Michael Workman, Hurm Watches, 5 x 6", pencil, Sakura inks, watercolor on Arches and charcoal on archival journal paper, 2020.
A Third Annum Festival of Holes
“Join an unruly ensemble of archaeologists to excavate and celebrate the hole as a gathering point; that into which everything falls: black holes, boreholes, manholes, potholes, airholes, sinkholes, stink holes, wormholes, tone holes, keyholes, cunt holes, a-holes, mouth holes, hideyholes, holy holes, wholly holes, breath holes, holes in the head and in the body and in the earth, holes in humanity, holes as escape routes and connection points … a gap, a gape, a gasp, agape …” -Stacy Hardy, author, An Archaeology of Holes
A Festival of Holes 2026 brings together performance, film/video, comedy, installation, sound, publishing, poetry, and public conversation across two days at SITE/less. Throughout the weekend, several Holes Fest features will remain open:
Unpacked Mobile Gallery: Nothing, But [Holes]
Curated by Naomi Elson, Rebecca Griffith, and Lauren Iacoponi
Lauren Iacoponi — artist, Purple Window Gallery co-curator, and founder of Unpacked Mobile Gallery — will stage Nothing, But [Holes], a special edition of Unpacked that docks with SITE/less, curated alongside the Unpacked team and fellow visual artists Naomi Elson and Rebecca Griffith.
Environmental Installations
The festival will feature installation elements by architect and artist David Sundry, Iacoponi & Workman.
Performance
The Dance for the Lost, an Active Investigations performance, serves as the ceremonial opening and closing of this year’s Festival of Holes, bringing experimental poetics, dance, and performance play into dialogue with artistic place histories. Through assembled fragments of language and movement, Active Investigators explore transformation, censorship, and the struggle against erasure, entering a landscape where everyday construction objects become instruments of voice and bodies discover pathways through obstruction. Mirrorglass, an ensemble convened when needed for Active Investigations performances that require additional Active Investigators, will perform. Created by Michael Workman in collaboration with Mirrorglass ensemble members Tina Wang, Ali Lorenz, McKenna Mahacek, and Amanda Saucedo, the performance asks how collective action and community care can confront social brutality and make space for voices that have been erased and rendered invisible.
View the full ensemble photos and bios.
Bridge Books Releases
Bridge Books will release two new titles during the festival: Natasha Mijares’ Violent Wave, the first poetry title in Bridge Books’ new Allen imprint, and Ahmed Ozsever’s River, Red.
Membership Passes
Friday and Saturday evening admission is through Artists United Membership Passes. Artists United membership is open to everyone — artists, cultural workers, audiences, friends, supporters, and community members. You do not need to identify as an artist to attend.
Friday Evening Artists United Membership Pass: $25
Includes admission to the Friday, October 30, 6–9 PM program.
Saturday Afternoon Public Program Pass: $15
Includes admission to the Saturday, October 31, noon–4 PM public program. This pass does not include Artists United membership access.
Saturday Evening Artists United Membership Pass: $25
Includes admission to the Saturday, October 31, 6–9 PM program.
All-In Weekend Artists United Membership Pass: $50
Includes admission to both evening programs and the Saturday afternoon public program, along with Artists United membership access for the festival weekend.
Membership pass purchases support Artists United, Bridge’s artist-service initiative supporting Chicago’s freelance creative workforce through public programming, resource-sharing, advocacy, and artist support. You can choose to make your purchase a subscription, and become a long-term supporter. There are also discounted subscription options to Bridge magazine and the Bridge Journal available only to attendees of the festival. Click here to learn more.
Festival of Holes emcee: Madison Parker
Madison Mae Parker is a writer, performer, somatic educator, arts doula, and space-maker. Her experience has been collected across a smattering of spaces: from DIY poetry spaces and dive bars; a collaborative dance/poetry touring project across the US, EU, and Australia; an MFA in Performance from SAIC; community organizing and nonprofit work across Texas and Missouri; as well as studying somatics at the Tamalpa Institute. Recently, their projects have varied from a ritual arts residency through Artists in Public Schools, working as an arts educator through CAPE and Chicago Poetry Center, co-curating Many Times at Yes Project Space in Chicago, and facilitating an on-going workshop titled Movement Philosophy--exploring how texts lives in the body. They believe poems are just feelings on display, a way to let the body vocalize the internal knowing. Talk to her about poetry, cats, somatics, astrology, or cartoons, and you've found a friend. @MadisonMaeParker // www.MadisonMaeParker.com
This year’s daily programs include:
Michael Workman, Pink Hurm II, 14 x 18", various pastels, Sakura inks, Sharpie, on archival journal paper, 2022.
