On Saturday, October 11, Grace Farms celebrated its 10th anniversary season, which runs through May 2026. The day featured the unveiling of Dancing Trees, new site-specific seating designed by Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA, as well as a conversation between the architect and Grace Farms CEO and Founder Sharon Prince; viewing of a new installation of the With Every Fiber | Pigment, Stone, Glass exhibit, featuring five new commissions inspired by the Design for Freedom movement; artist-in-residence James Florio discussing his new photographic work at Grace Farms, of Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, Canada from which Grace Farms’ new fascia is sourced; viewing of Alicja Kwade’s new permanently installed sculpture, ParaPosition; and musical performances by acclaimed Canadian cellist Arlen Hlusko and GRAMMY® award-winning violinist Joshua Bell.
In addition, Grace Farms Tea & Coffee CEO Grace Farms Tea & Coffee CEO Adam Thatcher and Ibu Rahmah, Chairwoman of the women-led Ketiara Coffee Cooperative in Sumatra, Indonesia, led a coffee tasting for guests. Grace Farms’ coffees are ethically sourced from women-led cooperatives in Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Colombia, and 100 percent of profits support Grace Farms Foundation’s Design for Freedom initiative to end forced labor in the built environment. Later this fall, Grace Farms will open its first public café at JPMorgan Chase’s new global headquarters in Manhattan.
A series of marquee events throughout the 2025-2026 season under the theme “We all build” will celebrate Grace Farms’ journey, convene people with nature, present visual and performing arts, pursue justice across sectors, foster community with intergenerational activities, and explore faith through workshops and lectures. Programming will feature a new, ground-breaking series, Grace Farms Lectures. The Lectures bring together visionary leaders who have shaped our world, inviting them to share the wisdom they have learned through their distinguished careers. Each lecture is accompanied by a 60-minute concert specially curated by Grace Farms inaugural musician artist-in-residence Arlen Hlusko and performed by some of today’s most celebrated musicians. The pieces these artists perform respond directly to the life’s work of each speaker and the impact they continue to make. On January 10, 2026, Sharon Prince will deliver the inaugural lecture on creating spaces that communicate and catalyze good in the world. Other featured speakers include acclaimed scholar and writer and Founding Director of Yale Center for Faith & Culture Dr. Miroslov Volf and Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and acclaimed author.
More season highlights include a performance by internationally acclaimed cellist and 19-time GRAMMY® winner Yo-Yo Ma, GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell, recipient of the TONY® Honors for Excellence in the Theatre, Broadway Inspirational Voices, the return of The Humanity in Architecture Film Festival, a special concert by Grace Farms artist-in-residence and GRAMMY®-winning Canadian cellist Arlen Hlusko, Grace Farms’ annual Earth Day celebration, a concert with GRAMMY® Award-winning jazz singer Dianne Reeves, a special event for athletes with five-time Olympian Kerri Walsh Jennings, and Lunch with a Purpose — a new Grace Farms series featuring conversations with leaders transforming essential industries. Throughout the season, visitors will also have the opportunity to enjoy Grace Farms Tea & Coffee through unique experiences such as Journey Through the World of Tea and Wellness Retreats. Full programming details are below.
Sharon Prince said, “The theme of our 10-year season ‘We all build’ resonates deeply with the very essence of Grace Farms — recognizing that what we create and how we create it matters profoundly. It matters who we build with. We all can be architects of change, crafting hope, cultivating peace, nurturing art that heals and expands our perspective, and sparking joy that spreads. For such a time as this, Grace Farms is offering a peaceful, hopeful place and creating an active, diverse community to bring about more grace and peace in the world.”
New Sculpture by Alicja Kwade
Now on view is a new acquisition and permanent sculpture by Alicja Kwade, ParaPosition, 2024. Comprised of interlocking steel frames supporting two boulders and an inverted chair made of bronze, ParaPosition’s array of metal and stone draws viewers into the frame of this massive, yet fragile, universe. ParaPosition joins other site-specific public art installations on permanent display at Grace Farms, including Beatriz Milhazes’s Moon Love Dreaming (2016), Teresita Fernández’s Double Glass River (2015), and Thomas Demand’s Farm 56 & Farm 88 (2015).
New Installation of With Every Fiber Exhibit
Grace Farms presents a new installation of the long-term exhibit With Every Fiber | Pigment, Stone, Glass which shines a spotlight on the Design for Freedom movement — launched in 2020 by Grace Farms Founder and CEO Sharon Prince — to elevate human rights and eliminate forced and child labor in the built environment. The new installation reveals the embodied suffering behind pigment, glass, and stone in the construction industry as well as new innovations within those materials that demonstrate that building ethically is possible. The exhibit features five new commissions responding to the Design for Freedom movement.
