SOUND INSTALLATION
VOICES IN THE WATER: Sound Installation

Sat, 06/25/2022 -
Sat, 07/23/2022
Goethe-Institut LA Project Space

VOICES IN THE WATER is on view at the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles from June 25 - July 23, 2022 on Thursdays - Saturdays by appointment.

To visit the installation, please select the date and time you wish to attend.
CLICK HERE TO MAKE A RESERVATION TO ATTEND
Voices in the Water is an embodied storytelling project created by interdisciplinary performance artist Nefertiti Charlene Altan and curator and cultural studies scholar Robin Garcia that centers the voices and experiences of latinx, immigrant, and indigenous individuals who have lived, worked, or moved through Macarthur Park.

Like the complex and layered history of the park, this project revolves around water and its sacred power to move, remember, speak and listen.
The artists asked nine individuals to share their stories of water and Macarthur park through an interview methodology that begins with a guided movement practice—Moving Your Inner Waters— to bring individuals into a somatic state. The sounds and memories that emerge when in a state of embodiment reveal intersecting streams of consciousness between one's inner rhythm, inner waters, and the waters around us. This sound installation is a reflection on how water has the power to act both as a historical container and a conduit to transmit memory. It is a meditation on the waterways and diasporic communities of Los Angeles, which are both in constant relationship with a changing urban landscape, an evolving climate crisis, memory, resilience, community survival, healing, and renewal.

We invite you to listen and connect to this sound installation and engage in an optional self-guided water ritual afterward.

RSVP via Eventbrite
Admission is free. All ages welcome.
Space is limited. Masks required.

Free Parking is available at Metro/Retail parking structure located at
676 S. Westlake Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90057 

Public transport is possible with the red line to MacArthur Park/Westlake stop.
Using carpool or ride-share options are appreciated.

VOICES IN THE WATER
Created and produced by: Robin Garcia & Nefertiti Charlene Altan, Sound Design and Arrangement: Nefertiti Charlene Altan, Assistant Sound Design and Arrangement: Robin Garcia, Sound Mix: Samantha Altán, PeaceYmusic Productions, Sound Recording: Nefertiti Charlene Altan, Robin Garcia, Movement methodology: Nefertiti Charlene Altan, Oral Storytelling & Vocals: Carmelo Alvarez, Mercedes Mijares, Joy Anderson, Lidia M Cáceres, Claudia Hernández Romero, Marcia A Lopez, Enrique Navarro, Hector Elorza, Chad Algarin, Percussion & Vocals: Nefertiti Charlene Altan, Production Assistance: Joy Anderson, Jenny Garcia, Public Relations: Sandy Rodriguez, Miller Geer & Associates. 


Nefertiti Charlene Altan
Nefertiti Altan is an indigenous-black queer interdisciplinary performance artist of Guatemalan roots that has created work at the intersection of the body, sound, rhythm, and place with artists from the Americas, Africa, and Europe for over a decade. Since 2013, she has lived in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil; studying, creating, and practicing contemporary and folk performing arts within a Latin-American context as an extension of her Afro-indigenous latinidad. In 2016, she received a technical degree in dance from the Bahia State Cultural Foundation (FUNCEB). She has studied and performed with esteemed mestres and pioneers of afro-Brazilian dance and music.  
She was a co-founder of Deslimites Mediações Artísticas, a collective based in Salvador, Bahia that created and taught contemporary dance methods and site-specific works within a feminist & anti-racist framework. The collective produced and presented more than 80 days of performances, panels, screenings, and workshops, reaching more than 1500 people as audience members and workshop participants in Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, and online. Before moving to Brazil, she was a popular educator, and political education trainer with grassroots organizations fighting for the rights of working-class Latinx, Black, Indigenous youth, women, migrants, and LGBT communities across the U.S., Guatemala, Venezuela, and Colombia. She is currently in an MFA in the dance program at St Mary's College. 

