Roxanne Nesbitt

Statement

Trained as an architect and orchestral musician, Roxanne Nesbitt works to combine several disciplines. Her research and practice explore the connections between sound, sight and motion, employing, spatial and sonic strategies to forge new relationships and reveal existing analogies.

Mutual Instruments Sketch, 2016

Improvised Sketch with Cedar Pitched Sticks Series 4. Movement and Sound by Deanna Peters and Ben Brown. Filmed by Sophia Wolfe at Stretch Yoga studio in Vancouver.

Placing Found Sound, 2013

125 x 50 cm. Installation, piano parts, found materials.

Tuned Tiles with Busker, 2015-ongoing

Tile dimensions 90 x 25 cm. Sound sketch, render, model photo and diagram.

Monday Match, 2016

Excerpts from a Monday Match at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam. Curated by Ben Brown and Angela Muñoz. Featuring several pitched sticks from the Mutual Instrument series.

GlogauAIR Project

Roxanne is currently immersed in an 3-month long residency designing architectural instruments for the pedestrian body. She is working on a series of tuned floor tiles and rhythm generating ramps, intended act as a hinge between the acoustic ecologist conception of the soundscape and a kitsch notion of listening.

In both of these projects design is considered as a tool to focus attentive listening. Focus on the sound of the bodies’ movements and surrounding soundscape becomes a radical act, working in opposition to the current commodified and corporate understanding of music and listening. By reclaiming our curiosity in the relationship between our own bodies and their surroundings, we are reminded that sound can be used to celebrate an in-the-present democratic reality rather than a mediated media-saturated existence.

This work is inspired by the subtlety and specificity of timbre, attempting to balance blunt and obvious cues to listen, with ambiguous and ineffable shifts. The investigations are deliberately acoustic, tactile and tangible, focused on exploring the sonic potentials of both materials and detailing.

CV Summary

EDUCATION

• University of British Columbia 2015 Masters of Architecture
• University of Alberta 2009 Bachelor of Music with distinction in double bass performance

ADDITIONAL TRAINING

• 2017 Architecture/Design Residency GlogauAIR Gallery
• Northern Alberta Institute of Technology 2010 Woodworking Skills Course
• Banff Centre for the Arts 2009 Creative Music Residency
• SOUND INSTALLATION / DESIGN / PROJECTS 2016-ongoing Mutual Instruments for Movement and Sound _Collaboration with Ben Brown
• 2014-ongoing Graftician – Audio/ Visual music project
• 2016 ArtPark Installation _for Artswells Festival
• 2013-2015 Self and Self Portraits _Collaboration with Sarah Fdili Alaoui and Alexa Mardon
• 2013 Placing Found Sound _installation at Alma Mater Society Gallery In Vancouver
• 2010 Distaff _Collaboration with Good Women Dance Collective
• 2009 Solo Viola and the Behave Well _concert installation at the Banff Centre
• 2009 Song-string Bass _concert installation at the Banff Centre

RECENT AUDIO/VISUAL PERFORMANCES

• 2016 Mutual Instruments w/ Conversation Balance installation at Modern Body Festival, The Hague NL
• 2016 Acclimatized collaboration w/ Kelly McInnes at Interplay, Vancouver BC
• 2016 Graftician performance w/ Rhoneil and Sisters of Seance – The Emerald, Vancouver BC
• 2016 Ree-wahyld collaboration w/ Kelly McInnes at Vines and Festival of Publik Space, Vancouver BC
• 2016 Graftician performance Artswells Festival 2016, Wells BC
• 2016 Graftician performance for Sofar Sounds, Railtown, Vancouver BC
• 2016 Graftician performance with Francesca Belcourt -the Rattle, Vancouver BC
• 2016 Improvised Music with Sarah Albu, Ben Brown -Thor’s Palace, Vancouver BC
• 2015 Graftician Loft Show w/ a Raven called Crow -studio MOOT, Vancouver BC
• 2015 Graftician performance with the Fallers, Holy Oak, Toronto, ON
• 2015 Graftician show Tiny Lights Festival, Ymir BC
• 2014 Graftician performance with Tanya Gallagher, Skinny Fat Jacks Vancouver BC
• 2014 Graftician performance Artswells Festival 2014, Wells BC

AWARDS

• 2016 British Columbia Arts Council Early Career Development Residency Grant
• 2009 Ken and Marie Madsen Endowment Scholarship
• 2008 Jason Lang Scholarship for superior academic achievement
• 2008 Beryl Barnes Memorial Scholarship for superior musical performance
• 2007 Jason Lang Scholarship for superior academic achievement
• 2006 Jason Lang Scholarship for superior academic achievement
• 2006 Beryl Barnes Memorial Scholarship for superior musical performance
• 2005 University of Alberta Leadership Scholarship
• 2005 University of Alberta Academic Entrance Scholarship

Gallery