Bad at Sports Episode: 970 - A P(o)or(t)ch Theater with Mark Jeffery, Judd Morrissey and Kristin Mariani

At Spudnik Press in Chicago, Duncan MacKenzie, Brian Andrews and Ryan Peter Miller welcome Mark Jeffery, Judd Morrissey and Kristin Mariani to discuss the Poor Farm Experiment's Leopold Benches: A P(o)or(t)ch Theater (MIDWEST REDUX).

Developed through the U.S. Pavilion's PORCH program at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale and presented in Chicago at the MCA's Chicago Performs festival, the work turns a porch into a place of observation, invitation, performance and collective play.

The conversation moves through Aldo Leopold's benches, stereoscopic photographs and binocular rivalry, Mariani's language-bearing Text Toiles, the choreography of "queer sitting," and the Deeply Choir's role in animating the museum plaza.

It also opens onto the project's wider artistic ecology: Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam's Poor Farm in Wisconsin; Mark Jeffery and Kelly Kaczynski's residency practice; the nido residency in Umbria; and an approach to collaboration in which living together, hosting, making and friendship become inseparable.

PERFORMANCE:

9/25/2026 - 3pm at the MCA! (Dolly Day)

Names Dropped:

Duncan MacKenzie - kurasmackenzie.com

Brian Andrews - brianandrews.org

Ryan Peter Miller - ryanpetermiller.com/about

Mark Jeffery - saic.edu/profiles/faculty/mark-jeffery

Judd Morrissey - saic.edu/profiles/faculty/judd-morrissey