Singing Ash, Chiming Earth

Participatory Performance & Community Workshop with

Koyoltzintli

Workshop: Saturday, July 5th, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm

Performance: Sunday, July 20th, 4:00 pm

Register here

This participatory performance and community workshop explores the deep relationship between sound, clay, and collective experience. Using wild, foraged clay, we will create a space filled with ceramic xylophones, inviting participants to shape and sound their own instruments.

Rooted in the cosmologies of Amerindian traditions and the ontologies of diasporic communities across the Americas, this project draws on the ancient understanding that sound is a force that binds us—to each other, to the earth, and to the divine. Across many cultures, clay has been used not just for function, but as a medium for spiritual and sonic expression, from pre-Columbian whistling vessels to ritual percussion in sacred ceremonies.

Participants will learn to form and tune ceramic slabs, crafting enough to take a piece home. For the culminating performance, the slabs will be arranged on the floor in a zoomorphic or symbolic formation. The artist will lead an initial activation of the piece, after which the audience will be invited to step into the space and co-create sound, transforming the installation into a communal, resonant experience.

Register here

Koyoltzintli is an interdisciplinary artist and educator living in Ultser County, New York. She was raised on the Pacific coast and in the Andean mountains of Ecuador. Her work revolves around sound, ancestral technologies, ritual, and storytelling, blending collaborative processes with personal narratives. Nominated for the Prix Pictet in 2019 and 2023, her work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, the United Nations, the Parrish Art Museum, Princeton University, the Aperture Foundation in NYC, and Paris Photo. She has had two solo shows at Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery and a solo show at Leila Greiche in 2023. Koyoltzintli has taught at CalArts, SVA, ICP, and CUNY. She has received multiple awards and fellowships, including at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, NYFA, We Women, the Latinx Artist Fellowship by the US Latinx Art Forum (USLAF), and most recently, the Anonymous Was a Woman award. Her first monograph, Other Stories, was published in 2017 by Autograph ABP. Her work was featured in the Native issue of Aperture Magazine (no. 240) and included in the book Latinx Photography in the United States by Elizabeth Ferrer, former chief curator at BRIC. She is part of Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024, El Museo del Barrio’s second large-scale survey of Latinx contemporary art.

Koyoltzintli has performed at venues such as the Whitney Museum, Wave Hill, Socrates Park, Brooklyn Museum, and Queens Museum. Most recently, she performed at Performance Space in NYC, curated by Guadalupe Maravilla, at Dia Chelsea for the closing event of Delcy Morelos' El Abrazo, and at Ann Street Gallery in Newburgh, NY.