With Gratitude To:

Arthur Poisson, Anna Larson, Brie Ruais, Cecily Anderson, Meryl O’Connor, Martina Mrongovius, Connie Hockaday, Marie Lorenz, Adam Katzman, Zaria Forman, Angela Conant, Sierra Pettengil, Emily Sandusky, Duke Riley, Paula Segal, Patrick Kiley, Christin Ripley, James Voorhies, Nate Padavick, Susan Cross, Cassandra Troyan, James Parrot III, Matt Cassity, Juliana Driever, Emmett Smith, Nick Normal, Matt Levy, Meg Keys, Orian McNeil, Richard Kriddle, Michelle Levy, Sally Szwed, Kevin Buckland, Amaranta Herrero, Andrea Rollefson, Andrea Kimmich-Keyser, Coach Ed Kennedy, Tianna Kennedy, Dana Gulley, Riverkeeper, Alex Scrimgeour, Wendell Seitz, North Brooklyn Boat Club, Red Hook Boaters, Gowanus Dredgers, Inwood Canoe Club, Ossining Boat and Canoe Club, The Staats, A’yen Tran, Jeff Stark, George Graham, Greg Mihalko, Jason Viseltear, Josh Weinstein, Haley Hughes, Sam Gould, Jens Rasmussen, Willis Elkins, Rosalyn Ruiz, Patterson Beckwith, Fung Lim, Mark Anderson, Radhika Subramaniam, Edward Morris, Susannah Sayler, Elizabeth Rush, Galen Joseph-Hunter, Tom Rowe, Ellen Driscoll, Tom O’Dowd, Gail Buckland, Susan Rogers, Maximillian Goldfarb, Jesse Karch, Dylan Latimer, Everett Cox, Laurie Husted, Gypsy Guillen Kaiser, Mario Kaiser, Alaina Taylor, Raquel de Anda, Rachel Sturgis, Beka Economopoulos, kt tierney, Azuré and Christian, Mark @ Haven, Enez Paganuzzi, Alexis Bhagat, Stephanie Loveless, Stephanie Rabins, Lindsea Kemp-Wilbur, Elizabeth Knafo, Paul Lloyd Sargent, Jen Kaminski, Artur Jupiter, David Borton, Amanda “Dez” Menendez, Susan Rutman, Bleakley McDowell, Sara McMillan, Brindalyn Webster Chen, Georgia Muenster, Michael Arcega, Rachel Bacon, Gabriela Basterra, Andy Bichlbaum & Jeff Day, Jimbo Blachly & Lytle Shaw, George Boorujy, Matt Bua, The Brooklyn Pirates, Laurie Churchman, Adriane Colburn, Heather Dewey-Hagborg & Thomas Dexter, Meredith Drum & Rachel Stevens, Amze Emmons, Andrew Eutsler, Shane Heinemeier & Alison Ward, Drew Feuer & Eleanor Lovinsky, Jason Gandy, Richard Haley, Crystal Heiden, Constance Hockaday, TJ Hospodar, Haley Hughes, Sarah Julig, Jonathan Kaiser, Adam Katzman, Marie Lorenz, Hans Maharawal & Thomas Robinson, Mary Mattingly, Orien McNeill, Nick Normal, Ciaran O’Dochartaigh, Anne Percoco, Natalia Porter, Duke Riley, Tod Seelie, Jessica Segall, Gina Siepel, Reid Stowe, Swimming Cities, Swoon, A’yen Tran, Emmett Walsh, Ian Warren, Brindalyn Webster, Charles Westfall, Marina 59, Randi Hopkins, Eugene Finney, Jacqueline Shilkoff, Dan Glass, James Trimarco, Martha Schwendener, Marty Lucas, Rachel Stevens, Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga, Michael Gitlin, Lorraine Boissonault, Oksana Mironova, Ray Fusco, Catharine Connell, Ralph Bishop, Gretta Cohn, Natalia Porter, Allison Poole, Elizabeth Weinberg, Anna Boysen, Joe Beaglehole, Jonathan Butt, Stuart Heys, Pauline Pechin, Lacey Tauber, Beatrice Glow, Mary Habstritt, Nadine Bloch, Gabby Brown, Yoni Brook, Kenny Bruno, Shawn Forno, Matt Tyson, Graeme Birchall, Ilya Bernstein, Athena Soules, Jacques, Good Kid Paulie, Turtle MacDermott, Yuko Tonohira, Emilio Oliveira, Elizabeth Press, Julie Platner, Gayathri Iyer, and probably quite a few more…

Mare Liberum* (or, “The Free Seas”) is a freeform publishing, boatbuilding and waterfront art collective and civic initiative, based in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn, New York. Finding its roots in centuries-old stories of urban water squatters and haphazard watercraft builders, Mare Liberum is a collaborative exploration of what it takes to make viable aquatic craft as an alternative to life on land. It is also a way to make visible the overlooked and the neglected, in particular the often toxic waterways of our urban centers. The collective draws from sources as diverse as ocean-crossing raft assemblages, improvised refugee boats built in Senegal and Cuba, and modern stitch-and-ply construction methods which make complex, classic boat designs approachable by novice builders.  

Mare Liberum’s boats, broadsheets and workshops have been exhibited by MASS MoCA, The Neuberger Museum, Maker Faire, Psy-Geo-Conflux Festival, Parsons/The New School, Boston Center for the Arts, the Boston Children’s Museum, EFA Project Space, Alexandraplatz, the Antique Boat Museum, and have been written about in Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, Bad at Sports, The Village Voice, and Vice Magazine, among others.

* after the Grotius text of ~1609…