flights for future generations

Lindsey’s artistic practice spans theater, performance art, social practice, and installation. Inspired by the metaphysical and existential, Lindsey’s art interrogates the big questions of human (co)existence through an examination of the very personal and nuanced lives we enact both alone and together.  

Lindsey returns to Steppenwolf after working with Steppenwolf for Young Adults (The Compass, 2016) and with the LookOut Performance Series in Hot Kitchen Collective's Big Science and co-directing Genesis's devised performance and you wanna go forever in 2019.

She has also performed, exhibited and produced public programs in Chicago with Chicago Athletic Association, The Color Club, Defibrillator Gallery, Hyde Park Art Center, Links Hall, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Roman Susan Gallery. She has also performed pieces in New York City with Abrons Art Center, the Lincoln Center and The Tank Theatre and nationally with The Arts & Design Incubator at Penn State, The Haggerty Museum in Milwaukee, and The Department of Theatre & Dance at UT Austin. 

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 2015-2024. 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 devises ensemble performances with Amanda Dunne Acevedo. Their most recent collaboration, there are no dead people, receives its New York premiere at Lincoln Center in February 2026. Genesis produces the event HybridSalon –an interdisciplinary evening of artistic works created through intentionally new collaborations and aesthetic pairings. From 2015 - 2019, Genesis programmed 6 salons showcasing over 80 artists across disciplines of visual art, performance, installation, writing, theatre, film, dance, puppetry, music/sound and social practice. 

www.lindseybarlagthornton.com  

@lindseybthornton on social media