Triple Canopy Symposium 2026 (Day 1)

Triple Canopy’s annual symposium is a manifestation of the magazine’s concerns and collaborations, in person and in real time. The multiday gathering brings together artists, writers, performers, and researchers to address the role of culture in responding (or contributing) to a range of critical issues. “Let’s say live performance art is some kind of canary in the coal mine,” the late artist Pope.L wrote in 2011. He described the institutionalization of “a form that lives and dies on liveness,” with museums becoming purveyors of experiences as much as stewards of artworks. “What is its death trying to tell us?” he asked. The fate of liveness is central to On Value (2015), a book on the relationship between performance and property, edited by Triple Canopy and Ralph Lemon. In advance of the publication of a second, expanded edition in early 2027, we’ve asked a number of artists, writers, and performers to make use of the book in considering the value of liveness and the ideology of ownership. On Value centers on the particular experience—as old as the commercialization and circulation of Black art in the United States—of being valued as a source of entertainment or art, transcendence or truth, while being discounted as a person. Reflecting on the efforts of institutions to collect, codify, and reproduce performance, the book considers the tensions between objects and bodies, presence and permanence. For Every A-Side Has a B-Side, Sol Cabrini, Jonathan Gonzaléz, Nile Harris, Taja Cheek (L’Rain), T. Lax, and yuniya edi kwon will channel the book’s concerns into a variety of performances and readings. Lemon will introduce the event. This event is part of the 2026 Triple Canopy Symposium, presented in partnership with Critical Minded. A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing. Ralph Lemon is a choreographer, writer, and visual artist based in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. Recent solo exhibitions include “From Out of Space” at Paula Cooper Gallery in 2026 and “Ceremonies Out of the Air”at MoMA PS1 in 2024. Sol Cabrini is an artist, scholar, and author of Tgirl.jpg (Roof Books, 2024)) and Poetics of Unbeing, forthcoming from Duke University Press. Her practice addresses the various ways creolization performs and operates in the world. Taja Cheek is a Brooklyn-born curator and musician based in New York City. A multi-instrumentalist, she makes music as L’Rain. She is currently the artistic director of Performance Space New York. Jonathan González is a choreographer, artist, and writer. They are a 2025 Pew Fellow and 2024 Herb Alpert Award recipient, and their first book, Ways to Move: Black Insurgent Grammars, was published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2025. Nile Harris is a performer and director of live art. He has done a few things and hopes to do a few more, God willing. yuniya edi kwon is a composer-improviser, multi-instrumentalist, and interdisciplinary performance maker based in New York City. Her practice connects sound, movement, and ceremony to explore transformation and transgression, ritual practice as a tool to queer ancestral lineage, and the use of mythology to connect, obscure, and reveal. The 2026 Symposium is made possible through the generous support of Critical Minded, an initiative to invest in cultural critics of color cofounded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Ford Foundation; the Lambent Foundation/Fund of Tides Foundation; the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; the Ken & Judith Joy Family Foundation; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; Amazon Literary Partnership Literary Magazine Fund and the Community of Literary Magazines & Presses; the Stolbun Family; and Triple Canopy’s Publishers Circle. Triple Canopy’s annual symposium is a manifestation of the magazine’s concerns and collaborations, in person and in real time. The multiday gathering brings together artists, writers, performers, and researchers to address the role of culture in responding (or contributing) to a range of critical issues. “Let’s say live performance art is some kind of canary in the coal mine,” the late artist Pope.L wrote in 2011. He described the institutionalization of “a form that lives and dies on liveness,” with museums becoming purveyors of experiences as much as stewards of artworks. “What is its death trying to tell us?” he asked. The fate of liveness is central to On Value (2015), a book on the relationship between performance and property, edited by Triple Canopy and Ralph Lemon. In advance of the publication of a second, expanded edition in early 2027, we’ve asked a number of artists, writers, and performers to make use of the book in considering the value of liveness and the ideology of ownership. On Value centers on the particular experience—as ol