Bumbershoot returns to the Seattle Center this Labor Day weekend in celebration of its 50th anniversary and the dawning of a new era for Seattle’s oldest and largest arts and music festival. With a hard pivot back to the origins of the festival, and weekend celebration of our regional arts community, Bumbershoot is thrilled to announce the inclusion of Out of Sight: a survey of contemporary art in the pacific northwest as part of its arts programming calendar.
Curators Roya Amirsoleymani, Jaleesa Johnson, Rana San, and Emily Zimmerman comprise this year's curatorial team, populating the Fisher Pavilion for the indoor portion of the exhibit, and transforming the Pacific Science Center courtyard into an outdoor sculpture garden.
The curatorial team is thrilled to bring together a broadly multidisciplinary group of artists from across the Pacific Northwest to Out of Sight as part of Bumbershoot. They focus primarily on artists from non-dominant cultures, whose practices span media and form, and many whom have not previously been part of Out of Sight. Exhibiting within the charged grounds of the 1962 World’s Fair, these artists actively make space for shifting constellations of meaning in their work, offering counter-cosmologies, and inquiries that move away from the totalizing arguments made through exhibitions.
Ticket Information
Weekend passes and single day tickets are available for purchase at bumbershoot.com. In celebration of the 50th anniversary, Bumbershoot and Amazon are offering prices 50% lower than when the event was last held in 2019 to create an opportunity for more of the Pacific Northwest community to enjoy the festival. Together with Third Stone, Amazon is also supporting the distribution of 5,000 free tickets directly to nonprofits and communities that have been underserved.
About Bumbershoot
Established in 1971, Bumbershoot: Seattle’s Arts & Music Festival takes place over Labor Day weekend and stretches across the 74-acre Seattle Center beneath the city’s iconic Space Needle. The festival, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2023 under new leadership of New Rising Sun (Joe Paganelli, Greg Lundgren and Steven Severin), is a celebration of the art, music, food, technology and the culture that permeates the Pacific Northwest. In a return to Bumbershoot’s origin, it is an embrace and elevation of art and community. The programming is built locally and managed by a team with deep roots in regional arts production, working in tandem with local non-profits, public schools and historically marginalized voices.
About Third Stone
Third Stone’s mission is to foster an inclusive, energized, and sustainable arts economy in the Pacific Northwest through youth education, festival, spectacle, and community-driven programming. Their primary purpose is to support the Bumbershoot brand by producing a main campus event on Labor Day that is equitably programmed, affordably priced, and accessible to all. Third Stone houses Bumbershoot’s Workforce Development Program providing critical business skills to young people ages 17-25 using a “festival as classroom” philosophy. Inspired by, and collaborating with the wildly successful Concert Career Pathways Program (CCP) from The UC Theatre in Berkeley, CA. If you are interested in learning more about Bumbershoot’s Workforce Development program, visit the website here.
About Seattle Center
Connect to the extraordinary at Seattle Center, an active civic, arts, and family gathering place in the core of our city and region. Seattle Center’s 74-acre campus, centered around the International Fountain, is part of the Uptown Arts & Cultural District and home to Climate Pledge Arena; more than 30 cultural, educational, sports and entertainment organizations; and a broad range of public and community programs. In everything it does, Seattle Center’s mission is to create exceptional events, experiences, and environments which delight and inspire the human spirit to build stronger communities. Website | Instagram | Twitter