Transdisciplinary artist Nobuho Nagasawa is one of two Stony Brook University professors selected to be year-long Climate Arts residents at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Arts Center on Governors Island in New York City.
As the first permanent home for arts and culture at Governors Island, the LMCC offers a space for artists like Nagasawa and fellow resident Darla Migan, to develop their practices while engaging with the community and surrounding environments.
Nagasawa states, “On Governors Island — where tidal currents, harbor winds, and rising waters converge — I approach the body as a sensor, participant, and witness within environmental systems. Through hand labor and immersive sculptural environments, I translate ecological phenomena and biological pulse — flowing water, birdsong, wind, breath, heartbeat, and voice — into responsive fields of light, vibration, and motion.”
Nagasawa is a professor in the Department of Art, specializing in sculpture, installation, public art and social sculpture practices. Her installation at Westwood Gallery in 2021, Drawn to the Light, explored the cycles of life, memory, and renewal through the psychological dimensions of physical space.
She has received major grants and awards that include DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), the Rockefeller Foundation, the California Arts Council, multiple Japan Foundation grants, and the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities. Among more than 40 completed public art commissions, she has earned three Design Excellence Awards.
