As Lubaina Himid (Thin Black Line(s)) created a space for collective invisibility in the art world, there is a specificity to the necessity of careful navigations and compromises of the non-male non-white artist/musician experience in contemporary performance spaces. This project creates a space for the speaking into and the telling of these narratives, tracing how challenges become methods of collective solidarity and makes investigations on how to create productive work in the face of historically limiting cultural gatekeepers.
Simplifications of the lack of marginalized voices from practice based disciplines often results in simplified remedies such as diversity curation or inclusion of previously less visible non-white artists. This exhibition and panel discussion asks what happens when we push beyond the representations to the closer looks at the often exclusionary experiences and the narratives of artists working with sound? How does one balance social responsibility and artistic voice? How do we unpick the problematic nature of marginalized narratives in productive and non-flattening ways? How can we reimagine pathways for musicians/sound artists to speak of their lived experience in ways that produce future work?
This event has been made possible by support from Centre for Practice-Led Research in the Arts – University of Leeds, Ladyz in Noyz, and The Tetley.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/contemporary-melanin-narratives-in-sound-and-music-tickets-59967059088