Opening Reception for Pioneer Works Fall 2026 Exhibitions

Join Pioneer Works in a public opening celebration of Tuomas A. Laitinen: Siphon, LaJuné McMillian: Child/ren of the Bloom, and Finnegan Shannon with Joselia Rebekah Hughes, Ariana Martinez, and Alex Dolores Salerno: There is no me without you.

Siphon, a multimedia installation created by Helsinki-based artist Tuomas A. Laitinen, draws on more than a decade of research in octopus intelligence, sleep, and consciousness. Developed in collaboration with neuroscientist Sam Reiter of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and produced with guidance and support by PALO, the exhibition centers on a multichannel, titular video work that ensconces viewers within kaleidoscopic imagery of the shifting camouflage patterns, skin textures, and colors of octopuses. Scaled dramatically and edited into a continuous visual landscape, it captures multiple octopus bodies merging into a single undulating, painterly terrain. As Laitinen describes it, the work is intended to be experienced not only visually but physically, something viewers "feel in the body."

Child/ren of the Bloom by LaJuné McMillian is an interactive, multidisciplinary installation that explores the threshold between land and sea, and the body's return to its origins. Developed alongside the artist’s 2026 OceanX Education's artist residency, piloted in partnership with Pioneer Works, the exhibition transforms her research on phytoplankton, algal blooms, and bioluminescence into a spiritual, embodied encounter with oceanic systems. Through animation, sculpture, sound, interactive systems, and prayer, McMillian considers how bodies are transformed within oceanic systems.

There is no me without you is an installation grounded in artist Finnegan Shannon’s longtime fantasy of an exhibition space that would meet their access needs. The PW Resident Alum reimagines a 12-foot mechanized conveyor belt as a vehicle to bring artworks to visitors, who are invited to sit on surrounding furniture and engage with a parade of objects through any combination of touch, sight, and sound. During its three-month run, the interactive installation acts as a foundation for three successive solo presentations of new works created for this project by emerging and established figures of New York City’s disability art scene: Joselia Rebekah Hughes, Ariana Martinez, and Alex Dolores Salerno.