EASTHAMPTON — A moose has been treading water, floating around Nashawannuck Pond for more than a month. Luckily, it’s not a real moose.

It is actually an art exhibit, made of brown cloth on a float, built with pool noodles and other framing. The display is part of Easthampton City Arts’ new, experimental programming this year.

The moose is joined by two other floating exhibits: a set of mushroom-style lamps sitting on a mossy patch that light up at night, by Janna Ugone, and two fishes hanging from a tree stump, by Ella Nathanael Alkiewicz.

“We are trying some new things at Easthampton City Arts this year,” said Pasqualina Azzarello, arts and culture program director for the city and ECA. “We took a one year pause from Cultural Chaos, and we wanted to explore.”

ECA announced in February that it was canceling Cultural Chaos, the annual street festival that draws thousands to the Cottage Street Cultural District each summer, this year due to steep cost increases to host the event. Azzarello said the intention “has always been” to bring back a street-style festival, but it was no longer sustainable.

The ECA is a municipal organization, funded entirely through fundraising, grants and donations. Azzarello said Cultural Chaos would have cost close to $25,000 this year, with 50% of that funding going to things like tents and stages, portable restrooms, public safety and more, rather than to artists.

“We absolutely feel the loss of Cultural Chaos, we understand what a beloved touchstone event it is for the city of Easthampton,” Azzarello said. “Future funding for arts and cultural programming is very unknown right now, so we felt that the responsible thing to do was to take a pause, to get to know different ways of doing things.”

Instead of Cultural Chaos, Azzarello said, ECA is implementing several smaller programs and exhibits, including the moose, such as a festival that happened on June 6, called the Sidewalk Strut. Local vendors set-up shop at the city’s parking lot on Cottage Street and the Promenade, and performances took place there and in the Marigold Theater. Groups like Show Circus Studio, Caravan Puppets and Art in Motion participated.

Additionally, ECA launched Beats on the Boardwalk in May, a series of local musical performances on the Promenade that will run through September, taking place on select Thursday evenings and on Art Walk Saturdays. Azzarello said ECA is planning two concerts for the fall.

The new programming uses public space in the Cottage Street Cultural District, one of the goals of this experimental year.

“We’ve initiated some smaller scale programs that happen much more frequently than an annual street festival,” Azzarello said. “The other thing we wanted to do this year, was to explore different options and models for how to run a street festival on the scale of Cultural Chaos, and so we’ve been talking to different potential partners, we’re looking at different ways of doing that.”

This is not the first unveiling of the moose. It was also displayed at Chesterfield’s Fourth of July parade last year where it won the first-place prize for kids’ floats. It was built last year at Sugarhill Art, a small summer art program for kids, led by the program’s co-founder Cyndy Sperry. The moose got a revamp this year at Hilltown Cooperative Charter School with the help of their students and science teacher Joe Keppler.

“You see them in Chesterfield and you see them everywhere in western Mass. so it’s just kind of something monumental that captures kids’ imaginations,” Sperry said, adding that it was a “dream” to see the moose out on the pond.

For more information, visit easthamptoncityarts.com.