Image: Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI
Racine Art Museum has previewed the inaugural edition of 'In/Between', a new 10-day festival of visual and performing arts set for September 18–27, 2026. Described by the museum as a mostly free public biennial, the event will activate local landscapes and cultural sites through exhibitions, performances and participatory projects, with programming distributed throughout Racine and at RAM’s Wustum Museum. The museum said the full line-up will be announced later in August.
The first announced projects foreground site-responsive work and community participation. Amanda Browder’s 'Zig and Zag' will weave the exterior of RAM with colorful strips of fabric, using textiles created with local volunteers during sewing days. Eric Rieger, who works as HOTTEA, will present a suspended fiber installation that transforms its surroundings into a field of color. Look-Up Aerial Arts will offer the U.S. premiere of 'Éolia', a sway pole performance at RAM’s Wustum Museum that brings motion and balance into an unusual public setting.
RAM’s festival announcement arrives alongside other late-summer programming and a temporary closure of the museum’s downtown campus through Saturday, August 15, while a new roof is installed. The museum said that this work is an investment in the long-term care of the building, and noted that Wustum Museum will remain open during the closure. The festival itself is scheduled to unfold across both the main museum and Wustum, reinforcing the institution’s split-campus structure.
'In/Between' is being positioned as a broad public project rather than a single-site exhibition. RAM says the festival will use exhibitions, interventions and participatory projects to encourage audiences to experience Racine County in new ways. The inaugural trio of works extends that idea across building, ground and sky: Browder’s textile intervention on RAM’s façade, HOTTEA’s suspended fibers at Wustum, and Look-Up Aerial Arts’ aerial performance there. The museum’s language emphasizes color, material and movement as the connecting threads.
Browder’s contribution is tied directly to local collaboration. RAM states that 'Zig and Zag' is being crafted by community volunteers during sewing days hosted by the artist, and describes the installation as a celebration of color, pattern, location, community and sustainability. The museum also says the project blurs the boundaries between individual and collective authorship while creating a visible expression of shared stories and a celebration of Racine.
The institution has also provided a longer artist bio for Browder, noting that she was born in Missoula, Montana, earned an MFA/MA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. RAM says she now lives in Brooklyn and has produced more than 30 large-scale fabric installations around the world, often working with local community groups and donated textiles. The museum lists exhibitions at venues including Triennale Brugge, ArtPrize, the Hirschhorn Museum and White Columns, New York.
Support for 'In/Between' comes from Travel Wisconsin, Visit Racine County and We Energies Foundation, with additional funding from Racine Community Foundation. The festival runs September 18–27, 2026, with the inaugural works by Amanda Browder, Eric Rieger and Look-Up Aerial Arts among the first projects announced by the museum.
