The Bethel Woods Art and Architecture Festival announces BuildFest: Acts of Construction, a three-year initiative that activates the historic grounds of the 1969 Woodstock festival through large-scale timber installations and multimedia experiences. Each year is organized around a single theme, inviting designers to collaborate on an interdisciplinary series of "acts" that build on one another to create an interconnected set of installations, activations, and performances. Act One: Staging is currently accepting proposals for adaptive art infrastructure designed to "set the stage" for future activations. It will be followed by Act Two: Choreography in 2027 and Act Three: Performance in 2028.
The 2026 festival marks the event's fifth annual edition and introduces a new interconnected three-year theme, co-curated by Stephanie Sang Delgado, co-director of office ca and assistant professor at Kean University's Michael Graves College School of Public Architecture. Over the course of the trilogy, participants will explore how so-called "Acts of Construction" can be more thoughtfully designed to support the longevity of the built environment and foster deeper public engagement with art and architecture. Participants are selected through an international open call for design faculty and researchers, released at the beginning of each year. Selected teams are invited to camp and work on the historic Woodstock site for one week in the fall, where they build, install, perform, or otherwise bring their proposals to life.
Each year of the festival from 2026 to 2028 is conceived as a sequential act. As co-curator Stephanie Sang Delgado notes, "For the next three years, the Bethel Woods Art & Architecture Festival (BuildFest) will build upon its previous success by challenging designers and artists to collaborate on an interdisciplinary series of acts. Each year will build on the previous one, creating an interconnected set of installations, activations, and performances."
Act One: Staging (2026) will examine how construction can be intentionally organized to support unknown future uses and/or the planned disassembly and reuse of component parts for subsequent structures. Selected proposals will prioritize adaptive use—the ability of art and architecture to serve as the foundation, catalyst, and "stage" for future activations and programs.
Act Two: Choreography (2027) will explore how the component parts of existing installations can be choreographed to generate new and original work. In addition, it will investigate how existing structures can be creatively reused, expanded, or otherwise modified to create new spatial conditions and how labor itself is choreographed as a dance between builders and buildings.
Act Three: Performance (2028) will focus on activating art and architecture through a series of interdisciplinary and interactive activations, pop-ups, performances, and other live events that emphasize user participation with the built environment and work to animate art and architecture as tangible public resources.
Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, located at the historic site of the 1969 Woodstock festival, is committed to building on its legacy of peace and music by providing experiences and access to the arts. Guided by the belief that the world can be improved through the power of music and the arts, Bethel Woods offers music, visual, performing, and creative arts programming that is accessible to the community, helping people of all ages discover and develop their creative potential.
BuildFest: Acts of Construction is accepting proposals for its 2026 festival through March 30. The festival is produced by the Bethel Woods Art and Architecture Festival at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts and is made possible through visionary support from Andrew Jacobson and Think Wood, a program funded by the Softwood Lumber Board. The 2026 festival theme is co-curated by Neal Lucas Hitch and Stephanie Sang Delgado.
