Join us for Space Between Us: A Collaborative Performance by Noriko Whitfield and Edra Soto activating Soto’s exhibition, Destination/El Destino: A Decade of GRAFT.

Using crystal singing bowls, sound artist Noriko Whitfield will perform an immersive sound piece in collaboration with artist Edra Soto. As Whitfield’s bowls sing, Soto will share portions of a letter dedicated to her mother–an offering that reflects the grief that physical distance establishes – and distills how a place, nation, or a culture imprints itself upon us, grounding us and growing with us no matter where we are.

Soto ponders on the language that she has adopted to establish a new form of communication  with her mother. The new adapted language allows for them to have a seemingly fluid communication that considers her mothers limitations as an Alzheimers and dementia patient.  The splintered language is an accommodation or communicative gestures that challenges language conventions.

A number of Soto’s friends  – including Teresa Silva, Jordan Martins and Rhonda Wheatley – that have gone through a similar experience, will accompany her by reading in unison, creating a sound that is projected as an ecco, analogous to the eccos of the crystal bowls. Whitfield’s sound work amplifies the emotional journey that grief tends to set upon us.

About Noriko Whitfield

Noriko Whitfield has specialized in various forms of healing arts for over 15 years. Her recent focus is on deepening the mind-body connection by incorporating body movements and sound, and her  mission is to help  others live to their full potential. Whitfield  has performed at the Mingei International Museum and at Jerwood Arts in London. She is currently conducting a–n ongoing sound meditation and body movement series at California Center for the Arts, Escondido. She is also a coach and Grief Recovery Method Specialist. During her sound therapy, Whitfield creates a sense of space, calming the nervous system for emotional well-being and facilitating connection to  the unconscious mind. She lives in Encinitas,California.

About Edra Soto

Edra Soto is a Puerto-Rican born artist, curator, educator, and co-director of the outdoor project space, The Franklin in Chicago, IL. Soto instigates meaningful, relevant, and often difficult conversations surrounding socioeconomic and cultural oppression, erasure of history, and loss of cultural knowledge. Growing up in Puerto Rico, and now immersed in her Chicago community, Soto’s work has evolved to raise questions about constructed social orders, diasporic identity, and the legacy of colonialism. Soto has exhibited extensively at venues including El Museo del Barrio (NY), the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago (IL) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (NY). She has been awarded the Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship, the Illinois Arts Council Agency Fellowship, the inaugural Foundwork Artist Prize, the MacArthur Foundation’s International Connections Fund, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant and the Bemis Center’s Ree Kaneko Award among others. Soto holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico. The artist lives and works in Chicago.