The Goat Farm brings more than 50 artists to Atlanta for third year of SITE
When Atlanta artist Dana Haugaard attended the Goat Farm’s experimental art festival SITE last year, he knew he wanted to be part of the next one. The event at the 12-acre West Midtown art center, which this year will take place Saturday, features dozens of artists, live music, open studios and other ephemeral experiences. Nothing is for sale or goes in a gallery the next day.
“It was focused on the kind of art that you had to be there to fully understand,” Haugaard said. “There was some really thought-provoking, good work at last year’s event, and I wanted to be in those same conversations with my work.”
So Haugaard applied with “This Place Is Happening,” a piece that adds LED lights to childhood musical toy whirlytubes — 3-foot-long plastic tubes that make noise when spun — and puts them on a motor to create spinning spectacles of light and sound.
“They are really visually dynamic and explosive, but they create these long, drony tones that I’m hoping are centering and meditative, like a cross between a firework and a Tibetan singing bowl,” he said. “I wanted to take this really basic thing and turn it into something that was hopefully transcendent.”
Haugaard is one of 50-plus artists chosen out of nearly 250 who applied for the third year of SITE, which started as a complementary event to the Atlanta Art Fair happening the same week. While many participants are local, national and international artists are also included. Allie Bashuk, the Goat Farm’s design and aesthetic director, attributes the event’s expanding footprint to its success (last year’s drew up to 4,000 people) and unique place in the art world.
“Risk-taking, experimental work in Atlanta is a rare thing, but it’s important for the vibrancy and cultural capital of the city because it attracts people and keeps them here,” she said. “My greatest hope is SITE sets everybody’s bar a little higher for what’s possible in this city.”
This is what attracted Philadelphia-based artist Ollie Goss to apply after they heard about the event and the city’s dynamic art scene from other artists.
“It’s difficult to find space and funding for large-scale ambitious installation work,” they said. “Interactivity is a large part of my practice, and I was excited by the idea of an event based around installation and participation.”
Goss’s “Goose Song,” a DIY carnival ride with Canada geese standing in for Tunnel of Love swan is perfect for a temporary night. Two people can ride while a short film plays about a goose trying to seize a local swimming pool in protest of land ownership.
“Inspired by traveling carnivals, the ride track is able to be erected and taken away at a moment’s notice, not leaving a trace, (which is) perfect for SITE’s ephemeral one-day festival,” Goss said. “I hope that people leave with a renewed curiosity towards how our built environment is managed and inscribed.”
Like Goss, Atlanta interdisciplinary artist Brandon Sadler, whose murals speckle the city, sees SITE as a venue to break away from standard constraints. For his piece “DIFFUSION_2,” Sadler will create live Chinese calligraphy depicting the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism. While he previously performed a small version in Connecticut with an air-pump sprayer, at the Goat Farm he will use a 36-by-20-foot wall as his canvas and a fire extinguisher as his brush, accompanied by music from Rocko Walker.
“Sometimes art festivals can be rigid where you put some stuff on a rolled-out wall, look at it, and go home,” Sadler said. “SITE is really cool because it’s bringing artists from all over the place to do things, maybe not usually in their practice or not in their usual format.”
When selecting the final lineup for SITE, Bashuk said, “We’re looking at how the projects work together across the whole campus. We want a mix of ideas and forms, including installation, performance, and sculpture as well as works at different scales. We’re especially interested in projects that respond to the idea of ‘site’ in a compelling way and make thoughtful use of the space they’ll occupy. The goal is for each work to stand on its own while contributing to the experience of moving through SITE.”
Pulling off these large-scale, one-night-only projects requires significant backing. Although SITE relies on dozens of sponsors, its primary financial engine comes from TriBridge Residential, the developer that helped redesign and expand the Goat Farm and add apartments to the property in 2024. While the modern revamp and residential real estate push sparked debate at the time, Bashuk notes that ambitious programming like SITE depends on this financial model.
“It’s really hard to get funding for something that’s one-night only,” Bashuk said. “But TriBridge believes in us and knows events like these bring a lot of people to the property.”
That structural support has also allowed SITE to reach across the globe, bringing in acts like the French collective 1024 architecture. Partnering with electronic music artist Vitalic, their interactive video game piece “PUPPET” transforms a 3-D puppet into a musical synthesizer, turning participants’ movements into live compositions.
“What we like about the piece is that the visitor becomes the performer,” said Pier Schneider, co-founder of 1024 architecture. “You don’t simply watch or listen to the artwork — you play with it. The boundaries between spectator and musician, game and performance, become blurred.”
After Goat Farm programming and operations director Mark Dinatale saw their work in 2024 and suggested they apply, the collective found SITE’s emphasis on physical connection compelling.
“Events like SITE are not only about showing artworks; they create a temporary community around art,” Schneider said. “In a world where more and more of our interactions happen through screens, we think we need these real, shared and physical experiences more than ever.”
If You Go
5-11 p.m. Saturday. Tickets start at $38.54.