PARTICIPANT INC

Artists, and the people who love them, come to New York City seeking communities of freewheeling art makers, thinkers, and doers. PARTICIPANT INC is one of those rare places where they can come together to resist and repair.

No “white cube” standards here. Instead, the gallery’s black box design feels like a DIY theater where something unpredictable and necessary is about to happen. In 2008, New York Magazine named PARTICIPANT INC the Best Alternative Art Space. They haven’t stopped proving them right since.

Some shows hark back to the 1970s and '80s, when feminism’s second wave, AIDS activism, and the culture wars raged. Others speak to the urgency of the moment we’re living in now: climate activism, Palestinian rights, and transgender rights.

There’s a freedom of expression in the art shown here that makes us feel free, too. Go to be part of conversations behind the ones in the headlines. Go back to become part of pushing systemic justice forward.

PARTICIPANT INC and its beloved founder, Lia Gangitano, have been championing art and artists who refuse to fit the mold since 2001. It began on 95 Rivington Street, moved to Houston Street, and now lives inside a luxury building on Elizabeth Street. We’ve never visited without seeing Lia there. She’s as woven into the neighborhood’s history as the artists she champions, and the city is more textured and culturally rich because of her.