This interactive soundscape is inspired by the energy within Black churches as well as the greeting traditions within Bahamian culture. It is a sermon, an invitation for togetherness, and a call to action demanding an end to the U.S.’s funding of and participation in genocides. Every non-Indigenous person who enters this living room area right here will be held to account for both the past and present massacres committed in our name. The intention is to get us each to support the building of community around accountability, while also riling up resistance against the oppressive systems we have inherited and participate in. Those oppressive systems, as explained by Black feminist scholar bell hooks, are imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, cisnormativity and heterosexuality. 

Welcome, and let’s get ready if you aren’t already ready.

Rome didn't fall in a day by Titania Kumeh [Front / Main Parlor]

"the pain was the sound of slivers of glass being methodically crushed in a steel vice by a fiend whose face was like that of my old carpentry master who is now in a madhouse ( dambudzo marachera)" by Slant Rhyme

the pain was the sound of slivers of glass ...by Slant Rhyme [Upper Living Room]

Predominantly a personal narrative, For Jack, weaves together seemingly disparate ideas through the common thread of repeti- tion and difference. The work alludes to the movement of the spiral: looping by nature, but the course is always slightly shifting, honing to a central point. 

The differences in repetition super-charge and highlight potential. Interrogating what we inherit, Bielefeld also questions the typical arc of action/climax/resolution within musical composition and storytelling, and instead stakes a claim for the ambiguous and murky middle. Bielefeld references critical writers and thinkers, Gaston Bachelard and Sara Ahmed, and their thinking about the imprint of home on memory and how we orientate and face with a queer lens. 

__________________________

Special thanks to: 

My dear friend Kat Devlin, who helped conceive and shape this piece. You were the first person I thought of when I envisioned this project and I’m so grateful you wanted to work on it with me. Your encouragement and expansive insights made the work infinitely richer and better. As always, you nailed the vocals and piano too. 

My dad, Eric Bielefeld, for introducing me to Für Elise, for doing the best you could, and for loving me despite our vast ideological differences. I know I made you play the piano and sing when you didn’t want to and I’m grateful you did. 

To my friend Jessica Bizub for the cicada recording. You are my favorite naturist. 

To my friend Caitlin Quintenz for reading Bachelard in French while you were traveling abroad. 

And finally, to yétúndé olagbaju for creating this vibrant space and giving me the opportunity to create and show this piece alongside an inspiring cohort of artists. I admire your vision, generosity, and immense care. And you activating the stairwell at 500 Capp Street via recording for me.

For Jack by Lois Bielefeld [Stairwell]

The coolest thing about being a Jew is that for thou- sands of years we’ve been a stateless people. There is a sacredness in being detached from the nation state even though it has historically coincided with our vulnerability. I’ve always understood the holy texts to mean that God and study are our anchors. We don’t need blockades, borders, barbed wire fences, military checkpoints, iron domes, F35s, “apache” helicopters, or security council vetos to keep us safe. 

Our statelessness is precious because it should demand our solidarity with all displaced and diasporic peoples. Our statelessness is what has made so many of our ancestors revolutionary and internationalist think- ers instead of empire apologists and normalizers. 

The deepest antisemitism lives in the hearts of es- sentialist Jews who tell other Jews that an authentic Jewishness exists and that it’s constituted by occupa- tion and fake indigeneity. This 76 year period of human history is just a temporary blip; soon Palestine will be free and we will go back to living in right relationship with God and with our neighbors.

Who Gets to Fly by Hazel Katz [Study]

white sins given high praise by tiffany m. johnson [Artifacts Room / Second Bedroom]

I have fond memories of listening to music with my Mom and while visiting my Dad. Dancing together in the liv- ing room. Singing loudly in the car. Making our meals while the radio played songs that spoke to our spirit and heart. It is in listening to these songs where my idea of what “love” was began to take shape and form. As I’ve grown in and out and through love with myself, others, and the world my idea of what love actually is has shifted and changed. In “i know what love can be (an ode)” I weave together songs that are near and dear to my heart and my memories with a clip of June Jordan reading her poem “Moving Towards Home”. I think about those unable to receive or feel love in the midst of the unwavering violence of american imperialism. I think about those I will never truly know looking for their loves amongst the rubble. Those wishing for dancing space. To join their partner, children, best friends, and neighbors in play, in love. 

