Liz Cheung, Alexis Weaver Roadmap Remx: Sia

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Liz Cheung visual portraits

Alexis Weaver sonic portraits

Featuring the voice and face of Sia Ahmad (shoebahmad.com)

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Paired with each of the three instrumental items of “Beyond Binary,” this triptych of audiovisual works features a small sample of the vibrantly diverse members of our queer, trans, and non-binary community. While we could never hope to capture the multitudes that live within each person, we wanted to represent just a few aspects of their personalities, their joys and hobbies, and most importantly their hopes for the future.

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Each portrait sitter was asked the same set of questions, starting with their name and their pronouns. From this common starting point, each portrait delves into a different emotional “colour palette” depending on the directions each subject chose. Tied together with simple musical accompaniments, the visual portraits, dialogue and insights of our subjects are the focus. We hope you enjoy these glimpses into lives meaningfully-lived.

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Artist’s note: I wanted to represent some of the running (and sitting!) themes and values that our portrait sitters were bringing up through using different textures, colours, and shapes. Here are some moods I drew from our conversations and question-and-answers!

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For Sia, I chose to emanate feelings of rest, acceptance, warmth, balance, and invitation. Her soft gaze inspired me to be gentle and careful with recontextualising the colours of her home. There’s a certain glow about her that slows down the pace of the day, and welcomes us to join her at the rest stop.

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Fun fact about our title, “Roadmap Remx”: beyond Miss/Ms/Mrs/Mr gendered honorifics, gender neutral titles include Mx, M, Mir, Per, (short for person), artist Liz’s personal fave, Ind (short for individual), and many others!

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Amy McCarthy An Endless Dream

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Amy McCarthy trombone

Katarina Grobler piano

Visuals courtesy of vecteezy.com

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Dreams by their nature are abstract and unpredictable, yet vivid and deeply visceral. This piece starts with falling, settling, a winding melody. The direction is never clear but it is always beautiful at that moment. The piece evokes many moods - introspection, solemnity, grandiosity, wonder. When it seems like the largest moments are behind us the trombone sextet enters with the opening idea, this time oscillating between 5 and 4 time, and adorned with rich polyphony. A stark chord sounds like the song is over, but it is not the boisterous brass that concludes this musical voyage, but an almost-fragile chorale.