Brandon LaBelle (Berlin, Germany)

Brandon LaBelle is an artist, writer and theorist working with sound culture, voice, and questions of agency. He develops and presents artistic projects and performances within a range of international contexts, often working collaboratively and in public. Recent works include The Ungovernable, Documenta 14, Athens (2017), The Night Birds (take back the city), La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona (2017), and The Living School, South London Gallery (2016). He is the author of Sonic Agency (2017), Lexicon of the Mouth (2014), Diary of an Imaginary Egyptian (2012), Acoustic Territories (2010), and Background Noise (2006; 2015). He lives in Berlin and works at the University of Bergen.

“As an artist I’m interested in histories and expressions of marginality, sub-culture, hidden resistances and formations of unlikely communities. My work develops through situated research, installations and actions, as well as material experimentation and improvisation, often integrating contextual and collaborative elements. Through such an approach, I work to manifest an expanded relation to the notion and realities of the dispossessed and the escaped, the invisible and the estranged, and to see in “the art of making do” the potential for deep freedom and renewal. This has led to experiences of working in a wide range of contexts and geographic locations, from contemporary art museums and institutions to derelict sites and forgotten buildings. Such diversity allows for a continual engagement with the unruliness of public life as well as the joy found in always starting again. This includes a dedication to building makeshift institutional frameworks for disseminating the work of others, all of which I understand as a contribution to the poetic body of contemporary culture.”

Photos : Brandon LaBelle