staging grounds
February 20–28, 2026
Full Schedule
staging grounds is an open platform for performance, installation, and public programs.
By staging our shared experiences, how might we open up new forms of collective possibility? A staging ground is the architecture for an event—a place where people, objects, and ideas gather in anticipation of an unfolding scene. What follows may be a construction, a mission, a broadcast, a migration.
At EMPAC, staging grounds explores how art, cultural memory, and experience are shaped by structures that re-animate events across time. How do objects, gestures, or stories gain new meaning when they’re set in motion? How does each performance or installation transform what we inherit from the past, showing how culture survives by being continuously re-staged?
Anchoring staging grounds are two new commissions by artists Korakrit Arunanondchai and Jewyo Rhii, with additional artworks by Na Mira and Samson Young, and a film by Li Yi-Fan. The program also includes open installations, talks, workshops, and screenings in three distinct sites of gathering—the studio, the lobby, and the theater—each inviting you to witness, question, and take part in the unfolding scenes.
FREE COMMUNITY LUNCH IN EVELYN’S CAFÉ
On February 21, please join us in Evelyn’s Café on Level 5 for a free community lunch from Noon to 1:15PM. All are welcome. RSVP
INSTALLATIONS
Starting its opening weekend and continuing from February 24 through 28, staging grounds unfolds as a series of open installations across the project’s three primary sites: the studio, theater, and theater lobby. In Studio 1—Goodman, Jewyo Rhii’s Wing Theater oscillates between installation and activated performance space, with Rhii offering two live activations daily. In the theater lobby, Samson Young’s Liquid Borders and Na Mira’s Autoasphyxiation playfully set up camp in EMPAC’s interstitial zones, transforming walled-off corridors into porous, speculative structures. Within the theater, Arunanondchai’s video Unity for Nostalgia evokes ancestral presence through a haunting video installation that stages a Thai myth with atmospheric intensity.
EMPAC programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
