Space between us
A collaborative performance by Noriko Whitfield and Edra Soto
Using crystal singing bowls, sound artist Noriko Whitfield will perform an immersive sound piece in collaboration with ICA San Diego Artist in Residence Edra Soto. As Whitfield’s bowls sing, Soto will share portions of a letter dedicated to her mother–an offering to fill the space between the two bodies Soto references in her abstract painting series, “Dos Cuerpos” currently on view at ICA North. “Dos Cuerpos” distills how a place, nation, or a culture imprints itself upon us, grounding us and growing with us no matter where we are. Working in her studio, Soto conducts imaginary conversations while crafting compositions of fragments of paper in order to generate each visual arrangement. These splintered visualizations are reminiscent of references including Caribbean petroglyphs and secret languages; communicative gestures across time that touch us while challenging our comprehension. Whitfield’s sound work amplifies the emotional journey that grief tends to set upon us.
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.
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.
*Edra Soto, “Dos Cuerpos”, Installation view. ICA San Diego. 2023. Photo by Phillip Scholz Rittermann.