Collaborative exhibition: Steffani Jemison and Justin Hicks
Western Front, Vancouver, BC
Another time, this time, one time features a series of new works made under the umbrella of Steffani Jemison and Justin Hicks’ Mikrokosmos—an ongoing collaborative project that considers listening, language, and pedagogy through contemporary Black American music. Using the solfége system of musical learning (do re mi…) as a model, Jemison and Hicks’ work dissects Gil Scott-Heron’s 1977 song “We Almost Lost Detroit” into 61 melismatic gestures. Here, Black musical study is the subject and form of the work, as these individual gestures are sequenced and performed as both melody and as code.
This iteration of Mikrokosmos is produced by Western Front with additional support from Nottingham Contemporary for a related exhibition and performance in 2018.
Download exhibition brochure and catalogue essay
