PORCH: AN ARCHITECTURE OF GENEROSITY’S FINISSAGE PROGRAM ANNOUNCED 

Organizers Prepare to Host the Fourth and Final PORCH Fest Centered on “Gathering and Giving Thanks”

***Editors: Additional information and high-resolution images are available here. Interview requests can be coordinated through jessica@novitapr.org.

VENICE, Italy (November 17, 2025) – PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity, the U.S. Pavilion’s exhibition at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, will conclude its run with a three-day program of performances, design dialogues, art activations, and community-focused workshops. Since its opening in May, PORCH has served as a shared space for gathering and exchange, and its Finissage will mark a final celebration of the contributors and visitors who have shaped the project together over the last six months.

Organized by the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas, in partnership with DesignConnects and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, PORCH is co-commissioned by Peter MacKeith, Susan Chin, and Rod Bigelow. The presentation and site-specific installation position the American porch as a powerful architectural and cultural space of welcoming, community, and imagination, and aligns with the Biennale’s overarching theme Intelligens: Natural. Artificial. Collective.

Since its debut, PORCH has drawn steady attendance from architecture, design, and culture luminaries, as well as students, educators, and community organizers from around the world. A series of PORCH Fests, developed as a collaboration between the Co-Commissioners and Cynthia Post Hunt, the Curator of Artists-in-Residence and Performance at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Momentary, and PORCH Fests’ Public Programming Coordinator, has further enhanced the exhibition, adding special programming to the Pavilion during American cultural milestones. 

A concluding activation will take place during the Biennale’s closing weekend, November 21–23, 2025. Titled “Gathering and Giving Thanks,” the program honors the collaborative effort behind the exhibition’s creation and the shared experiences that it has shaped.

All programming is included with Biennale admission, with highlights of the “Gathering and Giving Thanks” PORCH Fest featuring collaborative workshops, live music and theater, participatory crafts, film screenings, design dialogues, and signature performances. 

Ada Limón, the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, will provide a reading of select work, and a joint initiative with the American Academy in Rome (AAR) will bring three distinguished AAR Fellows to the PORCH for interactive offerings. 

Fellow Akima Brackeen will present Words on Water: Venice, a participatory program and the second installment in an ongoing series tracing the deep connections between people and water, encouraging collective acts of storytelling. Fellow Tameka Baba will lead Site Unscreened, in which guests contribute to a communal weaving, either by beginning a new strand or continuing one left by someone else, prompting reflection on how landscapes are perceived and shaped without full knowledge of their pasts. Finally, Fellow Lex Brown will offer The Tower: Drawing from the Tarot in Times of Entropy, a brief talk on the formation of the Tarot, its archetypes, and its symbology during periods of instability, followed by optional one-card readings for visitors.

“Gathering and Giving Thanks” culminates in a Design Dialogue featuring PORCH Co-Commissioners Peter MacKeith and Susan Chin, with project contributors Francesco Bedeschi and Jonathan Boelkins. Additional dialogues with members of the Lead Design team and exhibitors, including Stephen Burks Man Made, TEN x TEN, Jones Studio, Letter J, Cunningham | Quill Architects, Brightmoor Maker Space, and artist Matthew Mazzotta, reflect on porches, public life, and community building.

Conversations on food and hospitality with chef Erick Williams of Virtue Restaurant and Elliot Hunt of Atlas the Restaurant complement the program, alongside the interactive performance Leopold Benches: A P(o)or(t)ch Theater by artists Michelle Grabner, Mark Jeffery, Kelly Kaczynski, Brad Killam, and Judd Morrissey, with costumes designed by Kristin Mariani and shoes designed by James Sommerfeldt. The festivities also include screenings of the PORCH Moves video series and the tying off of the Friendship Quilt created by visitors with artist Danielle Hatch. The weekend concludes with musical performances by Kalyn Fay and Olivia McGraw, and a PORCH Farewell. 

“The PORCH has shown us how this humble space of welcome can unite people through the simple act of being together. Over these months, we have gathered with visitors from around the world and experienced the power of shared presence,” said Peter MacKeith, Dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, University of Arkansas. “As we meet on the PORCH one last time, I am deeply moved by how this project has grown beyond any single vision and become a lasting expression of generosity and community.”

“Day after day, the PORCH was a site of joy, curiosity, and connection, and proof that architecture and design can create space for people to find commonalities and discover a sense of kinship that transcends difference,” said Susan Chin, Founding Principal, DesignConnects. “This chapter ends with deep gratitude for the moments we shared and for the community that formed around the PORCH, however briefly and beautifully.” 

“The PORCH has been a place where countless interactions carried a quiet significance. Artists, designers, students, neighbors, and travelers each brought their own ideas to the project and their own ways of activating it,” said Rod Bigelow, Executive Director, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Momentary. “This Finissage is bittersweet, but it reminds us that spaces shaped with care and intention can knit people together across disciplines, cultures, and distances.”