Water Spirits

Justin Randolph Thompson, Andre Halyard, Jermay Michael Gabriel, SADI
27 March; 21 April, 2024

In Water Spirits, performed by Justin Randolph Thompson, Andre Halyard (aka Dre Love), Jermay Michael Gabriel, SADI, and Dudù Kouate, the geological terrain of water appears as an allusion to ancestry. Copper buckets, typically used to fuel and extinguish fires, are used to create sound, in dialogue with a copper washboard and sampled fragments of revolutionary jazz inspired by Pan-African unity. Drawing on some of Ward's works on display in the exhibition, in particular the disconnected geographies of Jaunt (2011), the hope of Geography Bottle Curtain (1997/2024), and the ethereal soundscape of Happy Smilers: Duty Free Shopping (1996), the piece uses glass bottles to create sighing sounds, like whispered messages.

Attack the Distortions

Justin Randolph Thompson, Andre Halyard, Mackda Ghebremariam Tesfaù
13-14 April; 5 May, 2024

Attack the Distortions, performed by Thompson, Halyard, and Makkada Ghberemariam Tesfau, draws on the invitation of Guyanese historian Walter Rodney to Black intellectuals, to attack the distortions produced by systemic racism. The sound-based performance is composed of disruptive and fragmentary gestures negotiating the violence of translation in relation to Pan-African texts, accentuated by sonic distortion produced by a bedspring reverberator and a rebar resonator that draw their form and impulse from Ward's Geography Bedsprings (1997/2024).

A Drop in the Bucket

Justin Randolph Thompson
19 May; 9 June; 7 July, 2024

A Drop in the Bucket, a series of three solo performances by Thompson, employs a shoulder yoke, copper two-cent coins, and copper pails to investigate unheeded calls and the dissipation of echoes. Inspired by Ward's Wishing Arena (2013) and the copper surface of Ground Break, the action is participatory, inviting audience members to alter the soundscape by contributing coins, like a sounding of wishes. The sonic environment of the coins is expanded through a vocalization that references the stagnancy of "There's a Hole in my Bucket," a song rendered popular by activist and artist Harry Belafonte together with the legendary Odetta and brought into the world of hip hop by Spearhead. The work investigates the limitations of participation when operating as a form of self-gratification.

Groundings/Soundings

Justin Randolph Thompson in collaboration with SADI

Groundings/Soundings is a 55-minute soundscape by Thompson in collaboration with SADI. The work is a prelude and postlude activated before and after each performance. The soundscape centers the voices, exclamations, and applause of the audience in attendance at revolutionary speeches of the 1960s and '70s by leaders such as Amy Garvey, Shirley Chisholm, Angela Davis, Kwame Nkrumah, Walter Rodney, and Kwame Ture. Shifting the energy towards all of those who carried the message of Black power and Black unity out into the world, the piece is mapped into the space, moving from speaker to speaker within and around Ground Break. This meditative water-like sonic dimension is extended through a composition made of sounds produced using copper, rebar, glass bottles, and other elements that draw directly from the materiality and compositional structure of Ward's works in the exhibition.