For the second event of Art.coop’s “Art Worlds We Want,” we’ll be talking to organizers and artists in the world of visual arts and music who are not only resisting exploitative cultures in these sectors – from multinational conglomerate record labels & technology companies to the over-the-top extraction of the traditional commercial gallery system – but who are actively building fairer systems for musicians and visual artists. We get into the very real challenges of trying to build cooperatively-rooted organizations, projects and institutions in the midst of the last gasps of late-stage capitalism, while also hearing from these visionaries about their stories and why they are choosing a path that is more cooperative and egalitarian in the midst of such cut-throat industries.

–  What lies beyond the status quo in the worlds of music and visual arts?

–  How can you plug-in to movements and experiments happening now?

–  Let’s get inspired and meet each other to build the Art Worlds We Want!

Panelists (1 – 3 pm)

brandon king, Multidisciplinary Artist and Cultural Organizer – Executive of Resonate Coop

Resonate Co-op is the first community-owned music streaming service—a multi-stakeholder platform co-operative, democratically governed by our members: artists, listeners, and workers.

brandon king is a multidisciplinary artist and cultural organizer from the Atlantic Ocean by way of Hampton Roads VA, who creates installations exploring African Diasporic identities, honoring his ancestors’ stories through archival and found materials, sound collages, painting, film, and other forms. For 20+ years, king has contributed his expertise to community-led organizations focused on driving social transformation. brandon is a founding member of Cooperation Jackson, a cooperative network in Jackson, Mississippi, and currently serves as Executive of Resonate Coop, an international music streaming platform cooperative that is open source. he is a member of the NYC based artists collective PTP (Purple Tape Pedigree) and is currently serving as the Assistant Director for the Korea Art Forum. brandon is also an MFA candidate at Queens College focusing on Social Practice and Installation.

Katherine Kyu Hyeon Lim, Violinist – Groupmuse Worker-owner and Musician-owner

Groupmuse is an online platform where hosts and musicians organize concerts (called “groupmuses”) in non-traditional spaces, such as living rooms, backyards, church basements, and public parks.

Katherine Kyu Hyeon Lim is a South Korean violinist based in New York City. She has presented at acclaimed organizations such as Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Chamber Music America, House of Yes, International Contemporary Ensemble, Joe’s Pub, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Luzerne Music Center, and Metropolis Ensemble. Her debut album, Starling (2023), was picked album of the day on Bandcamp Daily, best new song on Paste Magazine, and premiered on Deepest Currents. Lim is co-founder of Impromptuo and Muzosynth Orchestra, both of which focus on performing free-form improvisation. She was also founding member of the Unison Quartet, prize winners at the Bartók World Competition in 2021. Lim is current faculty member at Opus 118 Harlem School of Music, as well as former faculty member at Kneisel Hall Adult Chamber Music Institute, Luzerne Music Center, and New Amsterdam School. She holds degrees from The Juilliard School, and is currently a doctoral candidate at Rutgers University.

Aya Rodriguez-Izumi, Interdisciplinary Artist & Educator – member of A.I.R Cooperative Gallery

A.I.R Gallery was founded in 1972 as the first nonprofit artist-run cooperative gallery for women artists in the United States.

Aya is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose work blends sculpture, installation, performance, community engagement and documentation to explore aspects of ritual retention, cross-cultural identity and histories that risk erasure. She was born in Okinawa, Japan, and grew up between that island and East Harlem, NY, where she currently lives and holds a studio. Her work has been exhibited through group and solo presentations at venues such as El Museo del Barrio, MoCADA, the Knockdown Center, the NUS Museum in Singapore, the International House of Japan in Tokyo, the Taipei Fine Art Museum, The Aldrich Museum, and The Children’s Museum of Manhattan among others. She was a recipient of the A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship New York in 2017-2018, a Jerome Foundation Fellowship at Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota in 2018, the 2018-2019 JUSFC Creative Artist Fellowship, the 2020 artist fellowship at Socrates Sculpture Park and was the inaugural recipient of the Artist Alliance Inc x District 1 in-school residency program at P.S. 184M Shuang Wen in 2023. Rodriguez-Izumi earned a BFA in Fine Arts from Parsons the New School for Design and an MFA in Fine Arts from The School of Visual Arts. In 2019 she joined the MFA Fine Art faculty at her graduate alma mater of SVA and in 2022 she became a member at A.I.R Gallery.

Music Performance (3 – 4pm)

Salieu Suso on Kora (West African Harp) and Kevin Nathaniel (Mbira) Duet

Kevin Nathaniel is a Scholar of the House of Yale University. Following Yale, Kevin intuitively devoted himself to the healing music of Africa, especially mbira music. He began constructing instruments, transitioning to vocal music, the playing of various instruments of the African world, dances of Africa, and sacred healing music.

Salieu Suso was born into a family of jalis (musician-historians) from The Gambia, West Africa, that extends back nearly one thousand years. He was trained to play the 21-stringed kora (West African harp) at the age of eight, by his father, the renowned kora player of that region Alhaji Musa Makang Suso. He is recognized to be a descendant of JaliMady Wulayn Suso, the originator of the kora.