Aaron Landsman

A year after @hallowgroundlabel released our album Night Keeper, drawn from our show at @chocolatefactorytheater - you are quietly but sincerely invited to a low-light, hi-fidelity listening party next Saturday afternoon, hosted by the @colloquium_unpopular_culture . @normanjwestberg @mightyj.o.young and I will be there! We will have a couple@albums available. And you can also go to Hallow Ground’s Bandcamp. Deets: The Colloquium for Unpopular Culture presents NIGHT KEEPER - listening event with Aaron Landsman/ Norman Westberg/ Jehan O. Young WHEN: Saturday 2 May 2026, 2:30pm WHERE: Recording Studio, 5th Floor, 194 Mercer Street [between Bleecker and West Houston Street] Free, open to public, non-NYU guests must RSVP to: [email protected]. See you!

OPEN MEANING LAB | 031026 || DISCERNING DISCOMFORT and MAPPING MEANING with guest AARON LANDSMAN || fellow multidisciplinary social practice artist Aaron Landsman (@thinaar )visited our space Tuesday for a rich discussion and workshop after our collective readings of Freire in dialogue with his (and perfect city’s) work around Avoidance Mapping, the City We Make Together, and the Nightwalker project. We began with a consideration of capacities and requirements around intersectional code switching across spaces and mediums, especially thinking about the ways permission, privilege and assumption show up here. Where are our instincts around safety “our own,” what is healthy instinct and what is fear or discomfort - and so too how can we take care to not project judgement or expectation onto others too quickly when we don’t know what they carry? How and when is the body both necessary arbiter and gauge of these shifts, and when must we push back against its claims at data? How do you see this show up in your life? #codeswitching #perception #communication

What we are doing! From Philadelphia’s @peoplesbudgetoffice to Anchorage Community Councils, from @daytonmetrolibrary and the Westwood Rising Experience, to the NYC @nyccec ; from Avoidance Mapping at @utrfest to Trenton’s @cseixacademy in collaboration with @princetonathletics to @miamiuniversity and their Civic Engagement Center, @perfectcitynyc and @thinaar have been working with communities to uplift spaces of belonging and local creative and civic power. Look for our continued partnerships in communities in the US and beyond in 2026, thanks to our work with @nationalcivic (The National Civic League) supported by the Luce Foundation and other amazing partners. The loving antidote to the dark clouds we are under politically is people building pathways of desire. Special shout out to the visioning and inspiration of @ebonynoellegolden and Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative in this work. Photos 1-4 @arekusn

2025 in disorder, in no particular order: dozing beings mimicking each other: the language of commerce and rules; pathways within pathways; light behind filigree; making people who love each other laugh; the real way to pronounce my name; potential of the empty stage; animal and facsimile of animal in a staring contest; Night Keeper’s voice and material; the cold bites familiar. See you in the arty and ruminant new year. Smash fascism with love.

In 2006 I started corresponding with @belarusfreetheatre - the amazing @nicolai_khalezin and @nkaliada - and agreed to organize a reading by a few NYC companies of Belarusian new plays as a way to raise awareness about what was happening there. They said “Tom” was a big supporter and could I get in touch with him because they thought he was in the city. I was like, sure I’ll just reach out to Tom Stoppard. I wrote a letter (an actual letter) to “Tom Stoppard c/o Lincoln Center Theater” (where he was working on Coast of Utopia) and said I’d made friends with the BFT folks and could he come visit our reading, that it would mean a lot, and I expected nothing. Three days later he called: “Aaron Hello! It’s Tom Stoppard calling…” He switched up his whole tech schedule to come introduce the reading. He said “They’re called Free Theater because they are free in their minds…” I ran into him a few times after that at shows and each time he surprised me with what seemed like insatiable curiosity. What are you seeing? Is it any good? How is your work going? He was an amazing writer, and just so full of generosity and so free. Rest in all the things.

🙌 Belated Appreciation Post to our artists and to SO MANY Ithaca friends who came out for last Wednesday evening’s Open House. Thank You!! 🙏 Images include: - a reading from poet @leedimode - a work-in-progress “card game” reading inspired by our social media habits (and featuring all the residency artists) from hybrid artist @thinaar - installation of the entire Dobbs v. Jackson decision laser cut into portraits of women by @dianaschmertz - a screening of short film SPARKS LAMPINI by @beccies_mofie - gorgeous works on paper and paintings by @jessicastrattonart - and two group photos Such an inspiring event. Thank you all!! 🙏 Ithaca, please join us Sunday, September 21, 4-6pm for our next event. #poetryreading #experimentaltheater #installationart #dobbsvjackson #conceptualart #saltonstall #saltonstallfoundation #ithaca #ithacany #nysartist

