{"id":597731,"date":"2026-08-19T04:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T04:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/597731\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T04:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T04:34:10","slug":"art-as-infrastructure-at-the-medina-triennial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/597731\/","title":{"rendered":"Art as Infrastructure at the Medina Triennial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                <a class=\"gh-article-tag\" href=\"https:\/\/hyperallergic.com\/tag\/art-review\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Art Review<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gh-article-excerpt is-body\">The inaugural edition of the sprawling yet rigorous exhibition examines the labor, regulation, extraction, and repair of our shared systems. <\/p>\n<p>                            <a href=\"https:\/\/hyperallergic.com\/author\/sara-reisman\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-profile-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-03-at-12.48.06---PM-2.png\" alt=\"Sara Reisman\"\/><br \/>\n                            <\/a><\/p>\n<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Finnegan_Shannon_hello-from-my-bedside-table_2022.jpg\" class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2119\"  \/>Finnegan Shannon, &#8220;Hello from my bedside table&#8221; (2022), vinyl banner (all photos Sara Reisman\/Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)<\/p>\n<p>MEDINA, N.Y. \u2014\u00a0It was artist Mary Mattingly, known for her large-scale, often livable floating structures that address climate change in the form of rising water, who first told me about the Medina Triennial about a year ago. Knowing that Mattingly was launching her \u201cFloating Garden\u201d (2026), a new, permanent iteration of Swale, a publicly accessible edible garden she first launched on New York City\u2019s East River in 2016, was enough to get me to Medina. But having attended the opening weekend of the <a href=\"https:\/\/hyperallergic.com\/tag\/venice-biennale\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Venice Biennale<\/a> the month before, I was wary of traveling to see art at a time when so much of the world is in crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Compared to my Venice experience, however, Medina was one of relief, maybe even restoration. A sprawling yet rigorously organized community-wide exhibition in a rural community in Western New York bisected by the Erie Canal, the inaugural edition of the beautifully curated Medina Triennial draws on historical site-responsive shows with an eye toward sustainability. Bringing together more than 100 artworks by 39 artists across 10 locations, Co-Artistic Directors Kari Conte and Karin Laansoo commissioned and selected projects that synthesize art, ecology, architecture, and rural culture to explore maintenance as a vital social, political, and environmental act. Through a selection of works that examine the impacts of labor, regulation, extraction, and repair of our shared systems, the curators return to the central question: What does it take to keep things going?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    Create a free account, or sign in to continue reading.<\/p>\n<p>Registered readers of Hyperallergic get access to a limited number of free articles every month, and the Hyperallergic Daily newsletter.<\/p>\n<p>      <a class=\"gh-btn\" data-portal=\"signup\" style=\"color:#00AEEE\">Subscribe now<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Already have an account? <a data-portal=\"signin\">Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art Review The inaugural edition of the sprawling yet rigorous exhibition examines the labor, regulation, extraction, and repair&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-597731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}