Since 2002, Flux Factory has produced four group exhibitions annually. Curated and produced by Flux Artists-in-Residence, each Exhibition commissions new art on a distinct theme. For Artists-in-Residence, leadership of a group exhibition is one of the most valuable opportunities that Flux offers, and group exhibitions are frequently the most ambitious programs that Flux Factory stages. Artworks are selected through public open calls and works are typically open to the public for one month. Typically between 8-20 artists participate in each exhibition and artists are typically compensated between $100-$600 for their work. One Group Exhibition each year is reserved for the Rhizome Project, a series uplifting black voices through public events, fellowships and organizational practice.
Current Group Exhibitions
2023
Ornaphonism
October 2023. Curated by Will Owen.
Ornaphonism is an international group art exhibition broadly exploring the relationship between sound, sculpture, and space held at Flux Factory’s house on Governors Island.
Dirty Signs
September 2023. Curated by Hey There Kapplow and Walker Tufts.
Dirty Signs is an exhibition of international artist responses to the idea of emojifying dirt. Dirty Time collected visitor suggestions for a potential dirt emoji through a “think tank” installation within the exhibition, and several participatory activities at Flux Factory’s house on Governor’s Island.
Artists Formerly Known As Prints
August-October 2023. Curated by Sarah Dahlinger and Cayla Lockwood.
The idea for this show began with a group of artists who at some point considered themselves to be printmakers. As their practices have evolved to include conceptually driven multi-faceted projects and access to facilities have come and gone their prints have often taken a back seat, tacked up in a corner or shoved away in a cardboard box. This exhibition embraced the playful discoveries inherent in the printmaking process and showcase prints that these artists might not typically prioritize. The exhibition took place at Flux Factory’s house on Governors Island.
Island Luminaria
August-September 2023. Curated by Sally Beauti Twin.
The Island Luminaria group art show was composed of art that emits light and art depicting luminescent bodies (sun, moon, stars). The show culminated in the Flaming Creature Crawl, a night time luminary parade. Lanterns depicting the flora, fauna and celestial bodies of Governors Island accompanied by quiet acoustic music. This exhibition and parade took place at Flux Factory’s house on Governors Island.
Feralpy
July-August 2023. Curated by Amelia Heintzelman and Jemila MacEwan.
Feralpy brought together the diverse practices of 40 artists through workshops, performances, film screenings, durational experiences and installations. This program unearths the myriad of ways that artists’ creative processes often serve as a therapeutic or healing practice for the artist, their community or society. This exhibition and events took place at Flux Factory’s house on Governors Island.
The Voice of Many, The Voice of One: Collective Actions for Resistance and Mutual Aid
January-February 2023. Curated by Haiba Hamilton and Natalia Nakazawa as part of the Rhizome Project series.
The Clemente and The Flux Factory Rhizome Project present visionary work from a range of artists working in and through collective action, creating solidarity networks that facilitate different ways of being with one another. We asked the artists to respond to the following set of questions: How, as a collective, do you center the work of building and sustaining communities? In what ways does your collective support others to surThrive? How have you activated creativity in your world? Who are the people of your collective and community?
2022
Mama’s Augmented Reality
August-October 2022. Curated by Eleni Zaharopoulos.
Mama’s Augmented Reality is a collaboration between Flux Factory and the Institute for Diasporic Yearning and Longing (IDYL), an itinerant research institute whose mission is to create meaningful connections between places of origin and places of habitat in an effort to alleviate nostalgia and melancholy for persons identifying as strangers in a strange land. IDYL is the ongoing conceptual project of interdisciplinary artist, Eleni Theodora Zaharopoulos. This exhibition and events took place at Flux Factory’s house on Governors Island.
Flux Treasure Island
October 2022. Curated by Georgia Muenster.
Flux Treasure Island is an island-wide scavenger hunt, taking place over Friday October 21 through Sunday October 23. Artworks will be hidden all across Governors Island in secret unexpected locations.
Pink Flamingo: Clubs in Flux
July-August 2022. Curated by Jess Dilday (DJ PlayPlay) and Anton Lapov.
