Lindsey Barlag Thornton

Lindsey Barlag Thornton is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and educator. Inspired by the metaphysical and existential, her art interrogates the big questions of human (co)existence through examining the nuanced lives we enact alone and together. Lindsey’s artistic work hybridizes experimental theater, performance art, and social practice. Healthy collaboration is vital to Lindsey’s practice; she therefore builds creative processes with loving trust and play.

Lindsey’s practice stems from a discipline of generating written scores by hybridizing her own and others’ writing. Equally important are movement-based practices and embodied research, resulting in slow meditative work as well as frenzied exhaustive performance.

Lindsey discovers what a performance becomes through devising processes that are specifically tailored to each project. She makes performances that are not one story, but collections of questions, rituals, and memories. Consistent throughout all Lindsey’s projects is a sense of wonder and tenderness.

Lindsey is a 2014 MFA graduate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she served as Performance Producer, Assistant Director of Exhibitions, and as faculty in the Contemporary Practices Department from 2015-2023.  She has developed arts curriculum and led workshops in the United States, Europe, and Australia and was a guest artist in residency at The Kennedy Center. Lindsey’s writing has been published in Propositional Attitudes: What do we do now? edited by John Burtle and Elana Mann (Golden Spike Press). Lindsey is a multiple Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs Individual Artist Grant Awardee and was a American Theatre Company Core Resident (2016) and a Set Free Resident at Links Hall (2018).  Under the name Genesis, Lindsey curates and produces with Amanda Dunne Acevedo the event HybridSalon–an interdisciplinary evening of artistic works created through intentionally new collaborations and aesthetic pairings. Since 2015 Genesis has programmed 6 salons showcasing over 80 artists across disciplines of visual art, performance, installation, writing, theatre, film, dance, puppetry, music/sound and social practice. 

Lindsey has performed, exhibited and produced public programs with The Arts & Design Incubator at Penn State, Bellmont Hall with the Theatre & Dance Departments at UT Austin, Chicago Athletic Association, Defibrillator Gallery (Chicago), The Haggerty Museum (Milwaukee), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), Links Hall (Chicago), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Roman Susan Gallery (Chicago), and Steppenwolf Theatre (Chicago). Lindsey moved to New York in 2023 and directed The Fires at The Tank Theatre as part of their Pride Festival.  She is thrilled to share her work with a New York audience as part of Performance Mix 39. lindseybarlagthornton.com

flights for future generations
flights for future generations is a solo performance that draws from the histories of women aviators and spiritualists. Interweaving movement, text, sound, and imagery with analog devices, the performance explores our longing for the cosmos, how we navigate loneliness, and how we might begin to find each other.

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