THE FREAK FAMILY ROADSHOW

Jo Cunningham: The Freak Family Roadshow

Saturday, August 22 & Sunday, August 23, 2026 | 12–5 PM

One Mile Gallery is pleased to welcome Jo Cunningham’s The Freak Family Roadshow to Kingston for one weekend only.

Part roadside attraction, part immersive sculpture, and part deeply personal family portrait, The Freak Family Roadshow unfolds inside a restored 1950s “canned ham” trailer. Visitors step inside to encounter an unlikely domestic scene: a gorilla mother, an alien father, and their wonderfully strange hybrid child.

Behind the carnival spectacle is something surprisingly tender. Drawing on the visual language of American sideshows and roadside attractions, Cunningham turns the idea of the “freak” back on itself, exploring family, belonging, otherness, and our assumptions about what—or who—is considered normal.

The project is also rooted in Cunningham’s own family history. Her mother is a primatologist, while her artist father’s work incorporates UFOs and conspiracy theories. Childhood drawings and family photographs appear throughout the installation, blurring autobiography and fantasy and transforming this bizarre traveling family into something unexpectedly familiar.

“It is my hope that this juxtaposition can challenge and illuminate how society labels and judges those we perceive as ‘freak’ or ‘other,’” Cunningham has said.

A self-taught sculptor originally from Brooklyn, Cunningham was inspired by American roadside attractions and outsider artists including Howard Finster and Butch Anthony. Constructed from an improbable assortment of newspaper, aluminum foil, duct tape, discarded materials, papier-mâché, tire inner tubes, alpaca hair, and encaustic wax, the Roadshow embraces the handmade, idiosyncratic spirit of that tradition.

Cunningham has taken The Freak Family Roadshow on the road across the country, deliberately presenting the work beyond traditional art-world spaces.

“I hope to make art that is accessible and fun for everyone. I think art gets more and more enlivened the further it is from where it’s expected to be.”

This weekend, the road leads to One Mile Gallery.

Saturday, August 22 & Sunday, August 23
12:00–5:00 PM
One Mile Gallery, Kingston, NY

Free and open to the public.