Reclaiming Space through Sound: Liz Phillips and Joseph Zeal-Henry

Doors at 5, event starts at 5:30
Admission $15

Join us at e-flux on Saturday, February 8 at 5pm for a live performance by artist Liz Phillips and a screening of a film excerpt by architect and curator Joseph Zeal-Henry. The evening will explore sound sculptures in public spaces, with special focus on Liz Phillips work Windspun–a groundbreaking work commissioned in 1981 by Creative Time for the Bronx Frontier Ranch, a community garden in the South Bronx that processed compost which was distributed to the local community. Windspun was housed in a windmill tower and used the energy generated by the windmill to produce sound, determined by the wind’s speed, direction, and frequency. In her performance, Phillips will reflect on Windspun through the use of analog and digital live processing and synthesis, as well as interaction with the audience. Zeal-Henry will show an excerpt from his film Dancing Before the Moon (2023), which originally premiered at the Venice Biennale of Architecture and explores the rituals used by Britain’s diasporic communities to establish spaces, offering new ways of thinking about architecture and the built environment. The event will consider how sound sculptures in public spaces affect the way we experience and interact with our surrounding architecture.

The program will conclude with a Q&A between Phillips, Zeal-Henry, e-flux Architecture Assistant Editor and Program Curator Christina Moushoul, and e-flux Performance Curator Sanna Almajedi.

Liz Phillips has been making interactive multi-media installations for the past 50 years. She creates responsive environments sensing wind, plants, fish, audience, dance, water, and food. Audio and visual art forms combine with new technologies to create elastic time-space constructs. Sound is often the primary descriptive material. Phillips has exhibited interactive multimedia installations at art museums, alternative spaces, festivals, and public spaces. These include; The Academy of Natural Sciences, The Milwaukee Art Museum, Queens Museum of Art, The Jewish Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Spoleto Festival USA, the Walker Art Museum, Ars Electronica, Jacob’s Pillow, and The Kitchen. Phillips has also collaborated with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Nam June Paik, Heidi Howard, Earl Howard, Simone Forti and Robert Kovich. Her work was presented by Creative Time, the Cleveland Orchestra, IBM Japan, and the World Financial Center. In 1981 Phillips co-founded Parabola Arts Foundation, a not-for-profit organization created by five media artists from varied disciplines (music, sculpture, film, video). She received a Guggenheim Fellowship and numerous Individual and collaborative commissions from New York State Council on the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts as a composer, video artist, audio artist and multi-media artist. In 2024 she became a recipient of the Anonymous Was A Woman Grant.

Joseph Zeal-Henry is a distinguished designer, curator and urbanist whose multidisciplinary career spans cultural planning, urban design, and public service. As the Director of Cultural Planning for the City of Boston, Joseph plays a pivotal role in shaping the city’s creative economy by leading projects that prioritize cultural infrastructure and community engagement. His work includes the revitalization of the Boston Center for the Arts, the reimagining of The Strand Theatre, and a transformative project that integrates music rehearsal spaces with public housing, creating a dynamic environment for artistic expression and community growth. Through his leadership, Joseph ensures that arts and culture remain at the heart of Boston’s urban development, securing long-term investments in the city’s cultural infrastructure. In academia, Joseph is an Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP, where he leads a final-year Advanced Architecture Studio. He was also a 2024 Loeb Fellow at Harvard GSD, where he investigated the intersection of cultural production and public infrastructure.

This program is curated by Sanna Almajedi (Performance Curator, e-flux) and Christina Moushoul (Assistant Editor and Program Curator, e-flux Architecture).

For more information, please contact [email protected].

Accessibility
–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.
–For elevator access, please RSVP to [email protected]. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the event space and this bathroom.

Host or Publisher e-flux Screening Room