To love is to see to the freedom of others and ourselves. 

To use the fire of love to propel us forward. 

This is an ode to what love can be. 

(I hope you can dance with someone you love as you listen.)

i know what love can be by yétúndé olágbajú [Upper Parlor/Fireplace]

My piece will take place in the hallway. View- ing the hallway as a path from one desired point to another, in the spirit of mouth’s cradle by Bjork, ‘Desideratum’ features sounds of vertebrae cracking, voice, and other glottal and throat sounds shaped and spiraling toward one’s desired destination.

Desideratum by Tyler Holmes [Hallway]

This piece is inspired by one of the groups initial meetings when I learned that the building does not have insulation making the noise from the street and the inside bleed together. 

Thinking more about the constant exchange of noise from a home to the outside I wanted to take it a step further and bring the noise from my room and my outside to 500 Capp in San Francisco. 

My piece is an amalgamation of the times I’ve left my house to go on an errand, go to nature, go to eat, go to a protest and many other moments of transience.

de mis calles a tus calles by mata flores [Lightwell]

Who tends to the foundation of our world? Whose care sustains us? 

In this work I imagine what is beneath this house. The dirt, cement, and our curning Earth that holds us up. I draw sonic connections between the foundational support that the earth provides us to the concept of the Captive Maternal - as coined by Joy James. Sliding earth, crackling fire, and booming basslines inspired by tectonic plates is folded between clips from an Activist News Network talk with Joy James. In it she talks about her book “New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency and the Afterlife of Erica Garner”. In this talk James talks through the stages of Captive Maternal from care to war resistance. 

James is Black activist and scholar whose teachings I’ve been turning often. Her work helps me consider how I make meaning, what I’m will ing to risk, and the vast effects/ripples of state violence. 

Coupled with this sound piece is video documentation (shot by sankofa co-creator Lois Bielefeld) of "a spiral fire no. 1" which was done at ACRE in 2022. This earth work/performance and experience was an inspiration for a spiral fuels and fills, 2024.

The video component can be found here: https://vimeo.com/1045812045

a foundation (care to resistance) by yétúndé ọlágbajú [Archives Room / Basement]

a galley, a scullery, a hearth is sonic exploration of the kitchen as place of food, warmth, reflection, food preparation, and it’s history under imperialism and capitalism in relation to domestic labor especially as rooted in the south. Featuring sound bites from 1920’s book on furnishing your kitchen, Z-ro, Jayne Cortez, Amiri Baraka, Pat Parker, cicada, myself, crickets and Steve Biko, a kitchen is place of reflection, nourishment and creation however under the current state of things: how do the dishes pile, how do the issue of the world surmount? The piece is dedicated to the resistance and revolutionary movements worldwide. A Free Palestine, Congo, Sudan and all people who struggle against oppression globally.

a galley, a scullery, a hearth by rian (raven) crane [Kitchen]

What rituals do we lean on when support is needed? When everything is awry? 

Traditions, connections, our roots. As I worked on this soundscape, in June, my grandmother suddenly was in the ICU. Having been in and out of a coma for several months, I have felt this swarm of emotions and further connectivity with my ancestors. I have thought of family by blood through a more softened lens while fostering relation- ships with found family. My internal intensity has raged and clashed against any semblance of stability. This piece allows us a moment to stop, expel, and reflect.

nuestras raices by eli meza [Garage]

artist, cultural worker, archive of sonic works + collaborations 

www.yetundeolagbaju.com

http://instagram.com/ye.tunde/

yétúndé o.

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