Conceived by Amrita Hepi, Soothsayer Seranades, invites collaborators to develop playlists accompanied by provocations to move which are released at 4pm on the 15th of every month via the music streaming service Spotify.
As part of our current exhibition, Notes for Tomorrow, Contemporary Calgary is delighted to share the first playlist of the Soothsayer Serenades series in collaboration with Kenna Burima and Amrita Hepi.
Soothsayer Serenades is a provocation for moving together while apart, without proof of presence. An offline dance class or walk.
This format provides insights into how the COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated ways of rethinking how art can be experienced and distributed across place and time to transcend geographical and physical boundaries. The pandemic has highlighted how the internet and free social media platforms have provided connectivity during a time when we have been estranged from friends, family, community and workplaces.
Kenna Burima, Photo by Heather Saitz.
About the Collaborator, Kenna Burima
In her adopted hometown of Calgary (Mohkinstsis, Treaty 7 land), Kenna Burima has earned a reputation as someone who can turn ideas into big projects, teach the unteachable and inspire people to come together, but at her core, Burima wears one label most proudly: musician.
With Kenna’s recent work on her third solo album underway, Kenna has turned inward, away from the angry intensity found on her prior album Hymn to unravel the quiet mysteries of creation. Gone are the trappings of large-scale band dynamics and musings on the societal ills of the day. It’s just her and a grand piano. And motherhood, she admits, has changed her. Most notably it seems through the necessity of process – the concept album While She Sleeps, slated for 2021 release, is a direct reference to the entire album being written and recorded while her daughter sleeps. First to be released as a community inspired illuminated songbook designed by lifelong collaborator visual artist Brianna Strong, a fully animated audio album for auditory and visual enjoyment online.
About the Artist
Amrita Hepi - Photo David Collins.
Amrita Hepi is an award-winning First Nations choreographer and dancer from Bundjulung (Aus) and Ngāpuhi (NZ) territories. Her mission as an artist is to push the barriers of intersectionality in form and make work that establishes multiple access points through allegory. Her work is characterised by hybridity and engages in extending choreographic practices by combining dance and movement with other domains such as visual art, language and participatory research.
About the Curator
Sharmila Wood is the Director of the curatorial initiative JINA. Since 2012 she has worked as a Senior Curator with FORM. Previously, Sharmila has held a plurality of roles, from fostering market access with artisans in India to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage for Aboriginal communities in Australia and developing curatorial place-based strategies for public art projects. She is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to addressing concerns around heritage, environment, social, and spatial justice. Sharmila conceptualises and develops community projects through socially engaged processes, creates installations, collaborates with artists on major commissions, and makes art interventions. Sharmila has a Masters of Art History & Curatorship from the University of Sydney and in 2017 was the recipient of an Asialink residency. She has edited books and writes regularly for publications, and journals, most recently for the Journal of Public Space, and Springer. Currently, she is working on a curatorial project, Actions for the Earth, a participatory platform for ecology, healing, and kindness in response to COVID 19 and the climate emergency. Her long-term curatorial project with Aboriginal artists from the Pilbara region of Western Australia will be presented in 2021.