Exterum Inexact: Friday, October 30th, 6-9pm
6pm
Fixed-Price Grazing Reception
A grazing reception by Antique Taco is included with the evening ticket price.
6:45pm
Opening Invocation: A Dance for the Lost
A Dance for the Lost, an Active Investigations performance, serves as the ceremonial opening and closing of this year’s Festival of Holes, bringing experimental poetics, dance, and performance play into dialogue with artistic place histories. Mirrorglass, an ensemble convened when needed for Active Investigations performances that require additional Active Investigators, will perform. Created by Michael Workman in collaboration with Mirrorglass ensemble members Tina Wang, Ali Lorenz, McKenna Mahacek, and Amanda Saucedo, the performance asks how collective action and community care can confront social brutality and make space for voices that have been erased and rendered invisible.
View the full ensemble photos and bios.
7pm
Bridge Video Official Screening Selections:
Inhale Directed by Lagha Ghavam and Mohsen Pouryousefian, Runtime: 6:43
the archivist is dying Directed by Esme Laam, Runtime: 8:29
View the full film and video program for more information.
7:30pm
Comedy Program organized with HACC
A comedy section organized in partnership with HACC — Health Alliance for Chicago Comedians.
Standup comics: Jacob Crow, Jarrell Scott Barnes, Elizabeth Grossman & Kristi Durkin
Improv: Stir Friday Night!
View the full lineup with photos and bios.
8:30pm
Bridge Video Official Screening Selection:
Goin’ Down The Road Directed by Brian R Donnelly, Runtime: 4:11
View the full film and video program for more information.
8:35pm
Member Mixer with interactionist choreography by Mirrorglass ensemble members Tina Wang, Ali Lorenz, McKenna Mahacek, and Amanda Saucedo.
View the full ensemble photos and bios.
Bridge Video Official Screening Selection:
Ocean Screensaver Directed by Gia Abucejo, Runtime: 11:36
View the full film and video program for more information.
Michael Workman, Hurm Snout, 12 x 16", various pastels, Sakura inks, Sharpie, on archival journal paper, 2022.
Visc Ex Oris: Saturday, October 31st, noon-4pm
12pm
Brunch bites & coffee
A brunch grazing reception is included with the afternoon ticket price. Food partner to be announced.
Panel Discussions:
12:30pm
NO ONE WAY WORKS1: Independent Publishing, Censorship, and Creating the Commons
This panel will explore the push and pull in independent publishing around censorship and community-building among writers and publishers. Sharing examples from Fwd: Museums, a journal focused on rethinking museums and cultural work produced by students at the University of Illinois Chicago, panelists will probe the moment’s push to erase (some) knowledge in cultural institutions, overlaps between critical writing and practices in the field, and non-traditional publishing norms that nurture a flourishing of creative formats from contributors. Panelists include:
Molly Fulop (they/she) is an Educational Psychology doctoral student at the University of Illinois Chicago and a member of the co-facilitation and research team for The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project. Their work explores queer intergenerational collaborative artmaking and art museum educators’ role in combating LGBTQ+ censorship. They received an MA in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2023.
Therese Quinn, Professor and Director of Museum and Exhibition Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, has worked as an exhibit researcher, developer, and evaluator for Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago Children’s Museum, California Academy of the Sciences, and other cultural institutions. Her most recent books are Surviving the Long Wars: Creative Rebellion at the Ends of Empire, coedited with Aaron Hughes, Ronak K. Kapadia, Meranda Roberts, and Amber Zora (2025, Bridge Books), and School: Questions About Museums, Culture and Justice to Explore in Your Classroom (2020, Teachers College Press), and she has published other writings widely, including in the Journal of Critical Military Studies, the Journal of Museum Education, and the Monthly Review.
Maitrayi S. Subhedar (she/they) is doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her research focuses on investigating colonial discourse within museum knowledge systems and how it affects education and belonging in art museums. They have a background in studio arts and hold an MA in Museum Studies from Syracuse University. Her specialty is museum education in art museums, and she has worked across various museum roles such as education, collections care, and visitor experience in a range of museums.
1 From Revolutionary Letters (1971) by Diane Di Prima, Letter #8, San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books.
1:30pm
ARTIST-RUN CHICAGO: Alternative to What?
This panel will attempt to answer a series of questions that swirl in the ether:
What does it mean for artists to build an alternative—not only to the commercial gallery, but to the systems that decide which art receives resources, attention, and a place in history?
What becomes possible when artists themselves set the terms of participation?
Whose organizing becomes part of Chicago’s cultural memory, whose remains undocumented, and what an artist-run culture committed to experimentation, mutual support, and artistic self-determination could make possible now.
