Ole Brodersen book launch with musical guest Cassandra Jenkins

Location: on our ship Mary A Whalen. BYOB.

This book launch party of Ole Brodersen's from Norway is accompanied by a short solo performance by Cassandra Jenkins. The event is part of the celebration of 200th anniversary of the first Norwegian immigrants arriving in the US on the sloop Restauration. We hope that 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. (We are waiting for permission from NYC EDC and dockmaster.)

About Ole Brodersen

On our ship 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. See him intterviewed in his father's sail loft here.

Brodersen 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 accompanied by a short solo performance by musician Cassandra Jenkins of NYC, 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.

About Cassandra Jenkins

Musician and performer Cassandra Jenkins writes with an impressionistic intimacy, making astute observations that dovetail neatly with her blend of folk and lush ambient pop. A native New Yorker, Jenkins came up through the East Coast folk scene playing in her family's band before launching a solo career in the mid-2010s. She also became active as a collaborator, playing in the touring bands of Eleanor Friedberger, Craig Finn, and Purple Mountains. On solo releases like 2017's Play 'til You Win and 2021's Overview on Phenomenal Nature, her music took on an experimental bent, folding in elements of dream pop and dusky indie rock. Jenkins signed with Dead Oceans to release her 2024 follow-up My Light, My Destroyer, and has since been on tour for the album which received international critical acclaim.

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 Ole Brodersen and Lyngør in this virtual studio visit.

“We are one family. Vi er en familie.”

A theme of PortSide’s related Norwegian programming in October is that cultural exchange moves both ways, e.g. the culture of the immigrant’s new home goes back to the homeland, and people and influences move back and forth over time. Immigration is not just a one-way trip; and this is reflected in this event where a Norwegian photographer and American singer living in NYC are partnering. Brodersen proposed the program to PortSide.

The replica 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 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.

Host or Publisher PortSide NewYork