Chelsea Thatcher, Grace Farms’ Chief Strategic Officer, Founding Creative Director, and curator of the exhibit said, “The new iteration of With Every Fiber is designed to help the public reimagine architecture with fair labor. It brings forward innovative solutions in stone, pigment, and glass — building materials that are typically at high-risk of forced and child labor — and highlights breakthrough approaches to ethical sourcing that will create a more humane built environment for all.”
New to the exhibit are commissioned works by John Sabraw, artist and professor at Ohio University; Nina Cooke John, principal of Studio Cooke John Architecture & Design and designer of With Every Fiber; and artist Hannah Rose Thomas, PhD., who unveiled a life-size portrait of social entrepreneur Nasreen Sheikh. Webb Yates Engineers’ sustainable prototype for truss work demonstrates an engineering solution that replaces unethically sourced carbon-producing steel with stone. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, which has a long partnership with Grace Farms recorded Woven in Tears, composed by Evan Wiliams, which is featured in the exhibit.
New Commission by Photographer James Florio
Grace Farms artist-in-residence James Florio has created a new photographic work, Haida Gwaii, 2025, on permanent display in Grace Farms’ Library. Florio was inspired by his trip through Taan forest in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada, where Grace Farms procured the Western red cedar wood which was used for their fascia that was installed last spring. The cedar was selected for its longevity, as well as its alignment with the Design for Freedom principles: the Taan forest is ethically and sustainably maintained by the Haida Enterprise Corporation (HaiCo), a company owned 100% by the Haida, the First Nations people who live there.
November 1: The Way of an Athlete | A Workshop with Kerri Walsh Jennings
November 1: Aldrich Museum Tour for Grace Farms Members
November 6: Mocktails
November 8: Rest House Workshop with Slade Architecture
November 8: Nature Workshops | Garlic Workshop
November 14: Afternoon Tea
November 15: Move with Grace Farms x lululemon
November 16: Music at Grace Farms: Mon Rovîa
November 19: Journey into the World of Tea
November 28 and 29: Songs of the Season
December 3: Candlelight Yoga and Movement with Pilin Anice
December 5: Gifting for Good
December 7: Cookie Decorating
December 12: Afternoon Tea
December 13: Music at Grace Farms: Broadway Inspirational Voices
December 13: Holiday Market
December 13: Nature Workshops | Sustainable Holiday Décor
December 17: Journey into the World of Tea
December 20: Move with Grace Farms x lululemon
December 27 and 28: Songs of the Season
December 31: Wellness Tea Retreat
2026
Jan-May (monthly): Move with Grace Farms x lululemon & Yoga Series
January 10: Sharon Prince Delivers Inaugural Grace Farms Lecture
January 10: Rest House Workshop with Slade Architecture
January 11: Yo-Yo Ma, cello and Solon Gordon, piano
January 16: Afternoon Tea
January 22: Origin Stories: The Empowerment Collective with Nasreen Sheikh
January 28: Journey into the World of Tea
January 29: Mocktails
January 30: Humanity in Architecture Film Festival Reception for Grace Farms Members
January 30 and 31: Humanity in Architecture Film Festival
January 31: Rest House Workshop with Slade Architecture
February 7: Grace Farms Lectures | Dr. Miroslav Volf
February 7: Life Worth Living Workshop led by Drew Collins, Yale Center for Faith & Culture
February 7: Nature Workshops | Seed Starting
February 13: Afternoon Tea
February 20: Cookie Decorating
February 20: Polar Bear Picnic
February 21: Music at Grace Farms | Arlen Hlusko, cello
February 25: Journey into the World of Tea
February 28: Wellness Tea Retreat
March 5: Origin Stories | Prota Fiori with Jennifer Stucko
March 7: Grace Farms Lectures | Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer
March 7: Nature Workshops | Introduction to Permaculture
March 12: Mocktails
March 13: Afternoon Tea
March 18: Journey into the World of Tea
March 26: Design for Freedom Summit
April 10: Afternoon Tea
April 11: Nature Workshop | Berry Fruit Gardening
April 18: Music at Grace Farms | Dianne Reeves with Romero Lubambo
April 25: Earth Day
April 29: Journey into the World of Tea
May 7: Lunch with a Purpose | Julie Wainwright
May 9: Shop with a Purpose | Mindful Market
May 15: Afternoon Tea
May 24: Wellness Tea Retreat
May 27: Journey into the World of Tea
Weekly Children and Family Programs
Imagination Playground – Daily
Bunny Book Group – Fridays, 11 – 11:30 am
Studio Beginnings – Thursdays beginning January 9, 10 am – 12 pm
Open Arts Studio – Thursdays, 3 – 5 pm; Saturdays, 10 am – 2 pm
Tours
Grace Farms Tour – Saturdays, 10:30 am – 12 pm
Private Architecture Tours – Tuesday – Friday, 10:30 am – 12:45 pm
