Soundwave ((8)) Infrastructure showcases curators and artists who investigate frameworks that bind communities and individuals
July 13, 2018 – We are proud to announce the eighth edition of the Soundwave Biennial, the Bay Area’s innovative art and music festival. Soundwave ((8)) Infrastructure not only considers the basics of city infrastructure, such as joists and support beams, but more acutely examines entirely human and ecological frameworks affected by physical systems.
The infrastructures that humans engage with are not always inclusive or durable. Undeniably, infrastructure entails not only metal, nails, or pavement to connect us. It also involves who we can cross roads with, the time it takes to get to our destination, and it can permit inclusivity or independence. Most humans could not live without modern infrastructure, but do we really know how deep that dependence goes? Or what effects infrastructure has had and will continue to exert on humans and the planet? Infrastructure entails more human concerns than building materials because there is a much more political and economic aspect at stake.
As modern tech culture has infiltrated Bay Area infrastructures––both physical and human––the history and culture of the region is shifting and the biennial explores how individuals and communities are reacting to such systematic changes. Soundwave ((8)) Infrastructure considers such freedoms allotted to citizens in the Bay Area who are currently facing rapid changes within the infrastructure of housing, communities, safe spaces, transit systems, and job opportunities. These infrastructural elements reflect much more than how something is made or moved; they also share a relationship with an individual who is impacted by them.
This is the first Soundwave Biennial featuring guest curators for each event. The curators have backgrounds in theater, dance, film, social practice, and music to create a biennial that considers sound from many angles. Both curators and artists involved with this year’s biennial employ themes concerning isolation amid interconnectivity; gender and culture; private and public sectors; social constructs and safe spaces; energy systems and their impact on native land; the movement of goods and services across roads, bridges, railways, and ports and the accessibility of goods for a large population once transported. These infrastructural elements involve invisible protocols that affect daily life and determine how and when individuals can experience monetary, emotional, and spatial freedoms. Guest curators include Sofia Wang, Sarita Ocón, Sharmi Basu, Shaghayegh Cyrous, and Ryanaustin Dennis.
“We are excited to be partnering with new locations such as Eastside Arts Alliance and the Growlery to bring new genres and communities to this year’s festival. There is a focus on working with venues and spaces that have been bastions for events that recognize underrepresented groups within their immediate neighborhoods. These venues promote not only emerging artists, but event organizers, activists, and entrepreneurs who establish a network that filters outside of the arts community. The intersection of these venues with the biennial underline the theme of infrastructure in regards to a collective interest in support systems and emotional wellness for the community.”
––Chief Curator Tanya Gayer
Soundwave runs September through October with six curated performances throughout San Francisco and Oakland. The full schedule, line-up, and tickets will be available July 13 at www.biennial8.soundwavesf.com
Select artist projects to explore :
- LIVE ARTS IN RESISTANCE fosters risk-taking, rigor, and a radical critique on the role of political activism, cultural work and art in society. This role is historically rooted in a culture fighting for justice, equity and self-determination —the political empowerment of our people. Eastside Arts Alliance.
- The Black Organizing Project is a Black member-led community organization working for racial, social, and economic justice through grassroots organizing and community-building in Oakland, California.
- The Black Aesthetic : a creative organization founded by Ryanaustin Dennis, whose mission is to curate and assemble both a collective and distinct understanding of Black visual culture.
- It Is What It Is : a film by Cyrus Yoshi Tabar
- Heavy Breathing : a series of experimental movement seminars organized by Sophia Wang and Lisa Rybovich Crallé who combine physical activity with group discussion on ideas related to their creative practice.
Select highlights:
- October 5 : Time:Miracle at the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt features 3 artists, Titania Kumeh, Alexa Burrell, and Aja Archuleta, who navigate the emotional ways their traumas manifest and find ways to use their individual and ancestral histories to call upon healing.
- October 12 : In Between at The Growlery presents a video and sound installation by Cyrus Toshi Tabar and Sholeh Asgary. It explores their desire for answers, communication, and connection amid the void of familial histories and relationships that they contend with as second and third-generation immigrants.
- October 13 : Black Fighting Formations (BFF): Sonic Narrative of Performing-Political Education, in partnership with EastSide Arts Alliance, is a presentation of two instrumental performance debuts.
Soundwave ((8)) Infrastructure is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.
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About Soundwave
Soundwave is an acclaimed biennial festival of innovative sound, art and music. Soundwave is a multi-venue and multidate sound performance and exhibition series happening over the entire summer every two years in the San Francisco Bay Area USA. Each season investigates a new idea in sound and invites diverse multidisciplinary artists and musicians to explore the season’s theme in new and innovative directions. Soundwave has completed seven successful seasons that have taken over 15,000 people on sonic adventures on moving buses as well as in WWII bunkers, historic churches, museums, galleries, city streets and parks. Created by founder and artistic director Alan So, Soundwave explores the boundaries of how we see sound, language and music. It is a project dedicated to challenge and inspire artists and audiences to look deeper into the sound medium and discover new connections to sound-making and the sound experience. Soundwave was awarded BEST of 2007 and called the festival a ‘Future Classic’ by San Francisco Magazine. It has been featured on SPARK*, KQED’s (PBS) television arts show and called ‘Epic’ by Flavorpill, ‘Glorious’ by SF Bay Guardian and ‘Daring’ by SF Weekly.Past seasons include Humanities (2012), Green Sound (2010), Move Sound (2008), Surround sound and free sound in 2004, the year the Biennial debuted. at soundwaveSF.com
For more information contact:
Tanya Gayer, Chief Curator Chelsea Akita, Communication and Events Manager