Sound, Power, and Culture Study Group

from $20.00
sold out

(Image Credit: Detail from A Minus Culture (2018) by Josh Rios, Matt Joynt, Anthony Romero.)

Weekly Saturdays 1-3 CT

(1/9, 1/16, 1/23 & 1/30)


Platform: Zoom

Pricing: Sliding Scale (60% of program income goes to the leader who has chosen to donate their portion to Chi-Nations Youth Council.)

Participant Limit: 20

Workshop Leader: Josh Rios

Sound and ideas about sound play an important role in the struggle over social, political, and cultural life. This 4-week long study group will examine the relationship between sound, power, and culture through readings, informed discussions, and resource explorations. Additionally, we will dedicate time to listening and examining various arts practices that engage sound and politics.

From sound cannons to noise ordinances, from protest music to the amplified voices of protest speech, the sonic is central to how we express and create our social realities. Selected readings include Jennifer Lynn Stoever’s book, The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening, which examines how race is enforced through sonic expectations and listening practices. We will read selections from Alex Chávez's book, Sounds of Crossing: Music, Migration, and the Aural Poetics of Huapango Arribeño, which explores the contemporary politics of Mexican migration through the sounds and poetics of music. We will look at and listen to the work of Guillermo Galindo, especially the Border Cantos project, which uses detritus found along the Mexico/US border to make musical devices. We will explore resources like Sounding Out!, a blog dedicated to sound scholars, sound artists, and readers interested in the cultural politics of sound and listening. Lastly, we look at current political developments like #DontMuteDC, which seeks to protect the sound practices of communities of color against encroaching gentrification. - Josh Rios


Note: All readings will be provided.

* We encourage BIPOC community members to pay the lowest sliding scale option regardless of economic status. *

Questions? Contact us!

Sliding Scale:

(Image Credit: Detail from A Minus Culture (2018) by Josh Rios, Matt Joynt, Anthony Romero.)

Weekly Saturdays 1-3 CT

(1/9, 1/16, 1/23 & 1/30)


Platform: Zoom

Pricing: Sliding Scale (60% of program income goes to the leader who has chosen to donate their portion to Chi-Nations Youth Council.)

Participant Limit: 20

Workshop Leader: Josh Rios

Sound and ideas about sound play an important role in the struggle over social, political, and cultural life. This 4-week long study group will examine the relationship between sound, power, and culture through readings, informed discussions, and resource explorations. Additionally, we will dedicate time to listening and examining various arts practices that engage sound and politics.

From sound cannons to noise ordinances, from protest music to the amplified voices of protest speech, the sonic is central to how we express and create our social realities. Selected readings include Jennifer Lynn Stoever’s book, The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening, which examines how race is enforced through sonic expectations and listening practices. We will read selections from Alex Chávez's book, Sounds of Crossing: Music, Migration, and the Aural Poetics of Huapango Arribeño, which explores the contemporary politics of Mexican migration through the sounds and poetics of music. We will look at and listen to the work of Guillermo Galindo, especially the Border Cantos project, which uses detritus found along the Mexico/US border to make musical devices. We will explore resources like Sounding Out!, a blog dedicated to sound scholars, sound artists, and readers interested in the cultural politics of sound and listening. Lastly, we look at current political developments like #DontMuteDC, which seeks to protect the sound practices of communities of color against encroaching gentrification. - Josh Rios


Note: All readings will be provided.

* We encourage BIPOC community members to pay the lowest sliding scale option regardless of economic status. *

Questions? Contact us!

About Josh Rios:

As an artist, writer, educator, and musician I engage exhibition-making, publication, and programming in order to intervene upon dominant forms of social power and memory. My work is part of the legacy of decolonization and uses decolonial methodologies to create reparative counter-narratives and the possibility for social change. In general, my projects deal with the histories and futurities of communities of color, especially understood through globalization, neocolonialism, the archive, sci-fi, sound, and cultural criticism. Currently, I am faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where I teach courses in research-based critical art practices. Upcoming, I will be a cohort member of a year-long residency program, Re:place, sponsored by Co-prosperity (Chicago).