Repatterning

Repatterning 3/1 · Joy Mariama Smith March 12, 2023

Joy Mariama Smith talks about puzzles and repetition, teaching and shame, noise and colour, and flavours of racism.

“You heard it here first, I’m inventing it. My note says: ‘invent black noise.’ Just so you know.”

Joy Mariama Smith · Photo by Lavinia Pollack

Joy Mariama Smith is a native Philadelphian currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Their work primarily addresses the conundrum of projected identities in various contexts. A sub-theme, or ongoing question, in their work is the consideration of the interplay between the body and its physical environment. Rooted in socially engaged art practice, they are a performance/installation/movement artist, activist, facilitator, curator and architectural designer. They have a strong improvisational practice spanning over twenty years. When they choose to teach, they actively try to uphold inclusive spaces.

Links:

Joy on Tumblr
Minute/Year, the sound installation that is mentioned near the beginning of the talk
Only Murders in the Building
Color Block
Multi-coloured ink editions of William Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury and Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story
Haptic Entanglements 2: THE BODY IS NOT AN OBJECT — an invitation to embodied consent practice — Joy at Schauspielhaus Zürich
On Connection — Kae Tempest
Crip Kinship — Shayda Kafai
Tanz im August
“Knee swirlies”

Repatterning is a series of talks about being turned inside out. It is about the experience of being radically upended, the work of dreaming, and the ghosts that travel along the way. Concentric circles rippling outwards from art, crisis, music, sickness, reinvention, mourning, renewal, collapse, and enchantment. Picking through the remnants and imagining what might emerge, as the grains of sand pile upwards, the hope drone swells, the gamelan chimes, and the distant bells peal.

Repatterning is available via RSS, and via Apple or Google, with occasional glimpses on social media.