From January to June 2024, I. Nakhla was selected by ARC, Stockton to lead a six-month community-based audio commission in the Teesside area on the theme of ‘WASTE’. A socially and environmentally oriented project, WASTE is interested not only in processes of waste, or wastefulness, but also in challenging the narratives that determine what is classed as ‘resource’ and what as ‘waste’, as well as who or what can be wasted.
Press Link: NARC Magazine interview
WASTE encompassed audio workshops, conversation, field recording, and 1:1 mentoring. The project culminated in an online record and live performance at ARC featuring performances by I. Nakhla and Teesside creatives Shad Chowdhury and Lucy Harper, as well as a brand new video work by artist Annie Murrells. For the live performance of WASTE, the artists presented their research through experimental sound, foley, vocals, radio, and dance music.
^ a radio edit of I. Nakhla’s work featuring contributions by Shad Chowdhury and Lucy Olivia
^ Video by Annie Murrells. Audio by I. Nakhla
“Waste is about worth, about resource, and about our bodies (which move in and out of spaces distorted by plans unmade, and time suspended). Waste is about: wounded spaces that echo with exhausted futures; objects looking for a purpose; a shared breath, bagged, expelled by compression; an object to rub up against. We don’t know how to be robust when space is squashed and plans turn to spectres. Sound, like the air, is a place where movement happens.”
Research:
Research img 1, ARC Stockton, 2023
Working with members of the community to make use of sonic leftovers, Nakhla’s WASTE commission encompasses free public workshops at ARC, experimenting with the sonic capacity of personal devices (phones, tablets etc.), and making creative use of them as field recorders, personal archives, and speakers.
Stills from Workshop 1, ARC Stockton, ‘Spatialising Sound’ – live-mixing ‘wasted’ sounds scavenged from the environment, using our bodies and voices to generate, mix, and think ourselves as creative resources – with young people in the area, Feb 2024
Made in collaboration with ‘Workshop 2’ attendees, ARC Stoockton, mixing Nakhla’s electronic compositions with participant’s phone field recordings from the session