Three (very) temporary dream club spaces, a room full of nightclub archives, storytelling, workshops and more.
Creekworthy
June-July 2022.
Creekworthy is an event series taking place through the warm-weather months of 2022 on the Newtown Creek and in Hunters Point South Park. Creekworthy’s first installation will feature a selection of looped films related to this location, boat tours to U-Thant Island with on-boat puppet show, and temporary tattoos measuring the Creek’s filthiness.
Parade of the Species
May-June 2022. Curated by Sally Beauti Twin.
Parade of the Species is an art show and parade celebrating the ecology of Governor’s Island. The parade will proceed in a loop starting and ending at Soisson’s Landing. The exhibition took place at Flux Factory’s house on Governors Island. Paintings, installations and costumes from more than 30 New York artists and many Governor’s Island artists in residence will be on display. The 174 species observed by island goers and confirmed on the iNaturalist website will make an appearance in the art.
For The Public
January-February 2022. Curated by Dario Mohr, Teri Henderson and Haiba Hamilton as part of the Rhizome Project Series.
For The Public represents the physical manifestation of the artist’s desire to not just create, but to exhibit work that calls to be experienced by the public. As a pandemic struck the world, we all continued to exist, work and create. Artists of color have historically sustained a creative practice through tumultuous and uncertain times. The creative practice and resulting work serves as a method of self care and expression, as well as a source of inspiration for the audience. This exhibition represents the space for these artists to allow their ideas and works to emerge in the physical exhibition realm once again.
2021
Survival Tools for the Age of Ultra Anxiety
November 2021. Curated by the Jeju Island Collective.
This exhibition, hosted by Culture Lab at Plaxall Gallery, took as its premise the state of ultra-anxiety our culture is functioning within due to the pandemic and worldwide social and economic upheaval.
Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See
October 2021. Curated by Cameron Granger and Haiba Hamilton, as part of the Rhizome Project series.
Let’s think about the shared history of Black Folks in the same way poet Hanif Abdurraqib describes the Soul Train Line: A narrow, writhing, seemingly endless tunnel of Black Folks smiling and clapping.
Din Din
May 2021. Curated by Sarah Dahlinger, Nat Roe and Cayla Lockwood.
Din Din was a series of free, socially-distanced outdoor public events which use food and art to build community and took place in the neighboring Windmill Community Garden.
2020
Nobody’s Fashion Week
September 2020. Curated by Lexy Ho-Tai, Jaime Iglehart, Dew Igworia-Onwuka and Johanna Schwab.
Nobody’s Fashion Week aimed to democratize Fashion by encouraging multidisciplinary collaboration, skill-sharing culture, and self-expression for everyone.
where will I be buried*?
August 2020. Curated by Muse Dodd and Catherine Feliz
Featuring work from over 12 Queer and/or Trans, Black and Indigenous, People of Color (QTBIPOC), where will I be buried*? held space for artists and audiences from marginalized communities to center ourselves in our mourning, healing and transformations.
2019
Rub
December 2019. Curated by J Triangular.
RUB moved between two axes: the DIY strategies of the NOW-WAVE, and GRAPHIC ACTIVISM. The NOW-WAVE houses artists who produce counterculture that challenges the boundaries of Nationhood, and address issues that cross cultural boundaries.
Must They Also Be Gods
October 2019. Curated by Kalon Hayward.
Must They Also Be Gods was a group show that featured the work of over 15 emerging and mid-career Black artists that highlights the creative process of African diasporic peoples in connection with an insistent and inherent focus on beauty and spirituality.
Wicket Leeks
July 2019. Curated by Abdul Dube, Illesha Khandelwal and Will Owen.
Using the lenses of food and sports, Wicket Leeks showcased cooks, athletes, researchers, artists, coaches, and makers to help investigate the unsavory histories of nationalist, religious, and corporate colonialism in a palatable way, while not sugar-coating its effects, in order to help us better digest our present and cook up a healthier future.
