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Event Series: Monthly Gowanus Artists 2025

Desire Lines and Daylighting : work by photographer Nathan Kensinger

October 11, 2025 @ 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Desire Lines and Daylighting : work by photographer Nathan Kensinger
Saturday October 11, 1-5pm (Opening reception: 1pm to 3pm)
Saturday & Sunday October 18 & 19, 1-5pm (Gowanus open studios)
Saturday October 25, 1-5pm (Closing)
Curated by Pam Wong

Desire Lines and Daylighting is a new body of work by photographer Nathan Kensinger, looking at informal access points along three of the city’s larger waterways – the Flushing Creek, Harlem River, and Newtown Creek – and documenting work being done by community groups to open up public access along the waterfront. These photographs explore abandoned train lines and dead end streets, where local residents have created unique green spaces and shoreline pathways, and where future ideas are being developed to create more formalized parks and trails, and to dig up buried sections of these waterways, daylighting their hidden routes.

Although New York City has 520 miles of coastline and dozens of waterfront parks, for many New Yorkers, finding access to the nearest waterway is nearly impossible. Hundreds of thousands of residents in waterfront neighborhoods have been cut off from the coastline by train lines, highways, and industry. To get to the water, the best route is often an informal trail, blazed by neighborhood residents. Sometimes called desire lines, these unofficial pathways are hidden behind fences and on dead-end streets.

These photographs were created in 2024 and 2025, while Nathan was the Photo Urbanism Fellow at the Design Trust For Public Space. During his yearlong fellowship, he focused on issues of waterfront equity, and the work of local waterfront organizations, including the Guardians of Flushing Bay, Harlem River Coalition, Newtown Creek Alliance, NYC H2O, and South Bronx Unite. Nathan is an artist and journalist based in Brooklyn, who has created a series of photo essays, documentary films, public art projects, and video installations over the past 20 years, looking at New York City’s changing coastlines.Links:

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