community mix tape
sound installation

Installed: 2020

Sponsored by:
LA Forum for Architecture

Thank You: Britt Jones, Katy Foley, Stephanie Lin, Eri Yamagata, Matthew Alvarez

The most Gracious Singer-Storytellers:   Afifa Wardak with Madina Wardak , Araceli Roman with Jose Devora, Bertha Napoles, Camilla Gaisie, Deshanae Cantley, Doris Cantley, Elisa Read, Laurel Kleeger-Read, Eva Maya de la Torre with Iván-Nicholas Cisneros, Frances Clinton, Heather Chin with Eric Chin, Helen Chung with Eric Chin,  Julian Pan, Kiki Kim, Larae Cantley with 2Hungry & Royalty, Malathi Iyengar and Shaarada Mani Chalan, Monali Khandagle, Myung-Soon Yoo, Nina Lamothe, Anonymous, Setsuko Paula Watanabe

20 weather balloons, 20 speakers, helium, 20 recorded songs from women of color in LA
Sound Installation, Judson Studios, Los Angeles CA

Community Mixtape is an installation of song, 노래, Canción, Bài hát, Awit, गीत, 歌曲, ترانه, 歌, เพลง, երգ.  These sounds move through air.  During 2020s pandemic, women of color from Los Angeles sang songs and told me stories about change over the phone.  One empathizes by listening to stories; song is a lyric-story set to music.  These songs are about the human voice.  Listening to someone is the same as needing someone and we all need each other so much. 

Sound has always been close to my heart as an artist.  Sound is the sense that emotes beyond it’s coded containers.  Cackling laughter, onamotopoeic korean, slurping noodles, east coast cicada hypnosis, snowfall's ambient absence, that moving ballad "Lady in Red". Its invisible presence in a vision-centered, propioceptic world provides sensory respite.  To allow our everpresent hearing to tell us a story & rest our judgemental sight. During the dead heat of the pandemic in 2020, I called 20 BIPOC mothers in LA and asked them to share a song with me.  They generously shared songs and stories in Cantonese, Korean, Spanish, Hindi, Pashto, and Tagalog.  I created an installation out of the songs with 20 weather balloons, each with a mini-speaker attached.  Each song was distributed across 10 channels so that the songs moved from one weather balloon to the next.  Songs are aflight & moving.  Many of the mothers came to the installation's opening. 

Naray Baran De, Toora Shpa, Man Kisay Dil Goyam
Afifa Wardak with Madina Wardak
Da Hil Saeyo
Anonymous
La Marcha de Zacatecas
Araceli Roman & Jose Devora
La Llorona, El Adios del Soldado, La Huella de tus Besos
Bertha Napoles
Ghanaian Lullaby
Camilla Gaisie
You Are My Sunshine
Deshanae Cantley
Lean on Me
Doris Cantley
Tres Pececitos
Elisa Read Pappaterra & Laurel
Cuando Salgo a Los Campos
Eva Maya de la Torre with Iván-Nicholas Cisneros-Rangel
Five Little Ducks
Frances Clinton
등대지기
Heather Chin w/ Eric Chin
만남
Helen Chung w/ Eric Chin
Mo Li Hua
Julian Pan
Michelle
Kiki Kim
God That I Serve
Larae Cantley with 2Hungry & Royalty
Song about Goddess Chowri
Malathi Iyengar and Shaarada Mani Chalan
Nach Re Mora
Monali Khandagle
His Eye is on the Sparrow
Nina Lamothe with Nina Briggs
Orange Blossoms
Setsuko Paula Watanabe
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