U-Haul Truck Pop-up Art Galleries on the streets of downtown Poughkeepsie!
PK Art Mile is a free celebration of local art, music, and culture in downtown Poughkeepsie.
The focus of the event is a series of U-Haul trucks transformed into immersive pop-up art galleries by local artists and curators. This mobile art exhibition and street fair will take place outside of Gallery 40 on Cannon Street, Sunday, August 9th, 2:00-6:00 PM. A second event is planned for September 12-13th, a two-day celebration to coincide with Poughkeepsie Open Studios. The street will be closed for Summer Sundays, a free block party that includes live music, food trucks, beer and spirits from King’s Court Brewing Co., and games for kids and adults. Award winning arts educator Carrie Decker will also be giving hands-on art workshops for kids of all ages in her Crazy Over Art Van.
PK Art Mile aims to bring art directly to the public, drawing visitors to the area, temporarily activating public spaces into vibrant community assets. This is in alignment with the city’s goals to strengthen and revitalize the downtown area.
PK Art Mile is the recipient of a 2026 Statewide Community Regrant award by Arts Mid-Hudson, and is sponsored by the local businesses, artists, and cultural community of the area.
PK Art Mile hopes to create an exciting, and recurring cultural event in downtown Poughkeepsie.
We are looking forward to seeing you!
The organizing committee:
Paola Bari, Suprina, Jaime Ransome, Jeff Aman, Terelui Antoni, Samantha Palmeri, Pope Phoenix
August 9, 2-6pm
September 12 and 13, 1-6pm
We thank our sponsors and supporters:
Arts Mid-Hudson
ABCLatino
Carrie Decker
Chris Burney
Prime Printing
Kelly's Bakery
On August 9 - more to come
Samantha Palmeri
Be the Sky
An immersive, landscape inspired, painting installation, with ongoing hands-on activity for every visitor throughout the day.
A fun, interactive art experience for anyone and everyone.
Carl Grauer
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
The 15-foot truck will be transformed into a fully immersive environment that functions simultaneously as installation and a painting studio. Inspired by The Wizard of Oz, the work extends my current practice of constructing elaborate theatrical spaces in the studio and using them as reference for paintings centered on queer joy, community, and imagination as acts of resistance.
You will encounter a dreamlike landscape built from materials associated with craft and childhood—construction paper stars and birds, fabric, artificial moss, painted clouds, miniature architecture, and hand-built props. Entering the truck becomes akin to stepping into one of my paintings: an environment where fantasy and memory converge, and where viewers become participants rather than observers. At the center of the installation is Somewhere Over the Rainbow, a scene depicting a procession of figures moving together across a constructed rainbow landscape. Friends and models from my community, dressed as characters from my imagined theatrical world, appear in an ongoing parade of celebration and becoming. The installation evokes both childhood play and contemporary queer experience, presenting joy itself as a radical and communal act. What is typically hidden within my studio practice—the building of sets, the gathering of objects, the staging of figures—is brought into public view. The truck becomes a mobile world of possibility, revealing how my paintings originate in physical spaces assembled through intuition and play. Throughout the duration of the Art Mile, the environment would remain active, serving as an evolving source for future paintings and photographs. By collapsing the boundaries between studio, installation, and painting, Somewhere Over the Rainbow invites you into a space where artifice is celebrated, identities are fluid, and imagination becomes a means of envisioning new ways of belonging. In a cultural moment often marked by division and fear, the installation proposes joy, fantasy, and collective
creativity as forms of resistance and hope.
Jaime Ransome Curation
The truck will be transformed in a pop up gallery centering Black, female artists