Experience the “Sonic Medicine" Treating a Santa Monica Community
Two Postcommodity members, along with composer Guillermo Galindo, are partnering with members of a fast-gentrifying Santa Monica neighborhood to produce a sound-based artwork of contested histories.
At last year’s Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, the artist collective Postcommodity produced a large-scale installation of coal, glass, and rusting steel modeled after Navajo sand paintings. Using the work as a “sculptural graphic score,” local musicians performed their interpretations of the installation over six months, surfacing the local African American community’s history of organized labor and jazz music. Earlier this year, the contested histories of mid-century modernism and Cahuilla tribal territories were the focus of a sonic environment installed by the collective in the Coachella Valley. Using sound and place, Postcommodity mediates the complexities of local histories, cultural heritage, and community self-determination.
This weekend, Postcommodity members Cristóbal Martínez and Kade L. Twist will perform alongside composer Guillermo Galindo, another artist whose work incorporates Indigenous knowledge and practices. As part of their month-long residency at 18th Street Arts Center, the artists are working with community members of Santa Monica’s Pico District, a historically Black and Latinx neighborhood facing gentrification, to produce a sound-based artwork of local oral histories and contested issues within the community.
As a form of “sonic medicine” that engages community members in listening and consensus-building, Saturday’s performance will feature a scored performance with Pico residents before a final culmination performance on July 31 at 18th Street Arts Center’s new gallery space at the Santa Monica Airport.
When: Saturday, July 13, 8-10pm
Where: Otis College Ben Maltz Gallery (9045 Lincoln Blvd., Los Angeles, California)
More info at 18th Street Arts Center.