Robin Garcia
Robin Garcia completed her doctorate in Cultural Studies from Claremont Graduate University with a focus on Latin American Studies and Globalization and Culture. Her dissertation project; "Community and Cultural Collectives in Contemporary Venezuela," looked at the role that community media and community museums, culture, performance, and activist collectives have played in recuperating popular versions of anti-colonial Venezuelan history. Robin has taught courses across the Humanities curriculum at several Cal State campuses, Antioch University, Pitzer College, Pace University in New York, and the University of Ibadan in Ibadan, Nigeria. She was an ACLS/Mellon Fellow at the LA County Department of Arts and Culture, where she was the lead program manager and evaluator on the county's Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative. Dr. Garcia is currently a fellow at the Intercultural Leadership Institute and is a Community Forward Programming Co-Director for WE RISE, an initiative that supports grassroots programming at the intersection of arts, healing, racial and social justice. Although Robin has worked in the arts and considers herself a theater artist, this is her first time collaborating on an exhibition.

Free Parking is available at Metro/Retail parking structure located at
676 S. Westlake Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90057 

Public transport is possible with the red line to MacArthur Park/Westlake stop.
Using carpool or ride-share options are appreciated.

This event is part of the Neighborhood Interpretive Center, a hyperlocal initiative of cultural programs that focus on and uplift the MacArthur Park/Westlake neighborhood and surrounding areas.


GUIDE TO THE SOUND INSTALLATION

Welcome to Voices in the Water ~
For the first moment of the sound installation you can follow the suggestions below for an embodied listening experience. You are also free to listen however you would like to. Please note that the room will be darkened while listening. If you need light visibility, please inform the gallery attendant.

TO LISTEN

1. YAWN & STRETCH. Let your yawns guide your body. Feel free to vocalize if you need to.
2. SHAKE IT OUT. If you are sitting, bring a slight bounce into your body. If you are standing, stand hip width apart, and allow your body to jostle up and down by bending at the knees. Allow your joints to loosen. Shake for as long as you’d like.
3. MOVE AROUND the gallery. Let yourself feel the size, the air, the shape of the room.
4. As you continue to listen, you are free to move in any way, in any direction at any moment. You can also be still, close your eyes, sit in a chair, lie on the floor, or move through any other position as you listen.

TO REFLECT
1. When the sound installation is over, take a moment and reflect on the thoughts, sensations, feelings, and visions that arose.
2. You can share your thoughts with the water by speaking into any of the bowls around the gallery

OR

3. You can write them on a piece of paper available at the entrance. You can leave the paper in the box.

These shared visions, hopes, dreams and intentions will be returned to the waters at MacArthur Park lake once the exhibition closes. Our hope is that these collective intentions will support our own healing and the healing of the waters for generations to come. 
~Thank you, Nefertiti & Robin


**ESPAÑOL**

Bienvenidos a Voces en el Agua ~
Para el primer momento de la instalación de sonido, puede seguir las sugerencias a continuación para una experiencia auditiva incorporada. También tenga la voluntad de escuchar como crees conveniente. Tenga en cuenta que la galería se oscurecerá mientras escucha. Si a ti te molesta la oscuridad, avisa al personal encargo.

PARA ESCUCHAR
1. BOSTEZAR Y ESTÍRAR. Siéntase libre de vocalizar si es necesario.
2. SACUDIR SU CUERPO. Si está sentado, dé una ligera sacudida a su cuerpo. Si está de pie, párate al ancho de tus caderas y permita que su cuerpo se mueva hacia arriba y hacia abajo doblando las rodillas. Permita que sus articulaciones se aflojen. Agite durante el tiempo que desee.
3. MUÉVETE POR LA GALERÍA. Permítete sentir el tamaño, el aire, y la forma de la galería. A medida que continúas escuchando, eres libre de moverte de cualquier forma, en cualquier dirección y en cualquier momento. También puede quedarse quieto, cerrar los ojos, sentarse en una silla, acostarse en el suelo o moverse en cualquier otra posición mientras escucha.

PARA REFLEJAR
1. Cuando termine la instalación de sonido, tómese un momento y reflexione sobre los pensamientos, sensaciones, sentimientos y visiones que surgieron.
2. Puedes compartir tus pensamientos con el agua hablando en cualquiera de los tazones alrededor de la galería.

O

3. Puedes escribirlas en un papel disponible en la entrada. Puedes dejar el papel en la caja.

Estas visiones, esperanzas, sueños e intenciones compartidas serán devueltas a las aguas del lago MacArthur Park una vez que cierre la exposición. Nuestra esperanza es que estas intenciones colectivas apoyen nuestra propia sanación y la sanación de las aguas para las generaciones venideras.