by Agnete Brun
This is Ole Brodersen book launch party followed by a concert by Cassandra Jenkins. Permission for the event from NYC EDC is still pending, but save the date!
Date: Thursday, October 16. Time to be announced
Location: on the Mary A Whalen. In the event of rain it will be moved to the Strong Rope Brewery, 185 Van Dyke St, Brooklyn.
The event is part of the celebration of 200th anniversary of the first Norwegian immigrants arriving in the US on the sloop Restauration. A replica of the sloop will be docked alongside the Mary A. Whalen from October 15-20 having retraced the voyage of the original settlers.
A theme of the visit of the sloop Restauration is that cultural exchange moves both ways, e.g. the culture of the immigrant’s new home goes back to the homeland. That is reflected in this event where a Norwegian photographer and American singer living in NYC are partnering to create this event. Brodersen proposed the program to PortSide.
On Mary A. Whalen, Brodersen will launch Imagine a Place, a text-heavy photobook about in the car-free island of Lyngør on Norway’s southern coast, where only 45 residents remain today – voted Europe‘s best kept village by the EU. His family has lived there for 12 generations, all connected to the sea as sailors, shipmasters, and sailmakers. He is a photographer and sailor.
Brodersen himself sailed to New York in 2008–2009 on a pilot cutter built in 1894, retracing routes familiar to his forefathers who often called at this harbor. His grandmother’s sister emigrated to Brooklyn, creating another direct family tie to this waterfront. Now the work returns to the very place where these histories meet.
The launch will be accompanied by a concert by NYC musician Cassandra Jenkins, an artist whose music is intertwined with his images, and whose songs even sing of his home island, Lyngør. Brodersen first met Jenkins during his Atlantic voyage. Jenkins has used his photographs on three of her album covers and in a video, and she has even performed at the sail loft in Lyngør, singing about the island in track New Bikini, on a dark December evening.
The event takes place just before the opening of There is a Time for Everything: 25 Years of Contemporary Art at Scandinavia House (October 18, 2025), a major anniversary exhibition bringing together artists who have shown at Scandinavia House over the past quarter century, including Brodersen. More about him and Lyngør in this virtual studio visit.
The sloop Restauration will be tied up to the Mary Whalen during the event. The public will not be allowed to board the sloop. They can look down at the sloop from the Mary Whalen and talk to their crew up on our ship.
Installed inside the Mary Whalen, PortSide will have an exhibit we curate about Red Hook Norwegian history and crew members of the Mary Whalen, featuring Captain Alf Dyrland.
sail loft of ole brodersen by agnete brun
