Date: 2022
Roles: Panelist
Collaborators: Asian Art Publication Lab, Pachinko Book Club
Invited panelist at the Asian Art Publication Lab Pachinko Book Club meeting with Bethany Or.
The goal of the AAPL to foster an understanding of the Asian diaspora and of one’s self through discussions around the themes and issues of Asian diaspora and migration studies.
Free and open to the public.
Date: 2021 – 2022
Roles: Production and Audio Editing Trainer, Technical Consultant
Collaborators: Génération 1.5 team, CHOQ
Génération 1.5 est un podcast documentaire sur les enfants et les adolescents qui ont immigré avec leurs parents. Il explore les différentes étapes de ce déracinement : la perte du chez-soi et l’arrivée, le choc culturel, les questionnements identitaires et les manières de reconstruire ce chez-soi.
J’ai soutenu l’équipe de production avec des formations en production et montage et du soutien technique.
Le lancement a eu lieu en Juillet 2022.
Date: 2022
Roles: Facilitator, Panelist, Researcher
Collaborators: Je Suis MTL
Reclaiming Our Spaces: a discussion on territory, heritage, identity and place-keepign in Tio’tià:ke
In what ways are urban spaces complicit in the erasure of BIPOC presence? In what ways does Western architecture go counter to indigenous ways of relating to the world around us? How can place-making and place-keeping be realized and meaningful in the contemporary context for cultures diverging from the dominant one?
These were some of the themes raised in this informal public discussion held between myself and Carling Sioui as part of the Exposition : Entre le passé & le présent / Between Past & Present exhibition at WIP Gallery, organized by Je suis Montréal / I am Montreal.
Carling is currently pursuing her Master’s in Landscape Architecture and is working in collaboration with the INRS, Mikana and the municipality on a project to re-think certain public spaces from an indigenous perspective. I am and have been involved with the Chinese community here in Montreal, and more recently with anti-gentrification and community-building efforts in Chinatown, which was recently awarded partial heritage status and had its enlarged borders officially recognized, in January.
Both of us tried to express the perspectives, connection points and historical differences from our respective communities (without purporting to be 100% representative of those communities) around topics such as legacies of colonialism, and our relationship to territory, culture and land.
Date: 2022
Roles: Moderator, Facilitator
Collaborators: Super Boat People, MAI, Accès Asie
Table ronde — Racisme anti-asiatique et pandémie : quel bilan?
En Mars 2022, j’ai animé un panel bilingue pour Confrontons le racisme ensemble!, un évènement organisé par Festival Accès Asie et le collectif Super Boat People dans le cadre de la Semaine d’action contre le racisme du Québec : deux journées d’activités axées sur le partage et la sensibilisation aux expériences des communautés PANDC (personnes autochtones, noires et de couleur) ainsi qu’aux enjeux du racisme systémique tel que vécu par les membres de ces communautés.
Lors du 2e panel, j’ai invité 5 personnes (May Chiu, Viet Tran, Rebecca Ng, Diamond Yao et Julie Tran) de nous partager leur perspective sur le racisme anti-asiatique, les initiatives qui en ont émergé, et leur rupture ou continuité avec des mouvements passés ou futurs.
Date: 2016-2022
Role: Pianist, Keyboardist, Recording Assistant
Collaborators: Elias “Kokou” Damawou
Since 2016 I have been collaborating with Togo-born trumpet player, jazz musician and composer Elias “Kokou” Damawou, a golden talent forging his own voice with an original repertoire combining rhythmic elements of Togo with jazz harmonies and arrangements.
This culminated in a recording session in April 2022. Two demo EPs had previously been produced with different lineups.
Roles: Trainer, Advisor, Music consultant, Editor, Mastering
Collaborators: Collectif NOOR
Le collectif NOOR a été conçu avec le but de valoriser et amplifier les voix et récits de vie de jeunes personnes racisées. J’ai agi en tant que consultant en conceptualisation et production pour la première saison du podcast Noor. J’ai aussi fourni de la formation en techniques d’enregistrement et de montage.
Par la suite, j’ai fait les mixages finaux des trois saisons de Nous Autres, une série de conversations entre jeunes âgé.e.s entre 19 et 30 ans, issu.e.s des « communautés culturelles », vivant à Montréal ou à Québec. Cette série a été produite par le collectif NOOR en collaboration avec des membres de la Démarche jeunesse sur le vivre ensemble de l’Institut du Nouveau Monde (INM). Plus tard, elle sera sélectionnée pour une curation culturelle destinée à Mon été culturel à Montréal et diffusée sur OHdio par Radio-Canada.
Date: 2021-2022
Roles: On-site Sound Recording and mixing Technician and Mixing, Post-Production Technician
Collaborators: Youssef Shoufan, ELAN
In 2020, the English Language Arts Network (ELAN) began to develop a project about identity and belonging within the English-speaking communities of Quebec called Waves of Change. ELAN brought together five discussion groups based on waves of immigration. A sixth group brought together English-speakers from communities all around Quebec. Participants were invited to discuss their experiences to help us define that nebulous character – the English-speaking-Quebecer.
The six Waves of Change documentaries explore these questions from a multitude of perspectives, presenting a rich and diverse portrait of what it means to be an English-speaker living n Quebec.
