Counterpublic 2026 presents its curatorial ensemble
Counterpublic 2026
September 12–December 12, 2026
Counterpublic, a triennial civic exhibition in St. Louis, MO and one of the largest public art initiatives in North America, is pleased to announce the curatorial ensemble for its third edition. For the 2026 exhibition Counterpublic has gathered an ambitious, globally-focused team of curators to shape the new edition including Jordan Carter, Raphael Fonseca, Stefanie Hessler, Nora N. Khan, and Wanda Nanibush, led by James McAnally, Executive and Artistic Director.
The third edition of the triennial will take place for a period of three months from September 12 to December 12, 2026. Over the course of the next two years, the ensemble will work closely with leading and emergent artists, architects, collectives, and community organizers to commission new work and continue Counterpublic’s mission to reimagine civic infrastructures with an eye toward generational change. To create an exhibition that reflects a joyous and inclusive vision of St. Louis’ future, the ensemble will explore our shared futures—climate and ecologies, education, generative technologies, Native sovereignty, food systems and more through Counterpublic’s unique model of civic investment and cultural systems building.
Co-founder and Artistic Director James McAnally says: “From our inception, Counterpublic has set itself apart as a triennial that helps set the pace for the possibilities of public art in each edition. We are a listening-first platform that dedicates the first year of each cycle to engaging the many communities of St. Louis––a bellwether city globally––to set the tone and focus thematics from the ground up.”
Co-founder and President Lee Broughton comments: “Counterpublic has established itself as an influential cultural destination, with our last edition drawing over 190,000 in-person visitors from St. Louis and across 36 states and 12 countries around the globe––emblematic of both the decentralization of the art world and larger shift towards embracing artists at the forefront of social practice. Our lens will bring new perspectives and approaches to our collective near futures, engaging the community, and using art as a tool for generational change.”
The 2023 edition was realized through thirty-seven commissions across forty sites focused on public memory and reparative futures. Several of the key commissioned projects began to think beyond the lifespan of the exhibition format. Central among these long-term goals is Counterpublic’s ongoing work to rematriate Sugarloaf Mound, the last remaining Indigenous mound in St. Louis, to the Osage Nation, who are among the descendants of the Mississippians who constructed the mounds between roughly 800 and 1450 AD as sacred, ceremonial sites, and a forthcoming regenerative earthwork and community land trust with Jordan Weber, curated by Diya Vij.
Counterpublic 2026 will be curated by St. Louis native Jordan Carter, a curator and co-department head at Dia Art Foundation, where he has curated exhibitions of work by stanley brouwn, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Maren Hassinger, Mary Heilmann, Cameron Rowland, and Lucas Samaras, among others; Raphael Fonseca, a Rio-born curator who serves as the curator of modern and contemporary Latin American art at the Denver Art Museum, is deeply interested in transhistorical approaches and how artists explore humor, absurdity, mass culture, and banality; Stefanie Hessler, a curator, writer, and the Director of Swiss Institute in New York, where she invites artists to experimentally reshape the institution through ecological and technological interventions; Nora N. Khan, an independent critic, educator, and curator––most recently the co-curator of the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement––whose research focus is critical artistic collaboration with generative technologies; and Wanda Nanibush, a Toronto-based curator and founding director of aabaakwad––an international yearly gathering of Indigenous curators, writers and artists that last took place at Venice Biennale––who recently won the Toronto Book Award for her co-authored book Moving the Museum which chronicles some of her groundbreaking work at the Art Gallery of Ontario as the inaugural curator of Indigenous Art.
