Our sixth edition of Press Play, a weekend-long fair of books, records, art, ephemera, talks, and workshops, returns on December 13–14, 2025.

Showcasing over 130 artists, musicians, poets, writers, and exhibitors who defy categorization, Press Play invites you to discover new ways of reading, listening, creating, and complaining about culture. Curated by Micaela Durand, Pioneer Works Associate Director of Publishing, this year’s program confronts the complexities of desire, from sadomasochism and online subcultures to loneliness, sex, and what it means to connect today. What happens when bodies and desires collide with technology and communion? How do we transform intimacy into art? In this new hellscape, what radical actions are possible?

This year’s featured exhibitor is Khajistan, an archive focused on overlooked media from the Islamicate world. At Press Play, they present a special salon featuring Karachi, After Midnight Vol.1, culled from a gay man’s blog about early 2000s Pakistan, and launch Smut of the Middle World Vol. 1: Pakistan, a collection of banned erotic magazines from the 1960s through the 2000s. They’ve also designed a limited-edition Press Play bag inspired by 1970s call girl ads, channeling the defiant aesthetics of underground print culture under Pakistan’s numerous military dictatorships.

Press Play 2025 also features:

• A lounge inspired by the traditional Japanese zabuton, designed by New York City-based studio Zabu
• A special-edition Press Play show paper by Gunk.
• A limited-edition Secret Riso Club x Press Play scarf.
• The debut of Broadcast Issue 03, featuring a conversation with Miranda July, explorations of undersea cartography and baby-making on Mars, new works from Chris Kraus and Catherine Lacey, and more.
  

Khajistan x Press Play Limited-Edition Bag.

All talks are open to the public with admission and will be livestreamed on Montez Press Radio, a New York-based experimental broadcasting and performance platform. See the full program schedule and exhibitor list below.

This year, Saturday tickets are $10, or grab our $30 Limited-Edition Ticket Bundle: two-day access, a Khajistan x Press Play bag (basically, a smutty grocery bag), plus a copy of Broadcast Issue 03. Sunday is free and open to all.

Press Play is organized by Pioneer Works. Publishing at Pioneer Works includes our imprint, Pioneer Works Press, and magazine, Pioneer Works Broadcast, the new print issue of which will debut at Press Play.

This program takes place within artist Raúl de Nieves’s site-specific installation, In Light of Innocence. Learn more about the exhibition here.