Community Events at Hilltown Commons
Hilltown Commons hosts a variety of cultural events and gatherings throughout the year—from live music, art shows, film screenings, and seasonal celebrations. Join us to connect, celebrate, and experience creativity in our vibrant community.
Emily Rauch
A multimedia exhibition featuring collage, found materials, and interactive handmade books, exploring reuse, sustainability, and close attention to everyday materials.
Opening Reception: Friday, April 17, 2026, 4–6 PM
Exhibition Dates: April 17 – May 8, 2026
Closing Reception: Friday, May 8, 2026, 4–6 PM
About the Artist: Emily Rauch, an artist educated at Bennington College, returns to this space thirty years after her first exhibition with a practice shaped by rigor, risk, and independence. Her work is grounded in experience, discipline, and clarity, guided by a resistance to pretense and a commitment to play and experimentation. Now fully herself, she shares this work with her community.
This exhibition, in part supported by a Puffin Foundation grant, explores sustainability and reuse. Responding to the excess of plastic and the illusion of creativity through consumption, Rauch works with what is already at hand—dried markers, found fragments, and discarded materials. The pieces are playful, imperfect, and intentionally unpolished. Each is an act of repair, inviting us to find meaning, humor, and joy in what remains, and to consider change that begins with simply noticing what is already here.
This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Puffin Foundation.
Art Exhibitions AT the Gugg Gallery
Special Screening: Second Nature — May 4th
Join us for an evening with Second Nature, the bold and thought-provoking documentary that covers everything you didn't learn in high school biology.
Narrated by Elliot Page, the film follows trailblazing trans evolutionary biologist Dr. Joan Roughgarden as she meets groundbreaking scientists exploring the 1,500+ animal species that engage in same-sex sexual behavior and parenting, sex change, matriarchies, and more. From clownfish to bonobos to penguins, Second Nature dismantles the myth that queerness is "unnatural" — because in nature, it's absolutely everywhere.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Drew Denny, hosted by artist and activist Zaria Forman.
Date: May 4th | 6PM
Followed by: Q&A with Director Drew Denny, hosted by Zaria Forman
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