“sending a message to you”was published in Active Cultures’ Digest, Issue 10, July 2021.
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Adee Roberson is a Los Angeles-based artist who weaves sonic and familial archives with landscape, technicolor, rhythm, form, and spirit. She has exhibited and performed internationally, including Antenna Gallery; Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario; Charlie James Gallery; Contemporary Art Center New Orleans; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Portland Institute of Contemporary Art; Project Row Houses; Women's Center for Creative Work; and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Adee Roberson is a Los Angeles-based artist who weaves sonic and familial archives with landscape, technicolor, rhythm, form, and spirit. She has exhibited and performed internationally, including Antenna Gallery; Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario; Charlie James Gallery; Contemporary Art Center New Orleans; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Portland Institute of Contemporary Art; Project Row Houses; Women's Center for Creative Work; and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
sending a message to you is my commemoration of the everyday family gathering. I used family footage from the early '90s of my cousin's 7th birthday in Boca Raton, Florida, overlaid with palm trees and oceans from south Florida's lush tropical landscape. Here we gathered with our grandparents and their siblings. Our mothers and their sisters and all of us, little kid cousins. We are sitting on the floor eating cornbread and hotdogs, opening presents, playing games. In each other's presence while the funk/disco group Skyyy's song "Sending A Message" plays on vinyl in the background.
With this piece I wanted to reflect the layers of what this moment in time evoked for me. I recorded a voice memo of myself doing sound meditations in my studio. Singing tones over drum machine and synthesizer. A tonal mantra of sorts. Dedicated to my childhood, my family, and our gatherings around meals.
With this piece I wanted to reflect the layers of what this moment in time evoked for me. I recorded a voice memo of myself doing sound meditations in my studio. Singing tones over drum machine and synthesizer. A tonal mantra of sorts. Dedicated to my childhood, my family, and our gatherings around meals.