I was in charge of audio and sound recording as well as live on-the-fly console mixing for the video shoots, which involved 5 – 11 participants each and was shot during the pandemic.
The result was later crafted into a feature-length documentary called What We Choose to Remember, which later aired on CBC Gem.
Date: 2019
Roles: historical researcher, music researcher, editor, panelist
Collaborators: Échantillons (Justin Doucet, Philippe Néméh-Nombré) on n10.as Radio, Itzayana Gutiérrez
How does Latin music document the construction of the racial figure of the chinese and its exclusion from Latinidad and brownness?
This musical trip, which first aired in 2019 in a special edition of the Échantillons radio program hosted by Justin Doucet and Philippe Néméh-Nombré, and featuring guest Itzayana Gutiérrez, connects cumbia, salsa, mambo, cabaret songs, guaracha, and other key genres of the musical heritage of the Americas. It speaks about Orientalism, race and the socio-political histories of the interactions between these two cultures and it is also a window into discussing the erased presence of Chinese and Asian diasporas in the Americas.
It is now presented here in an expanded version with the full interview and songs, and a bonus chinxlatinx mix.
TW: Racist tropes, historical descriptions of anti-asian racism
Date: 2020-2021
Roles: Sound Designer (Production, Sampling), Radio Technician, Musician
Collaborators: Ronald Rose-Antoinette, Articule, Lamin Fofana
Press: Pour un monde d’après vivant, Emmanuelle Jetté
“L’artiste a centré sa composition autour du vécu des personnes racisées afin de visibiliser ces histoires trop souvent ignorées. Il répondait ainsi directement au thème central de l’exposition : « l’air », élément de l’invisible. Cet air que l’on respire est aussi devenu source de contagion depuis un an. Le recours à la fréquence radio a permis à l’artiste de déjouer la peur de l’autre, la crainte d’une contamination, pour faire de l’air un véhicule d’ondes de vie et de liberté.” -Emmanuelle Jetté
Part of a group exhibition at Articule entitled Soul, with a difference (âme, avec une différence) curated by Ronald Rose-Antoinette with Lamin Fofana, Zab Maboungou, Kengné Téguia and Parker Mah
Installation / Performance in articule’s front window
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
The face mask is the ubiquitous new hall pass. It protects from infection and insulates the wearer from the fear of what they cannot sense. It is also a physical, social and psychological barrier, a fitting metaphor for the suffocation of BIPOC voices and the invisibilization of their struggles that have redoubled in intensity in 2020, the year of the pandemic, the year we came up for air, gasping.
What happens when expression can no longer be stifled? What happens when energies and emotions break their confinement? Parker Mah (Rhythm & Hues) channels these questions in his latest performance work, in which the performer is (all but) captive in his bubble. Music and words reflecting and amplifying the experiences of black and brown bodies find a way to escape through the plexiglass. Microscopically, vibrationally, the air around us quivers with life.
DESCRIPTION
A mix of vinyl, samples, live instrumentation, and effects, this piece was performed at 4 random times between November 27 – December 13th for a maximum of 2 hours. An array of instruments, turntables, consoles and equipment were set-up behind the front window space of articule, which gives onto Fairmount street. Surrounded by living room furniture and a disco ball, Parker Mah aka Rhythm & Hues performed a prepared set of meaningfully juxtaposed records, instruments and vocal samples, routed live through a pirate radio signal broadcast extremely locally (50 meter radius) as well as to a boombox positioned outside, to passerby and unwitting radio listeners.
GALLERY
Lamin Fofana & Parker Mah
Sound
20 min. 30 sec.
ARTISTS’ STATEMENT
Wax (pronounced wakh) means “to speak” in Wolof. This project, a first collaboration between artists Lamin Fofana (Black Studies) and Parker Mah (Rhythm & Hues), catalyzes the collective strength of afrodiasporic presences in time and space, through a mapping of vocal samples lifted mostly from vinyl records. In the airy expanse between utterances lie ghostly traces that make visible the invisible; that speak truth to forgotten narratives.
DESCRIPTION
This exhibition produced a second piece, a collaboration between artists Lamin Fofana and Parker Mah, both DJs and sound artists. Lamin had been expected to come to Montreal for the residency but could not due to Covid-19 travel restrictions. This piece developed out of online exchanges and a mutually established creative process.
Date: 2016-2017
Roles: Sound Designer (Field recording, Sampling, Composition, Production), Videographer, Photographer
Collaborator: Sarah Elola, Montréal Arts Interculturels (MAI)
La Pileuse dives deep into the origins of rhythm and dance. This art of entering in communion with the elements instead of resisting them, of neither enduring nor dominating them; this art of renewal that can transcend the laborious; La Pileuse takes stock of all this and represents a mine of movements, sounds and philosophical reflections in what is ultimately an intimate encounter with the African woman. La Pileuse is Sarah Elola’s second solo piece. It draws upon African traditions, and more specifically those of Oulo and Boromissi – villages in Burkina Faso where the dancer and choreographer spent her childhood.
I produced the entirety of the soundscape for this piece, which integrated instrumental performance mixed with sample-based production. I also contributed some video and photo work.