TALK BACK
May 2019. Curated by Lexy Ho-Tai and moira williams.
TALK BACK centered the lives and leadership of disabled artists and organizers, asserting that deep-rooted cultural changes must be made within the art world to become more inclusive and accessible. TALK BACK believed that disability must be included in conversations about diversity. One part of affecting change in the art world is by placing disabled artists and organizers in positions of influence within the arts to effect change from within.
2018
Mark for Redaction
October 2018. Curated by Hilal Khalil and Razan Al-Salah
Mark for Redaction showcased multi-disciplinary forms of contemporary art from self-identified Kweer (queer), lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and/or gender non-conforming people who have ties to what is colloquially known al-‘ālam al-‘arabī (South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA)) and the respective diaspora.
Saunter Trek Escort Parade (S.T.E.P….)
September 2018. Curated by Christina Freeman, Emireth Herrera + moira williams.
S.T.E.P…. was an overlapping convergence and entanglement of walking, walk-based works and programming, mobilizing throughout New York. S.T.E.P… embraced the many ways and bodies we walk while asking how walking as a creative act can challenge notions and open conversations.
Wilder LIC
May 2018. Curated by Nat Roe and Lorissa Rinehart.
This exhibition took place at the new Windmill Community Garden and used electronic and mixed media to address themes of sustainability, both in terms of ecology and community.
Flux City VI
March 2018. Curated by Seth Larson and Abigail Entsminger.
Flux City 6 commissioned an artist group every week for 4 weeks to create a city (or their interpretation of city-ness). And each week, a separate artist group destroyed that city, to clear the way for the next participating group in a cycle of politics, ownership, creation and destruction.
2017
Self Storage
October 2017. Curated by Julie Bitsch (DK), Will Owen (US), Erik Duckert (DK), Sean Naftel (US) and Melinda Lauw (SG).
Taking full advantage of the “1 month 1 dollar” offers provided by self storage facilities around Flux Factory, Self Storage NYC provides 10 currently displaced artist or activist-run spaces and projects with the opportunity to freely curate a storage unit for a month. At the same time, Flux Factory’s gallery will function as co-working space for these artists and activists.
Humorgous Smorgasbord
September 2017. Curated by Sarah Dahlinger and Danny Crump.
Flux Factory is pleased to present Humorgous Smorgasbord, a group exhibition of artworks that utilize incongruity through live performance, video, sculpture and writing.
Tongue Tide
July-August 2017. curated by Emireth Herrera and Christina Freeman.
Inspired by Flux Factory’s location in Queens, NY — the most language-dense area in the world– Tongue Tide explores the multitude of ways in which artists engage with language, addressing both its tide-like ebb and flow as well as its limitations.
Column Shifting
April-May 2017.
To gain a better understanding of the relationship between financial stability and cultural equity in non-commercial art spaces, Flux Factory’s Cultural Equity & Organizational Sustainability Fellow, Oksana Mironova, will conduct a series of in-depth interviews with artists and activists, as well as staff and volunteers at art spaces and supporting organizations. In April and May 2017, she will organize a series of events at Flux Factory focused on financial stability and cultural equity.
We Have Always Lived in the Future
March-April 2017. Curated by Joelle Fleurantin and Zeelie Brown.
We Have Always Lived in the Future is an exhibition and series of artist-led discussions called, Silicon Flux, centering marginalized groups who are ignored or erased from Silicon Valley’s visions of future technologies. We seek to engage the ways that ableism, white supremacy, misogyny, colonialism and other modes of discrimination operate within the supposed impartiality of this industry, culture, and lifestyle.
The Endless and Mobile Beautiful Collapsible Labyrinth
March 2017. Curated by Seth Timothy Larson and Abigail Beth Entsminger.
The Endless and Mobile Beautiful Collapsible Labyrinth is an interactive sculptural installation taking over Flux Factory’s gallery.
2016
Artificial Retirement
August-September 2016. Curated by Jung In Jung and Joelle Fleurantin.
