From Feb. 12 through March 1, Culture of Bathe-ing is hosting an open-air wellness village on the Williamsburg waterfront featuring 17 saunas, over 1,000 guided sessions and free cultural programming celebrating communal bathing traditions
The Williamsburg waterfront will soon be transformed to embrace longstanding Scandinavian, Native American, Russian and Turkish traditions of communal saunas and sweat lodges.
From Feb. 12 through Mar. 1, Culture of Bathe-ing will take over Domino Park on the Williamsburg waterfront for a social sauna festival and wellness village in an immersive, open-air bathing environment in the Brooklyn neighborhood.
With 17 different saunas throughout the site, visitors will have access to over 1,000 guided sessions priced from $60 to $125 based on time and day. Sauna and bathing practitioners from Bathhouse, Othership and the Russian & Turkish Baths will lead the sessions.
The goal is to create a shared cultural experience that integrates ancient bathing traditions and contemporary design, performance and art, reframing heat therapy as a collective event rather than a private wellness offering.
Culture of Bathe-ing is partnering with Robert Hammond, co-founder of the High Line and President of Therme Group U.S., and Pioneer Works, a Brooklyn-based cultural center for experimental art and performance.
“For centuries, bathing functioned as civic infrastructure,” said Therme Groupe founder and CEO Robert C. Hanea. “Today, we’re rediscovering its capacity to support collective restoration in places where health, culture, and public life naturally converge. Culture of Bathe-ing reflects a broader movement of how cities can support wellbeing at scale.”
In addition to the sauna sessions, the festival grounds will be open to the public, with free experiences and workshops scheduled in partnership with organizations and artists including Aziwke Mohamed of Black Painters Academy, Samer Ghadry of Tone Center and the Amateur Astronomers Association.
Pioneer Works will also fill the park with live performances, sounds and art to establish an immersive sensory environment titled “Hot Bodies.”
Over 1,000 complimentary tickets will be released to ensure more widespread access to the saunas as well.
“Bathing is at the start of a cultural wave, think yoga in the ’90s or coffee in the ’80s,” said Hammond. “Bathhouses are going to be in every neighborhood. We want to make sure the cultural part of bathing isn’t washed away by the wellness trends.”
While the sauna market is thriving as more and more people invest in the benefits of heat therapy, brands like Othership have become particularly successful for the communal environments they provide as people seek out third spaces to connect with like-minded others over shared wellness experiences.
