Acoustic Sovereignties: 2024 Emerging Curator Mentorship Exhibition

Braudie Blais-Billie is a Brooklyn-based writer hailing from the Seminole Tribe of Florida's Hollywood reservation. Focusing on the intersection of Indigenous issues, art, and culture, her work has appeared in publications like Pitchfork, i-D, Glamour, Billboard, and more. She has fiction published in The Evergreen Review and Columbia University's School of Arts interdisciplinary journal Some Kind of Opening.

Ikwe (Kelsey Van Ert/Kelsey Pyro) is an African American and Ojibwe artist and musician from St. Paul & Minneapolis, based in Brooklyn. She is a first generation descendant of the Fon Du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe/Anishinaabe), of which her mother is an enrolled citizen. Her multidisciplinary art practice She is a two time recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Grant (2018 & 2019). She is also a recipient of the 2022 AudioFemme Agenda Grant. She was a 2018 Artist In Residence at The Shed where she developed and presented her musical piece, “MAKADEWIIYAASIKWE”the Ojibwe word for, “a Black woman; a woman of African descent.” The work was later recorded during the 2019 Protest Garden artist in residency at The Wyckoff House. Her work has been presented at Lincoln Center Out of Doors with La Casita, the Brooklyn Prelude Festival, SECCA in Winston-Salem NC, Beckham Gallery in Flint MI, and Wa Na Wari in Seattle WA. Kelsey is currently a Music Technology Masters student at New York University. Her educational work has been supported by the NYU Steinhardt Dean’s Opportunity Scholarship, Stephen Temmer Scholarship, Native Forward Scholarships, and The Audio Engineering Society Educational Foundation Scholarship. Her master's thesis is focused on increasing Indigenous presence in technology and music preservation through the development of a web based virtual representation of the Native American Hand Drum.

Dakota FeirerDakota is a Bundjalung and Gumbaynggirr descendent, and is currently based in Lenapehoking (New York City). As a poet and storyteller, Dakota has been published by print and online journals including Overland Literary Journal, Australian Poetry, Red Room Poetry, Cordite Poetry Review and more. His work consists of poems, stories and mixed-media reflections that engage with Country, history and manhood. Dakota has a forthcoming debut poetry collection titled Arsenic Flower. As a recipient of the Roberta Sykes Scholarship, Dakota is undertaking a Masters in Museum studies at New York University with a focus on reparative ethics, rematriation and biocultural collections. Dakota believes in healing Country and empowering Community through art and storytelling.

SJ Norman (b. 1984) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and cultural worker living in Lenapehoking/New York City. He is a transmasculine Koori, born on Gadigal country, with maternal ties are to north-western Wiradjuri and Ngyiampaa-Wailwan Country (the community of Nyngan, NSW).

SJ's body of work to date has included more than 20 works of long durational performance, and a significant body of other work embracing sculpture, photography, textiles, film and spatial audio. He is also the author of one book of fiction, Permafrost (UQP, 2020), with a second forthcoming.

He works extensively as an independent curator of performance, music, public discourse and pedagogical programs. In 2019, he initiated the Indigenous-led, queer-focuses interdisciplinary arts and pedagogy platform Knowledge of Wounds, which he continues to co-organize with Dr Joseph M. Pierce (Cherokee Nation Citizen) since 2019.

Zheyu PiBorn into a rich tapestry of Chinese culture, Zheyu "Pierre" Pi seamlessly fuses traditional elements with cutting-edge modern music production. As a versatile music producer, percussionist, and composer, Zheyu explores a vast sonic landscape that spans electronic, metal, and orchestral music.

In the bustling arts scenes of New York and Chicago, Zheyu has contributed evocative soundtracks to various installation art projects, creating immersive auditory experiences that complement visual art. Additionally, he has lent his talent to the world of indie gaming and film, crafting soundscapes that have elevated award-nominated projects and earned recognition for their emotive power and originality.

Hayden Ryan is a Yuin spatial sound artist and scholar, residing in Narrm (Melbourne). Supported by Creative Australia, the Roberta Sykes Foundation and Ian Potter Cultural Trust, Hayden completed his Master of Music in Music Technology at New York University (2022-2024) where he explored the reclamation of acoustic sovereignty through integrating spatial audio into Indigenous cultural practice. Hayden is currently undertaking a PhD in the SIAL Sound Studios at RMIT University, researching Indigenous relations to sound and acoustic space as explored through spatial audio technologies and signal processing techniques. With a keen interest in spatial audio and acoustics, Hayden’s artistic work and research convolves psychoacoustic and immersive concepts with Indigenous epistemologies of sound, country and knowing to reclaim acoustic sovereignty in both sonic arts and academic spaces.

Hayden Ryan is a Yuin spatial sound artist and scholar, residing in Narrm (Melbourne). Supported by Creative Australia, the Roberta Sykes Foundation and Ian Potter Cultural Trust, Hayden completed his Master of Music in Music Technology at New York University (2022-2024) where he explored the reclamation of acoustic sovereignty through integrating spatial audio into Indigenous cultural practice. Hayden is currently undertaking a PhD in the SIAL Sound Studios at RMIT University, researching Indigenous relations to sound and acoustic space as explored through spatial audio technologies and signal processing techniques. With a keen interest in spatial audio and acoustics, Hayden’s artistic work and research convolves psychoacoustic and immersive concepts with Indigenous epistemologies of sound, country and knowing to reclaim acoustic sovereignty in both sonic arts and academic spaces.