Artificial Retirement specifically addresses the question, What is failure in this technologically aided era? The show presents artworks and performances by artists working with ideas of ‘Failure, Imperfection, and Destruction.’ We live in a time in which electronic devices successfully execute our orders offering more convenient and improved lifestyles. It is almost impossible to detach from this digitally-driven world. Is this because we feel safer, healthier, and happier than ever before? Or is it simply that we have become so dependent on these devices that we no longer question their efficacy?
Debt Positive
June 2016. Curated by Caitlin Foley and Misha Rabinovich.
For three weeks in June, Debt Positive invites you to bring interest to bear on indebtedness that is shared openly and not exclusively. Debt might be the fundamental basis of human relations, but today it is also tricky business. Individuals shun it, but organizations welcome it as a means to grow. Debt seems to drive the economy yet appears abstracted to absurdity. Most people in the U.S. share debt, yet debt is borne out privately. How do we put our finger on the debt, which is everywhere powerful and nowhere seen? Through an evolving exhibition, performances, and workshops Debt Positive beckons people to re-envision debt, sublimate it, and consider possibilities for eliminating its wasteful implementations.
Fung Wah Biennial
March 2016. Curated by Will Owen, Matthias Borello and Sally Szwed.
In March 2016, Flux will commission 25 US-based and international artists / artist groups to create site-specific works for three Chinatown bus routes in the North-Eastern United States for the inaugural Fung Wah Biennial. During trips to Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore artists will share performances, projections, sound-works, web-based projects, and other social interventions that amplify experiences or tease out the nuanced politics of transit.
2015
Test Patterns
December 2015. Curated by Maddie Hewitt and Roopa Vasudevan. Co-curated by Lee Tusman.
Test Patterns is a group exhibition that examines the ways in which we interact with technological standards.
Hotel Wars
October-November 2015.
In the past decade, dozens of independent and brand name hotels have sprung up alongside the Flux Factory building in Long Island City, and more than twenty hotels are set to break ground. The hotel boom, the result of a delayed 2008 rezoning that allowed for rapid new developments in Dutch Kills’ mixed-use industrial areas, has quickly changed our neighborhood into a shifting environment of passing visitors. How can LIC residents, small businesses, and developers constructively and collectively respond to the complex political and social realities of the hotel industry’s rapid growth in a way that takes all stakeholders’ needs seriously?
Strobe Network
June 2015.
STROBE Network is a temporary broadcast network that will air via a digital streaming platform, featuring artworks that make use of broadcast as an artistic medium. The content has been programmed through an open call and the Flux Factory community at large, including work from 75+ artists. STROBE Network will create and distribute an alternate reality version of mass culture that is free, conscious, experimental, and uncensored.
Counterfeiting for Cash
February-March 2015. Curated by Douglas Paulson.
Flux Factory is proud to present Counterfeiting For Cash, an exhibition that confronts notions of authorship and authenticity, value, and celebrates ingenuity. Twelve artists have been commissioned to intervene in the systems we rely on to establish value, or investigate the rich history of unexpected counterfeits of ubiquitous and readily available objects.
2014
Utopia School
October 2014.
Utopia School is a month-long social center* hosted at Flux Factory for the purpose of studying Utopian experiments throughout time, as well as practicing our skills towards building new free spaces and practices. These classes, screenings, discussions and games will be connected by the essential question: What kinds of information are useful for re-imaging the future?
Homecoming
August 2014. Organized by Jean Barberis, Aliya Bonar, Jason “Phunquey” Brown, Jason Eppink, Shona Masarin, Georgia Muenster, Douglas Paulson, Sam Perry, Nat Roe, and Christina Vassallo.
In celebration of Flux Factory’s 20th anniversary, we’re opening our doors for Homecoming, an epic extravaganza. We’ll excavate the layers of artworks, inventions, and aesthetic mishaps that fill our labyrinthine building. We’ll reveal 20 years of archives, from the Kissing Booth Secret Tapes, to the long lost holographic family portrait. And of course, we’re adding to our stacks with commissions of new works by Fluxers near and far.
