American Academy in Rome

OPEN STUDIOS 2026
May 28
6:00 – 10:00 pm
Via Angelo Masina, 5

Garden Live Acts
7:30 – 9:15 pm

Meet the Fellows (Part 2)

From 7:30 pm, the evening moves through music, literature, performance, and sound experiments on stage waiting for the sun to set in our back garden.

Oswald Huỳnh opens with Memory revises me, a new chamber work inspired by Ovid, Frank Ocean, and Li-Young Lee, performed by Trio Sheliak. Through shifting textures and fragmented melodies, the piece reflects on exile, longing, and the strange feeling of watching home from afar.

Poet David Keplinger reads from ‘Great Pond’, a manuscript completed during his time in Rome, followed by Chuna McIntyre , whose performance draws from Yup’ik cultural traditions, storytelling, and dance practices carried across generations.

Maya Binyam shares excerpts from ‘Holy Fool’, her new novel about exile, secrecy, and the uneasy ways the past resurfaces.

Composer Lembit Beecher presents a program shaped by family stories, immigration narratives, and childhood memory, accompanied by Enzo Filippetti (alto sax), Susanna Pagano (piano) and Fellow Traveler Karen Ouzounian (cello).

The evening closes with Marta De Pascalis .depas , whose new work for synthesizer and magnetic tape explores analogue sound as something physical, immersive, and constantly shifting.

Join us for this special and extended version of our annual Open Studios!

Photos by
Last photo by Flavio Scollo

The 61st Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte – La Biennale di Venezia ( ) opens under In Minor Keys, carrying forward the vision of Koyo Kouoh across the Giardini and Arsenale, while collateral events unfold throughout the island.

Through the lens of the Academy, this reveals a constellation of practices connected through shared experiences of residence, research, friendship and international exchange in Italy –simultaneous and across time– generating collaborations and projects, some of them now reappearing in Venice.

In the main exhibition, Laurie Anderson ( ), Wangechi Mutu ( ), Gala Porras-Kim ( ), and Khaled Sabsabi ( ) appear across key sections and national contexts.

National Pavilions include Yto Barrada ( ) for France ( ) and a double appearance of Khaled Sabsabi for Australia ( .australia ), while the Italian Pavilion features Con te con tutto by Chiara Camoni (.camoni ), developed in dialogue with Cecilia Canziani ( ).

Collateral exhibitions extend across the city: Monia Ben Hamouda (.benhamouda.studio ) at Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana with Fondazione Bvlgary ( ), Amy Revier ( ) at CASA YALI ( ), Francesco Urbano Ragazzi ( ) at Ca’ Foscari University ( ), and Ieva Lygnugarytė ( ) with Meral Karacaoğlan ( ) with contributions by Oswald Huýnh ( ) at Oratorio dei Crociferi in collaboration with the Lithuanian Culture Institute ( ).

Special mentions include programs with Jenny Lin ( ) and Claire Dillon ( ), and extended connections such as Walid Raad, Lorna Simpson, Joseph Kosuth, and Michelangelo Pistoletto.

Read the full article at the link in bio and follow our stories throughout the week for coverage of many of the featured events.

Photo captions in comments.