At stake is not a simple opposition between commercial and noncommercial art. Can artists sustain work without having to justify it either as a salable object or through prescribed expectations of activism and social benefit? What exclusions can arise within markets, institutions, and artist-led communities themselves? How do funding, criticism, publicity, and archival preservation confer different kinds of recognition—and why might recognition in one system fail to produce visibility in another?
MODERATED BY Meg Duguid (Spudnik Press). Panelists: Michael Workman (Bridge), Tom Burtonwood (Terrain Exhibitions / Terrain Biennial), Lauren Iacoponi (Unpacked / Purple Window Gallery), Susannah Papish (boundary)
View the full lineup with photos and bios.
2:30pm
BRIDGE BOOKS AUTHOR PANEL: Authors discuss the experience of publishing their works in the independent press world and the role of public scholarship in an era of corrupt institutions
Panel details tba.
3:30pm
Bridge Video Official Screening Selections:
Tears for Lost Frequencies (I) Directed by Monica Duncan and Senem Pirler, Runtime: 5:06
The Inherit, Directed by Sam Digges Hunter, Runtime: 9:14
View the full film and video program for more information.
4pm
THIS SECTION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC:
Artists United Listening Session
-> SURVEY RESPONSES ARE APPRECIATED <-
Artists United is a Bridge initiative working to strengthen resources, protections, and support systems for artists and creative workers while connecting and amplifying organizations already doing this work across Chicago.
This Festival of Holes listening session will focus on resource-sharing and participatory discussion around the working lives of artists and other creative workers. Bridge will introduce several Artists United programs now in development, including the Bridge Chicago Talent Directory, a growing public directory designed to help artists and other creative professionals become more visible, discover one another, and connect with employment, collaboration, and professional opportunities; the Artists United Open Service Desk, which helps creative workers locate relevant resources, services, and referrals; and an expanding resource network connecting artists with information on legal support, healthcare, employment, professional development, and other practical needs.
The session will center on open feedback and discussion. Through facilitated conversation and Q&A, artists and other creative workers will be invited to identify the services, protections, benefits, and forms of collective support they consider most important—including what they would prioritize in a creative workers’ union or broader support network.
Feedback gathered through the session and survey will directly inform the continued development of Artists United’s programming, partnerships, infrastructure, and advocacy, while helping Bridge better understand where new services are needed and where its greatest value may be in connecting and strengthening work already underway across Chicago.
Ex Defens Inexs: Saturday, October 31st, 6-9pm
6pm
Fixed-Price Grazing Reception
A grazing reception by Antique Taco is included with the evening ticket price.
6:45pm
Bridge Video Official Screening Selections:
Social Media Delivers People (After Serra & Schoolman) Directed by Brandon Bauer, Runtime: 2:43
Zoonomia Directed by Yeon Jin Kim, Runtime: 7:10
View the full film and video program for more information.
7pm
Poetry Program organized by Natasha Mijares
Join Bridge Books for the release of Natasha Mijares’ debut poetry collection, violent wave, and Ahmed Ozsever’s artist book River, Red, with readings by Mijares, D Rosen, Alex Wells Shapiro, and Ola Faleti. Moving between human and non-human lives, fragmentation, ecology, and transformation, violent wave uses sparse, electric language to explore the constant condition of change, while River, Red traces the shifting Texas–Oklahoma border through photography, archival research, mapping, poetry, and collage. Ozsever’s work is also featured in Nothing, But [Holes] on the exterior of the docked UnPacked truck, extending the book’s investigation of landscape, memory, and unstable boundaries into the Festival site itself. The readings will be recorded and become part of Bridge’s Readings Archive.
View the full lineup with photos and bios.
8pm
Bridge Video Official Screening Selections:
The Slip Directed by Alex Sherman, Runtime: 16:40
View the full film and video program for more information.
Closing Invocation: Dance for the Lost
A Dance for the Lost, an Active Investigations performance, serves as the ceremonial opening and closing of this year’s Festival of Holes, bringing experimental poetics, dance, and performance play into dialogue with artistic place histories. Mirrorglass, an ensemble convened when needed for Active Investigations performances that require additional Active Investigators, will perform. Created by Michael Workman in collaboration with Mirrorglass ensemble members Tina Wang, Ali Lorenz, McKenna Mahacek, and Amanda Saucedo, the performance asks how collective action and community care can confront social brutality and make space for voices that have been erased and rendered invisible.
View the full ensemble photos and bios.
8:30(ish)pm
Member Mixer
Please note that all above times and lineup details are subject to change. Additional artists, screening selections, program times, and special guests may be announced as the festival schedule develops.