Canvas City

The logistics and craftsmanship behind the traveling circus take focus in this exhibition at The Ringling. Exploring the era when massive entertainment enterprises moved by rail, the installation features photographs, drawings from a master tentmaker, and costumes sewn by specialized seamstresses. These artifacts illustrate the massive scale of the temporary structures that crews would erect at dawn and dismantle by night, essentially building and breaking down a canvas municipality in a single day. The display underscores the intense manual labor and precise engineering required to produce a spectacle that defied the limits of a stationary venue.