✨WEDNESDAY!!✨ Join these amazing artists for a weeknight Open House — Aug. 27, 5:30-7:30pm. * Reading by poet Timothy Ree @leedimode and a special presentation by hybrid artist / writer Aaron Landsman @thinaar at 5:45pm * Film screening of SPARKS LAMPINI by Rebecca O’Neill @beccies_mofie at 6:30pm. 🎥 * See new works and works-in-progress by visual artist Jessica Stratton @jessicastrattonart and a 20’ installation by artist Diana Schmertz @dianaschmertz PRO TIP re: the 20’ installation — bring your reading glasses because you can read the entire SCOTUS Dobbs case on over 100 laser cut watercolor portraits of women affected by that decision. 🔥 Free and open to all. Wheelchair #accessible space and parking in front of the building. Punch and cookies provided. :) #poetryreading #installationart #wip #contemparyart #filmscreening #ithaca #saltonstall #saltonstallfoundation #nysartist #nyswriter #dobbsdecision

So many gleeful learnings and sharings at @worldsinplay - my first time and hopefully not last. Grateful to playtest my new piece All the Time in the World with people who make and live with such amazing work. @angelawashko @car0mur @kevinasarobot @ikantkoan @cu_adventures @misterandmischief @andy_crocker_briefcase @alejandrotey Alejandro Tey, Michael Rau, Katie Green, @ontroerend_goed @risapuno @afrorithmfutures @aprilsoetarman -it’s so lovely to be in the worlds you’re making. Special big shouts to @pen_hole_stir and @captainscarface for engineering such generous time and space in the midst of so much worldwide BS. Also my kid was the oldest member of a panel of experts hosted by Andy, Jeff and the excellent Shirley Crocker about being the child of artists. We are never living it down…and why would we? Especially grounding to co lead a Viewpoints workshop with half of @fourcastlab and lead @perfectcitynyc Avoidance Mapping for game wizards.

🃏 Welcoming Aaron Landsman to Worlds in Play 2025 to playtest ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD and host PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY WORKSHOP: AVOIDANCE AND BELONGING MAPPING (tomorrow)! @thinaar 🗺️ ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD What if social media were a competitive game? Wait, it is already? Okay. What if it were a card game that took you off your devices and into relationship with each other? In this session, we will demo the new deck and rules we are trying out for my project All the Time in the World. The script is a custom-designed deck of cards, made up of descriptions of images and reels you might find or post on Instagram, toggling from meals and selfies to war and other atrocities, to clothing ads, cat memes, and fragments of standup routines. Viewers at the tables can respond to the text with reactions: fire, heart and ‘share’. We’ll also play with prompts to create your own verbal post, enact a picture or show how you pose. The cards are the basis for both a new performance and a play-at-home game. PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY WORKSHOP: AVOIDANCE AND BELONGING MAPPING Avoidance Mapping is a social exercise created by the NYC-based working group Perfect City, through our meetings and roundtable conversations. It helps us think about place-making. Where do you live? Do you feel you belong there? How do you move through space? What do you avoid? Where does policy interact with your day-to-day life?  We’ll ask you to think of a time, place or situation where you feel uncomfortable, awkward, or unsafe. This can take place in the past or present. It can be a traveling route, indoors or out. It can be a specific building, a specific room. We’ll draw maps of these spaces, compare notes, and talk about where  policy intersects with our daily journeys, and how belonging can be the antidote to avoidance. Please note that this has very little to do with your drawing or mapping skills. We just want to know what you avoid, and why! Don’t be shy! If time permits, we may also look at how these maps can be the starting point or score for a performance. #worldsinplay #worldsinplay2025 #theatre #game #agency #play #immersive #artistsatplay #maps #cardgame #socialmedia

AARON LANDSMAN / THINAAR STUDIO ! "All the Time in the World" is Instagram as card game, as emergent bingo hall, as performance score, as vanity spectacle complete with hearts and likes. We’re teaching the game to learn it with you. Aaron (Athens, NY) is the instigator of foolish, hopeful practices - recently with Hallow Ground records, Storefront for Art and Architecture and the National Civic League. 🌐 thinaar.com 📸 @mariabaranova – CATCH Hudson Valley 7pm Saturday 26 July 2025 at PS21: Center for Contemporary Performance Chatham, NY 🎟️ Ticket link in bio!

Just announced! We’re teaming up with the artists of @catchperfseries to host three free artists workshops leading up to the performance this Saturday. Thursday, July 24th at 5:30 pm at @hudsonchathamwinery : Guggenheim Fellow and playwright @thinaar brings his card game All the Time in the World for a playful night of prompts, text, and instructions that mimic an Instagram feed. This is for people who want to enjoy the absurdity and sincerity of social media in the same gesture. Friday, July 25th at 11 am at PS21: Drama duo @laiaxc & @leah.annia are experimenting with adapting a drama therapy technique called Developmental Transformations into a dramaturgical tool. Witness Laia and Leah’s improvised play as the two transform shared reference points within their body of work into fresh material. Friday, July 25th at 5:30 pm at PS21: Dancer and storyteller @jilliancs brings a unique movement workshop that guides participants through the energetic images and exercises she uses to choreograph and improvise her solo practice, tether breath. All are free with registration. Join for one or come to all three!

If you missed Night Keeper in any of its iterations at @chocolatefactorytheater and elsewhere, don’t miss it now - this week at @maboumines , one night only.