Nightlight
June-July 2014.
Flux Factory, in partnership with the Long Island City Community Garden, is excited to present Nightlight, an interactive light-based outdoor installation that investigates public and private land use after dark.
Exquisite Contraption
January 2014-January 2015. The Exquisite Contraption was created by Stephanie Avery, Ranjit Bhatnagar, Jason Eppink, Justin Lange, Adrian Owen, Amelia Marzec, Alex Nathanson, Nick Normal, and Eric Petersen.
Exquisite Contraption is both an interactive, building-wide engineering spectacle and a long-term experiment in creating a community ritual. The work will evolve over time as residents elaborate on the weekly tradition, respond to mechanical failures, and integrate (or not) the machine into their daily lives.
2013
Galactic Drive-In
October 2013.
Flux Factory presents Galactic Drive-In, as part of Empire Drive-In, a month-long series of programming within a full-scale theater made out of wrecked cars as audience seating and a 40-foot screen constructed from salvaged wood.
Untitled (As of Yet)
September 2013. Curated by Sally Szwed and Christina Vassallo, with special thanks to Athena Denos for production assistance and Jesse Gammage for graphic design.
Untitled (As of Yet) takes its point of departure from events that first appear to be disruptive, even catastrophic, but eventually open the door to new thoughts, practices, and opportunities. Many of the artists in this exhibition examine the responses to unfamiliar circumstances and the breakdown of routine, while others deliberately incorporate these disruptions as mediating parameters or catalysts for inspiration.
Kitty City
May-June 2013.
Kitty City is an inter-generational experiment in collaboration and pedagogy, designed to encourage shared decision-making power and challenge the way we think about the urban environment.
The Wonder Cabinet
March 2013. Curated by Georgia Muenster, with assistance from Carina Kaufman and Mille Højerslev Nielsen.
Flux Factory is pleased to announce The Wonder Cabinet, an experiment in collaborative story writing and contemporary wunderkammer. The exhibition brings together an eclectic group of artists – sculptors, costumers, video artists, holographers, and more – to compose a narrative together and build a walk-through cabinet of curiosities filled with elements from the text.
anything ANYTHING
February 2013.
OH Flux. Flux Factory is a complex web that encompasses an artist collective, an international residency program, a non profit organization, a packed schedule of exhibitions, events, and educational initiatives, and above all, an expansive, intentional, ever-transitioning community. anything ANYTHING highlights Flux’s diverse composition and the exciting and tricky balance of all of its ambitions. This group exhibition features artists who have taken part in the Flux community this past year, showcasing the individual work of both residents and administrators in the gallery.
2012
Public Trust
September 2012. Curated by Douglas Paulson & Christina Vassallo.
For us, Public Trust begins in this state of self-reflection. Inspired by resistance movements and the history of institutional critique, we wanted to investigate the role of money in public organizations, bureaucratic mechanisms, institutionally cultivated sensibilities, and where, exactly, trust falls within this spectrum of questioning. At a moment when accountability motivates so many of our demands, we wanted to organize an exhibition that would hold our own feet to the fire, as curators and as managers of an organization that both requires and serves the public’s trust.
Bionic Garden
June 2012. Curated by Jean Barberis and Elizabeth Larison.
Flux Factory is proud to present Bionic Garden, an exhibition that unveils how humans have adapted to grow plants in the most unlikely of ways and places. Works will be displayed in a range of environments that reflect the (often) limited environments that New Yorkers have to work with when it comes to exercising their own green thumbs: the Flux Factory gallery (naturally dark, concrete, drywall, insular), on its roof (unpredictable, exposed, bright), and reaching out into the community of Long Island City.
iSpy
April 2012.
Flux Factory presents iSpy, a participatory conceptual game show that brings together live streaming video, consenting audiences, and unsuspecting participants for a rollicking good time through the misuse of surveillance.
Banquet for America
February 2012. Curated by Alison Ward and Georgia Muenster.
Flux Factory is pleased to announce Banquet for America, an experimental utopian village centered around a banquet table.
