Episode #3 – Transforming Materials Conversations From The Center

Hector Canonge discusses his studio home MODULO 715 in NYC, and the residency program he organized in the space. Faced with a fire that destroyed the building, he had to restart everything (once again). What is an audio performance? The first answer in our series comes from Tamara Al-Mashouk, who asks among other things: “Where are you from?” Next, we invited participants in our residency in Nairobi (Kenya) to discuss: how do you understand transformation in flux? How are materials (and their transformations) part of your art, activism, and research practice? Our group of conversants include artist Laura Porter (Paris/France), artist Wambui Collymore (Nairobi/Kenya), artist/organizer Dennis Kiberu, (Nairobi/Kenya) and photojournalist Adam Sings In The Timber (Providence/USA). We finish off with Dutch sound artist Zeno Van Den Broek’s interpretation of Conversations From The Center, through an audio composition of voices from the future. Portions of this program were recorded at the AfroQueer podcast studios in Nairobi, Kenya.
Hector Canonge (@hectorcanonge)
Hector Canonge is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and cultural producer based in New York City. His work incorporates various forms of artistic expression: Performance Art, Dance, Multimedia Production, Installation, and Social Practice to explore and treat issues related to constructions of identity, gender roles, and the politics of migration.
Tamara Al-Mashouk (@tmraalm)
Tamara Al-Mashouk was born in Saudi Arabia in 1988. She graduated from Wellesley College with a major in architecture (2010) and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Art at Tufts University (2016). Through video, performance, and architectural installation, Al-Mashouk examines the movement of people across societal and national borders with specific focus on the intersectional body and conversely this body’s relationship to institutional systems. She has founded an all-female fine art gallery at a music and arts festival in upstate New York. She produces single and multi-channel video works for the gallery and public sphere- a five-channel video installation for a solo show in Boston, a two-channel video installation in Beijing, and a three-hour multi-channel
Adam Sings In The Timber (@signsinthetimber)  
Adam Sings In The Timber is an enrolled member of the Crow Nation in Montana, USA. Adam was born in Montana and grew up in the Midwest of the USA. He studied photojournalism at the University of Montana, Missoula. Currently based in Providence, RI, his work captures the beauty and complexities of Native American culture without shying away from the realities of poverty, addiction and abuse. His photo making process ethically portrays Indigenous communities through art and documentation. Sings In The Timber’s work, combining documentary photography and portraiture, will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at the Field Museum in Chicago. Previous exhibitions include First Voice Art Gallery at the American Indian Center, Chicago; Paramount Theatre Gallery, Seattle; Montgomery Ward Gallery, University of Illinois-Chicago; Harold Washington Library, Chicago; Gallery OTR, Cincinnati, Ohio; and King Street Station, Seattle, Washington. His photojournalism has been published in The Guardian, Indian Country Today, Indian Peoples Magazine, USA Today and the New York Times, among others. He has lectured widely on the importance of Indigenous people documenting their own culture at institutions including Bowling Green State University, Northwestern University, Brown University, and the University of Colorado Boulder.  
Laura Porter (@_laura.porter_)  
Laura Porter is an American artist who lives in Paris, France. She has a practice-based PhD in Fine Arts from École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts / SACRePSL. Through installation, sculpture, and video, her work considers modes of value production. With particular attention to the genesis of objects