Possible Dialogues: Vol. 1
The Lab in San Francisco, and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA
July 14th to July 16th, 2023
three days of sonic and expanded cinema performances, facilitated discussions, discussion, three hour exhibition installationTogetherness (Lift Every Voice and Sing)2023
digital video and audio, medium format film scans
37 min. 45 secdocumentation of the first Togetherness performance at A Public Sale of Artworks
Performers: Binta Ayofemi, Justin Clark, William Kocsis, Miles Lassi, Phillip Laurent, Gabrielle Lochard, Micah Morris, nkiruka oparah, Justin Robinson, Benjamin Rodgers, Shifu Dr. Tim Thompson, Zekarias Musele Thompson, Zachary James Watkins, all who were present.
Possible Dialogues, Vol. 1 was a three-day program across two venues, co-presented by The Lab, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and Working Name Studios, the collective arts organization Zekarias co-founded in the wake of a period of institutional diversity work. Held over the weekend of July 14–16, 2023, the program gathered performances, exhibitions, and facilitated discussions as overlapping forms of exchange, asking what becomes possible together that a single voice cannot reach on its own. A handout circulated throughout the weekend posed the questions that framed it: what comes to mind when you see or hear the word Blackness, and what is your relationship to the projection of absence upon people.
The Lab held the opening evening on Friday, July 14, with an ensemble performance of The Meeting Place, the title composition from a body of sonic work of the same name, followed by The Lord Remembers, a set of compositions incorporating cento poetry drawn from communications received during that period of institutional work, performed with accompanying 16mm film and a facilitated discussion. The following morning at BAMPFA, Duets with My Black Friends brought Zekarias into performance and panel with three Black artists. The closing day held A Public Sale of Artworks, an exhibition and performance whose title gestured knowingly at the impossibility of sale in the museum context, gathering work by Zekarias and three collaborators. Among them was The State of Diversity Equity and Inclusion at..., a corkboard presenting the documented account Zekarias had written of that same institutional experience, with the names of the organization and the individuals hand-excised. The weekend closed with the first performance of what would become the Togetherness Ensemble, a long-form sonic improvisation with audience participation prompted by James Weldon Johnson's Lift Every Voice and Sing.risograph handbill for Possible Dialogues: Vol. 1. Text and image by Zekarias, graphic design by Benjamin Rodgersstill from performance of The Lord Remembers with Zekarias Musele Thompson (saxophone, electronics, cento poetry), Julio Pineda (saxophone), and Zack Parinella (16 mm film loops)exhibition text and works map risograph print for A Public Sale of Artworksclip from performance of on dichotomies that collapse themselves from The Lord Remembers, featuring Julio Pineda (saxophone), and Zack Parinella (16 mm film loops).installation view of The State of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at... during A Public Sale of Artworksstill from duet with Phillip Laurent (electric piano, synthesizer) during Duets with My Black FriendsFREE MUMIA, archival pigment print, from A Public Sale of Artworksuntitled (Thank you Mr. Purifoy) , archival pigment print from A Public Sale of Artworks
Portrait of the artist in a state of proclaiming themself Queen Zekarias aka Siobhan aka Auncle, archival pigment print from A Public Sale of Artworksstill from Togetherness...still from duet with Joel St. Julien (electric guitar, modular synthesizer) during Duets with My Black Friendsclip of Togetherness (lift every voice and sing