This website is an archive. Please visit www.ica.art for current listings.
Sonic Round Table
15 Dec 2018
Caption: Ima-Abasi Okon
Sound artist and DJ Ain Bailey presents a sonic round table with Gail Lewis, Ian Stonehouse, Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski, Nana Adusei-Poku, Amal Khalaf, Sonia Boyce and Jimmy Robert.
Ain Bailey frequently employs the sonic round table as part of her work, inviting a group of people to collectively share and discuss sounds that relate to their own personal histories. Congregation: Sonic Round Table is the first time that Bailey has invited an audience to listen to selected tracks and sounds by an invited group of artists, writers and organisers whose work bears a direct relation to her own sonic practice.
This is the second event in a three-part live series presented by Ain Bailey at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and is preceded by Congregation Sonic Club Night and followed by Congregation: Performance. The Congregation series furthers Bailey’s ongoing research into how people use sound to create a sense of place. Central to this body of work is the idea of a ‘sonic biography’; the personal constellation of sounds that form an individual identity. With Congregation, the artist is considering the ways in which communities are formed through the sharing of sounds. A focus of Bailey’s work for some time, this sonic round table builds on events undertaken by the artist at Wysing Arts Centre and following a commission by Serpentine Projects.
This event runs from 11.30am – 4pm and a light lunch will be provided for all.
Ain Bailey is a sound artist and DJ. Her current practice involves an exploration of sonic autobiographies, architectural acoustics, live performance, as well as collaborations with performance, visual and sonic artists. Among these is performance/visual artist Jimmy Robert, who commissioned Bailey to create a composition for his 2017 show European Portraits at PEER Gallery, London. Oh Adelaide (2010), her collaboration with the artist Sonia Boyce, has shown widely, including at Tate Britain; the Whitechapel Gallery; and The Kitchen, New York. In 2016, Bailey was commissioned by Art Basel Miami Beach to compose for the Soundscape Park. Bailey also devised a Study Week at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, which considered the role of sound in the formation of identity. In addition, in 2017, Bailey collaborated with Gaylene Gould on the creation of a Sonic Trail for Tate Britain, London. She also performed at Guest, Ghost, Host: Machine!, the 2017 Serpentine Marathon. Bailey is a research student at Birkbeck, University of London (on a break in studies), and was guest professor in sound at Kunsthochschule Kassel for the winter semester 2017/2018. Following a commission by Serpentine Projects, Bailey is currently conducting sound workshops with LGBTI+ refugees and asylum seekers.
Nana Adusei-Poku is Visiting Professor in Art History of the African Diaspora at Cooper Union. She is a writer and educator whose work primarily centres around three themes: cultural shifts and how they articulate themselves through the intersections of art, politics and popular culture; artistic productions from the Black diasporas; and critical pedagogy in relationship to decolonial aesthetics. Nana’s writings and work have influenced Ain Bailey’s practice.
Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski is a Minneapolis-based, London-born, Nigerian mixed-media artist/designer, archivist and organiser who DJs under the moniker DJ Marlon aka The Church Lady. Her work and research explore the relationship between feminist, queer, decolonizing theories/spaces and organizational, curatorial, artistic (self-)archiving practices. Ain Bailey and Ego have DJed and organised together on many occasions.
Sonia Boyce is a British-born artist who lives and works in London. At the heart of Boyce’s work are questions about the production and reception of unexpected gestures, with an underlying interest in the intersection of personal and political subjectivities. Since the 1990s, she has been working with the improvised actions of others to create multimedia artworks. Boyce’s practice has had a profound effect on Ain Bailey’s work, and the pair collaborated on the major work Oh Adelaide (2010).
Amal Khalaf is a researcher, curator and currently Projects Curator at the Serpentine Galleries. She is also Commissioning Editor (Projects) at Ibraaz and a founding member of the GCC Collective, a multidisciplinary collective that explores questions of identity and institutions across the Gulf. Ain Bailey and Amal Khalaf have worked together on many curatorial projects at the Serpentine Galleries.
DJ Levi is a DJ based in London. Ain Bailey and DJ Levi have gigged together on many occasions.
Gail Lewis is Reader in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. Her academic interests centre on psychoanalysis, black feminism, experience as a site of knowing and knowledge production, and social policy and welfare practice. Gail Lewis’ writings and ideas are significant to Ain Bailey’s research and work.
Jockel Liess lives and works in London. Liess studied at the Electronic Music Studios at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2012 and Byam Shaw School of Art in 2000. He exhibits large-scale audiovisual installations and compositions in gallery environments, and at festivals and concerts nationally and internationally. In addition to his solo work, he collaborates on a variety of projects with other artists, musicians and filmmakers. Ain Bailey and Liess have collaborated on various sound projects.
ORETHA is an artist and DJ based in London. Recent performances include Wysing Polyphonic Festival, Shambala Festival, 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning (all 2018), ICA, NTS Radio, StudioRCA, Rich Mix (all 2017), Auto Italia, Corsica Studios and ICA (all 2016). Ain Bailey has been working with ORETHA for some time, supporting the development of their practice.
Jimmy Robert is an artist born in Guadeloupe, France, currently living and working in Berlin. His multidisciplinary practice encompasses performance, photography, film, video and drawing, frequently collapsing distinctions between these mediums. Robert’s work has explored the politics of spectatorship by reworking seminal avant-garde performances in ways that complicate their racial and gendered readings. Ain Bailey and Jimmy Robert have worked together for some time, with Robert commissioning Bailey to create a composition for his 2017 show European Portraits at PEER Gallery.
Ian Stonehouse is Head of the Electronic Music Studios at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is an artist and has worked variously as a film, sound, video and animation tutor at Light House Media Centre in Wolverhampton, the University of Wolverhampton and Middlesex University. Ian Stonehouse and Ain Bailey met at Goldsmiths.
This event is seated and will run for 60 mins including a short interval. Late-comers will only be able to enter during the interval, and there will be no readmittance during the second performance. We ask that you please switch off your phones.
If there is anything we can do to make it easier for you to attend this event, please get in touch by emailing access@ica.art or calling 020 7930 3647