LONG ISLAND CITY, NY.- Socrates Sculpture Park announces its 2026 season, marking the Park’s 40th anniversary with a constellation of new exhibitions, commissions, and public programs guided by a single animating idea: Begin Again.

What started in 1986 as an act of radical land reclamation, the transformation of an illegal dumpsite into a site for artistic experimentation, continues four decades later through programs that extend the Park’s founding commitment to artists, community, and public art as essential to civic health and well-being.

At the center of this anniversary season is Artists Choose Artists: The Socrates Annual Fellowship Anniversary, a landmark reimagining of the Park’s longest-running artist program. For the first time in the Fellowship’s 30-year history, Socrates turned to its alumni network to shape the program’s next chapter.

In a nomination-based process that echoes Artists Choose Artists, the Park’s third-ever exhibition in 1987, more than 100 former fellows and exhibiting artists were invited to nominate peers for whom the Fellowship would represent a pivotal opportunity. The result is a cohort of ten artists whose practices span sculpture, installation, ceramics, weaving, community-engaged practice, and ecological inquiry.

"Socrates was built by artists as a platform to nurture their careers and to co-author what the Park could become in collaboration with Mark di Suvero, our founder. That has always been the fundamental truth of this place," said Shaun Leonardo, Artist and Executive Director, Socrates Sculpture Park. "For our 40th anniversary, we honor that truth by asking the artists who shaped this Park to help determine its future. Artists Choose Artists is not simply a new selection model, it is a return to the spirit that founded Socrates, and an invitation to begin again with the voices that are central to our origin and will help determine our work into the future. The ten fellows in this cohort carry forward a lineage of experimentation, care, and public commitment that has defined this site for four decades. We are proud to support and present their work."

2026 Socrates Annual Fellows

The 2026–2028 Artist Fellows are Mrinalini Aggarwal, Cynthia Alberto, Francheska Alcántara, Josué Guarionex, Xayvier Haughton, Vaishnavi Ilankamban, Manami Ishimura, Jeremy John Kaplan, Nicole Mouriño, and Andrew Robinson.

Selected for the artistic merit of their work and their projects’ potential to respond to the social, ecological, and historical dimensions of the Park, the fellows will engage on individualized timelines, choosing their own seasons for research, fabrication, installation, and exhibition between Spring 2026 and Fall 2028. Projects will accumulate in the Park across the two-year cycle, offering audiences a living record of sustained artistic development.

This expanded model also reflects a deeper institutional investment in artists. Beginning in 2026, each Fellow will receive a $10,000 production grant, a $4,000 artist honorarium, access to technical services and production support valued between $8,000 and $10,000, and an additional fund reserved for individualized support based on each artist’s needs.

Fellowship Anniversary projects were selected from over 100 submissions by a committee comprising Suhaly Bautista-Carolina, Chief of Programs and Partnerships at the American LGBTQ+ Museum; kier blake, Co-Founder and Director of NYC Programs at Earth Convergence; Carlos Jiménez Cahua, Artist and Socrates Fellow 2018; Kimberly Chou Tsun An, Artist and Socrates Fellow 2024; Dave Harper, Executive Director of the New York City AIDS Memorial; Jamie Maleszka-Tate, Director of Creative Arts at The Fortune Society; Prerana Reddy, Associate Director for Artist Programs at Recess; and Sofia Reeser del Rio, Curator and Associate Director of Programs at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center.

Sofia Reeser del Rio, curator, writer and educator and Fellowship Anniversary juror said: “It was an honor to contribute to Socrates Sculpture Park’s 40th anniversary, a pivotal moment in its ongoing commitment to artists, public space, and community. The jury process was both rigorous and inspiring; the strength of proposals made selection especially challenging, and it was a privilege to be in dialogue with fellow jurors around such thoughtful and ambitious proposals.”