Pioneer Works Announces There is no me without you

NEW YORK, NY, JULY 14, 2026—Pioneer Works is pleased to present There is no me without you, an installation grounded in artist Finnegan Shannon’s longtime fantasy of an exhibition space that would meet their access needs. The PW Resident Alum reimagines a 12-foot mechanized conveyor belt as a vehicle to bring artworks to visitors, who are invited to sit on surrounding furniture and engage with a parade of objects through any combination of touch, sight, and sound. During its three-month run, the interactive installation acts as a foundation for three successive solo presentations of new works created for this project by emerging and established figures of New York City’s disability art scene: Joselia Rebekah Hughes, Ariana Martinez, and Alex Dolores Salerno.

Thoughtfully designed as a space for rest and play, There is no me without you continues Shannon’s ongoing exploration of conveyor belts. In their own words, “This infrastructure follows in a lineage of disabled hacking: taking something not built for this purpose, and trying to figure out what it can do and how it can create the experience that I am interested in, which is having a multisensory art experience without having to stand for long periods of time.”

The title stems from Shannon’s relationship to the concept of interdependence, particularly as it pertains to disability culture. The artist emphasizes the collaborative nature of both their practice and their everyday life—made possible through a community of writers, artists, activists, and friends—and challenges the concept of the individualized ‘genius.’

“Interdependence is central to my life as a disabled person,” they note, describing what can be both a utopian ideal and a daily reality. “I rely on other people and other people rely on me. That is naturally also part of my work, so it is inherently collaborative. My practice values the insights and expertise of all who touch it and shape it.”

The new exhibition at Pioneer Works will open with a presentation by Ariana Martinez, on view through October 4th—a soundscape accompanied by a collection of objects that comprise a "tactile score.” Using contact microphones to make environmental field recordings, it explores touch as a shared language between ecologically entangled entities. “In the absence of shared speech,” Martinez asks, “how might we extend the range of our senses to access other forms of understanding?”

From October 7th through November 1st, the installation will host Joselia Rebekah Hughes’s Masque On: Y'all taking spiritual hits; I'm making plans, a multi-channel video on portable DVD players in which the artist performs as actor, editor, writer, and researcher. Using Black study-informed disability methods and interventions, Hughes interweaves her concerns and priorities with escape routes and linguistic capacities to explore the aesthetics of being Black, alive, disabled, and laughing.

The final presentation—on view from November 4th through December 20th—originates from Alex Dolores Salerno’s personal and familial experience with coffee, while investigating the debilitating relationships between commodity crops, colonial exploitation, and the climate crisis. Through touch, play, and stim with ritualistically crafted objects as well as found and archival materials, the work prompts us to ground the ritual of daily coffee in a deeper sense of connection and responsibility to the past, present, and future.

Tuomas A. Laitinen: There is no me without you is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

About the Artists

Finnegan Shannon is an artist experimenting with forms of access. They intervene in ableist structures with humor, earnestness, and rage. Some of their recent work includes Alt Text as Poetry, a collaboration with Bojana Coklyat that explores the expressive potential of image description; Do You Want Us Here or Not, a series of benches and cushions designed for exhibition spaces; and Don’t mind if I do, a conveyor-belt-centered exhibition that prioritizes rest and play. They have done projects with MUDAM Luxembourg, the Queens Museum, moCa Cleveland, the High Line, MMK Frankfurt, MCA Denver, and Nook Gallery. Their work has been supported by a Wynn Newhouse Award, an Eyebeam fellowship, a Disability Futures Fellowship, a United States Artists Fellowship, and grants from Art Matters Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Disability Visibility Project. Their work has been written about in Art in America, BOMB Magazine, The Believer, and Out Magazine. They live and work in Brooklyn, NY.

Joselia Rebekah Hughes is a writer, artist, freelance access worker, and editor born, raised, and still living in New York City. She works as a visual arts teaching artist with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts' education department. The artist has exhibited or shared work at Smith College Museum of Art, MoCA Cleveland, Institute of Contemporary Art: VCU, Participant Inc., Lincoln Center, MoMA, Leslie Lohman Museum, Bard College, Swarthmore College, Whitney Museum of American Art, and elsewhere. Her writing has been published in the 59th Carnegie International catalog (2026), Apogee Journal, Massachusetts Review, The Poetry Project, Split This Rock, Blackflash Magazine, Leste Magazine, Jewish Currents, and Ocean State Review. Hughes is the author of the chapbooks I Need Fucking Space Like Fuck (Boundaries, 2025) and 1/2 the pressure 2x the speed (Eureka Press, 2025). She earned her MFA in writing from The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College.

Ariana Martinez is a queer, nonbinary artist of Puerto Rican descent based in The Bronx, New York. Their practice is grounded in the knowledge that processes of displacement, debility, and environmental destruction leave indelible marks upon the body. Through sculpture, print, and time-based media, Martinez develops tactile language, navigational tools, and shared rituals for grief and repair. The artist holds an M.F.A from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, a B.F.A in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design and a B.A. in Urban Studies from Brown University. Their work has appeared at Westbeth (NY), the Re-Institute (NY), the Open City Documentary Festival (UK), and the Barbican Cultural Center (UK). Martinez has been an artist in residence at The Ragdale Foundation (IL), The James Castle House (ID), the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (ME), the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and elsewhere.

Alex Dolores Salerno is an interdisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, New York) in Turtle Island in Abya Yala with Ecuadorian and Italian-American roots. Their practice is informed by queer, trans and crip communities, and anti-capitalist revolution that centers interdependence and nurtures connection to the earth. They exhibit at venues such as Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt), Espai d'Art Contemporani de Castelló (Castellón de la Plana), Real Art Ways (Hartford, CT), Brooklyn Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, and the Ford Foundation Gallery (NYC). Salerno received their MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design, and they have been awarded a Wynn Newhouse Award and an Art Matters Foundation Artist2Artist Fellowship. Their most recent residencies include the LMCC Workspace Residency at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Winter Workspace Residency at Wave Hill (NYC), and the No Lugar AIR Program at No Lugar – Arte Contemporáneo (Quito, Ecuador).

About Pioneer Works

Pioneer Works (PW) is an artist and scientist-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit cultural center in Red Hook, Brooklyn, that fosters innovative thinking through the visual and performing arts, technology, music, and science. PW supports onsite production through its science, design, recording, and ceramics studios; media, virtual environment, and technology labs; darkroom; and garden. Multi-disciplinary programs, exhibitions, residencies, and performances are presented to the public, the majority of which are free.

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