Azza El Siddique, Echoes To Omega, 2024. Steel, expanded steel, bisque-fired clay, fountain pump, slow drip irrigation system, sandaliya, industrial heat pad, and video. Produced in collaboration with Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh. Courtesy Mattress Factory. Photo: Tom Little

Founded in 1977, the Mattress Factory is a non-collecting museum and residency program known for commissioning installation-based work. Under the leadership of David Oresick since 2022, the institution is shifting from its founder-led history toward a more collaborative curatorial structure that aims to respond to artists’ changing material conditions. In the coming year, the program will center questions of labor, production, and process, focusing on how artists build work under systems of automation, economic precarity, and institutional constraint. 

Yasmine El Meleegy, Future Farms (Organic), 2023. Polyester, fibreglass, 2k-paint, acrylic, corn husks, and EPAL-pallets. Commissioned by For Space, Basel, September 30–November 11, 2023. Courtesy For Space. © Yasmine El Meleegy and For Space. Photo: Gina Folly

From 2025 to 2028 the Mattress Factory will present ten exhibitions. Each project receives eighteen months of support, including time in residence at the Mattress Factory and fabrication assistance. Upcoming exhibitions in 2025 include a solo show by Egyptian artist Yasmine El Meleegy, who will create sculptural installations from broken consumer goods to examine economies of repair and cultural memory; and the US solo debut of Taiwanese artist Ting Tong Chang, whose kinetic environments explore labor histories in Pittsburgh’s former steel economy. 

In 2026, the museum will organize a performance-based installation by artist duo Lolo y Lauti addressing Argentine cultural mythology; partner with Carnegie Museum of Art on a site-specific installation for the 59th Carnegie International; and stage a solo exhibition by Amanda Ross-Ho investigating artistic labor and scale through modular, hand-sewn sculptural forms. For its fiftieth anniversary in 2027, the Mattress Factory will commission four new works that directly engage with the museum’s founding legacy and with its long-term installations—by artists such as James Turrell and Greer Lankton—asking what it means to celebrate a canon of site-specific work while updating its terms.

Vivian Caccuri, I Hear My Blood Singing, 2025. Silk, video, eight-channel audio, speakers, steel. Produced in collaboration with Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh. Courtesy Mattress Factory. Photo: Tom Little

David Oresick is Executive Director of the Mattress Factory. Since assuming the role in 2022, he has steered a strategic transformation of the institution, championing bold, site-specific artworks and installations that encourage experimentation and risk-taking. From 2014 to 2022, Oresick served as Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Silver Eye Center for Photography (Pittsburgh), where he organized more than fifty exhibitions, including the regional photography biennial Radial Survey. Earlier in his career, he held curatorial posts at the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago) and Light Work (Syracuse). Oresick earned an MFA from Columbia College Chicago and a BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. His curatorial practice centers on empowering emerging and under-recognized artists, partnering with them through pivotal periods of creative growth.

Denene De Quintal, Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)