LIVING LABORATORY
Fall Residency Exhibition
November 7, 2026
The Block House
Building 9
Nolan Park,
Governors Island
Thank you for joining us on November 7th for the culminating exhibition of the 2026 Fall Independent Project Residency at the Block House.
Featuring work by Beth Ferguson, Tosin Omojola, Gabriel Gonzalez Depalo, Really Not Really (Stephanie Lee Yeung and Hermano Luz Rodrigues), Susan Isawi, and Massimiliano Malagò (Visiting Fellow), the full-house activation included research projects in topics across urbanism, housing, choreography, queer ecology, and interactive technologies.
The day included a performance by Gabriel Gonzalez Depalo titled Paggank Is Burning, a research-based drag performance exploring Governors Island as a landscape shaped by dispossession, military occupation, public transformation, and ecological uncertainty. Through two spoken-word acts, architectural and historical research, and live drag, the project examines how institutions choreograph and regulate space and bodies. The island’s changing form, along with its suppressed queer history, becomes a lens for understanding gender as performed, disciplined, and conditionally renegotiated.
In the afternoon, Fellows Talks were held in the main studio, inviting the audience into the process behind the research. Fellows were joined by respondents Stephen Slaughter (Pratt Institute), Oscar M. Caballero (GSAPP), Maria Rius Ruiz (Yale University) and Sara Dean (University of Michigan, IPA Fellow Summer 2025), moderated by IPA Residency Director Deborah Garcia.
Featuring work by Beth Ferguson, Tosin Omojola, Gabriel Gonzalez Depalo, Really Not Really (Stephanie Lee Yeung and Hermano Luz Rodrigues), Susan Isawi, and Massimiliano Malagò (Visiting Fellow), the full-house activation included research projects in topics across urbanism, housing, choreography, queer ecology, and interactive technologies.
The day included a performance by Gabriel Gonzalez Depalo titled Paggank Is Burning, a research-based drag performance exploring Governors Island as a landscape shaped by dispossession, military occupation, public transformation, and ecological uncertainty. Through two spoken-word acts, architectural and historical research, and live drag, the project examines how institutions choreograph and regulate space and bodies. The island’s changing form, along with its suppressed queer history, becomes a lens for understanding gender as performed, disciplined, and conditionally renegotiated.
In the afternoon, Fellows Talks were held in the main studio, inviting the audience into the process behind the research. Fellows were joined by respondents Stephen Slaughter (Pratt Institute), Oscar M. Caballero (GSAPP), Maria Rius Ruiz (Yale University) and Sara Dean (University of Michigan, IPA Fellow Summer 2025), moderated by IPA Residency Director Deborah Garcia.
PROJECTS
Beth Ferguson
The Public Island Effect
Regenerative Landscape Research/Design Proposal
Tosin Omojola
Material and the Mundane
Installation/Archive/Choreography
Gabriel Gonzalez Depalo
Paggank is Burning
Architectural Installation/Performance/Archive
Really Not Really
(Stephanie Lee Yeung and Hermano Luz Rodrigues)
un(real)ized
Interactive Installation/Film
Susan Isawi
WALKABILITY: The Pedestrian Paradox
Installation/Archive
Massimiliano Malagò
Hyperstoop Live-Work Typologies
Models/Drawings
The Public Island Effect
Regenerative Landscape Research/Design Proposal
Tosin Omojola
Material and the Mundane
Installation/Archive/Choreography
Gabriel Gonzalez Depalo
Paggank is Burning
Architectural Installation/Performance/Archive
Really Not Really
(Stephanie Lee Yeung and Hermano Luz Rodrigues)
un(real)ized
Interactive Installation/Film
Susan Isawi
WALKABILITY: The Pedestrian Paradox
Installation/Archive
Massimiliano Malagò
Hyperstoop Live-Work Typologies
Models/Drawings
Summer Fellows
