AIR Festival returns to Aspen from July 27th to 31st, 2026, turning the mountain town into a crossroads of performance, film, literature, music, and live art. Presented by the Aspen Art Museum, this year’s edition, Figures in a Landscape, examines how terrain shapes perception through new commissions, performances, and conversations.
Performance art festival: ‘Figures in a Landscape’
Borrowing its title from recurring works in literature, cinema, and painting, the programme looks at the interplay between body, place, and action. Moving beyond gallery walls into theatres, chapels, alpine peaks, and open terrain, AIR gathers artists, filmmakers, poets, musicians, and architects in dialogue with Aspen’s rugged setting.
Key highlights include Adrián Villar Rojas’s First Gods, Lost Animals, alongside new commissions by Camille Henrot, Ivan Cheng, Lucy Raven, Matthew Barney, and Lyle Ashton Harris. Performances by Los Thuthanaka and Kali Malone are joined by a keynote talk from filmmaker Julie Dash.
Miranda July headlines AIR festival
Miranda July appears as one of the 2026 Bluhm-Kaul Keynote speakers, bringing her work across film, fiction, and performance into the programme. Following her novel All Fours, she reflects on intimacy, desire, reinvention, and contemporary life—threads that echo AIR’s broader inquiry into identity and environment.
Now in its second year as a long-term initiative, AIR Festival continues to grow its network of collaborators. With new commissions and site-specific works spread across Aspen, the festival positions the landscape itself as both setting and active presence.
Installation view of Once (Now) Again at the 2017 WHITNEY BIENNIAL