2011
Congress of Collectives
October 2011. Curated by Douglas Paulson & Christina Vassallo, organized by Summer Guthery with special thanks to Angela Washko for production assistance.
Congress of Collectives is designed to unite collectives, individuals who choose to work collaboratively, and audience members.
Sea Worthy
June-September 2011. Curatorial Committee: Jean Barberis, Benjamin Cohen, Dylan Gauthier, Michelle Levy, Georgia Muenster, Kendra Sullivan, and Sally Szwed.
The EFA Project Space, Flux Factory and The Gowanus Studio Space present Sea Worthy, an exhibition and series of public screenings, performances, lectures, workshops and artist-led excursions on the water.
2010
Art in Odd Places
October 2010.
We’re taking part in this year’s Art in Odd Places, “a festival exploring the odd, ordinary and ingenious in the spectacle of daily life.” Come by Union Square at 14th Street in Manhattan and check out our pun as social intervention, Sign a Waver, or The Wavers!
Going Places (Doing Stuff)
July-October 2010. Curated by Jean Barberis and Georgia Muenster.
Going Places (Doing Stuff), our artist-led bus tours, are now going to be held year round, come sun, rain, or hail! The content of each tour is entirely up to the artist, and destinations are kept secret. Artists have carte blanche to lead a bus-full of people on an odyssey around the greater New York/Quad-State area. Think of it as adventure as performance art.
Science Fair
June 2010.
Inspired by grade-school education fairs, and the similarity between the creative and scientific processes, Science Fair will showcase nearly two dozen projects including an artist-run weather station, robots that draw, urban meteorites, a cabinet of curiosities, and electro-magnetic field mapping.
The Typhoon Continues and So Do You
April-May 2010. Curated by Elizabeth Larison, Douglas Paulson, Ginger Shulick, Chen Tamir, and Christina Vassallo.
Flux Factory is pleased to announce The Typhoon Continues and So Do You, an exhibition of new works through which artists contemplate four specific “artifacts” of war and how their original purposes are transformed through integration into larger society.
Housebroken
February-March 2010. Curated by Jean Barberis and Georgia Muenster.
Housebroken, Flux’s inaugural show! In celebration of our newest home, we’ve invited dozens upon dozens of artists to create works throughout the building.
2009
Artic Book Club
September-October 2009. Curated by Jean Barberis and Michelle Levy.
This exhibition is the result of a several-month long process embarked on by a group of artists responding to Tété Michel Kpomassie’s book, “An African in Greenland,” an account of the author’s unique journey from his native Togo to Greenland.
Holoscape
September 2009.
Flux partnered with the Holo Center and invited the public to create and animate a diorama made of cut-outs of photos of the festival uploaded in real time by the public. The diorama was then turned into a hologram.
2008
Faraway Neighbor
August 2008.
Las Hermanas Iglesias present Faraway Neighbor, an exhibition of sculpture, painting, performance and video by 5 Tasmanian and 5 New York based artists.
New York, New York, New York
January 2008. Curated by Jean Barberis, Melanie Cohn, and Chen Tamir.
New York, New York, New York is an interactive, multimedia installation. It is a continuation of Flux Factory’s interest in urban landscapes and takes inspiration from the Panorama, Robert Moses’ scale model of New York City in the Queens Museum of Art. For this exhibition, over 100 artists from all five boroughs and around the world re-imagine the public and private spaces of New York.
2005
Novel
May-June 2005.
At 9pm on May 7th, 2005, three novelists were enclosed within three individual habitats designed and constructed by three teams of architect/artists. For thirty days, this was their reality. Nightly, they dined together (courtesy of a revolving cast of chefs). Public readings of the novels-in-progress were held every Saturday evening, with viewing hours throughout the week. On June 4th, each writer emerged from his or her habitat, having completed a novel.
2004
Cartunnel
July 2004.
The artists: established and emerging cartoonists, illustrators, and graphic novelists. The project: create a maze of intersecting paths in the Flux Factory gallery space over which comic book characters will interact and develop.