art & culture
INDIE & OFF BROADWAY CONTENT. ART INSTALLATIONS AND THINK PIECES. THE STUFF THAT SEPARATES HUMANS FROM THE ANIMALS.
At Scandinavia House's Swedish National Day celebration, opera, glass-making, and candy came together in an afternoon inspired by the legendary Jenny Lind. Between handmade glass bowls, BonBon's latest sweets, and a lesson in 19th-century celebrity culture, the event was a reminder of how good cultural programming can bring history vividly to life.
The 14th Annual NYC Asian Burlesque Festival wasn't about stereotypes, representation, or proving anything to anyone. It was about giving Asian performers the freedom to be funny, glamorous, sexy, strange, theatrical, and entirely themselves. Across two packed nights at Le Poisson Rouge, the result was a celebration of burlesque, nightlife, and creative freedom at its best.
Indigenous Ainu musician OKI brought his electrified tonkori and genre-defying sound to Japan Society, blending reggae, rock, dub, and traditional Ainu music into something entirely his own. Before the show, we spoke about cultural memory, language loss, identity, and why music still has the power to make strangers feel human.
The NOo Arts House on Governors Island promised transformation through fungi, decay, ecology, and reinvention. But in a building already alive with history, texture, and deterioration, only a handful of artists managed to rival the power of the house itself.
Fashion designer Iris van Herpen doesn't just take inspiration from nature. She studies how it moves, grows, adapts, and survives. At the Brooklyn Museum's Sculpting the Senses, more than 140 couture creations are displayed alongside fossils, coral, skeletons, and scientific artifacts, revealing the extraordinary connections between the natural world and some of the most innovative fashion being made today. The result is one of the museum's most ambitious and visually stunning exhibitions in recent memory.
Opened by longtime NYC comedian Jeremy Pinsly, Greenpoint Comedy Club was founded on the belief that comedy works best when it feels communal. The new Brooklyn venue combines standout lineups with an atmosphere designed as much for hanging out as the performances themselves.
Mystic Caviar blended champagne, tarot, contemporary art, and actual conversation into the kind of New York night people swear no longer exists. Inside Tara Downs Gallery, strangers debated art, pulled cards, and remembered what community can feel like in the city.
What happens when a book club stops discussing the story and starts living it? Midnight Flâneur transforms Parkside Lounge into the world of Meet Me in the Bathroom with music, nostalgia, and a gloriously messy celebration of New York's indie sleaze era.