mural is dedicated to the BIPOC artist disruptors and culture bearers educating, organizing, and most importantly, caring for our communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Communities that are struggling right now to live with wildfires and other extreme weather events, rising floodwaters, polluted air and water, and the extractive systems that exacerbate these crises. Not only do we inject life with beauty, joy, insight, meaning and inspiration, we help everyone imagine a better future and metabolize a right relationship with Nature. Culture is Power. Culture moves faster than politics. Culture speaks to our hearts. Artists have the solutions and stories we need. 

About the mural, Sonja writes: “The work depicts my sister, Na'amah, and her son Luca, on a beach in West Maui. Their lives have been drastically altered by the Lahaina fires and they have been struggling with everyday transitions like starting school and more existential ones, like stewardship of local water sources as luxury developments, plantations and resorts vie to cut off access. Endangered Hawaiian species in the painting remind us of a key fact: We are Nature defending herself.”