Co-curated by Bailey Placzek, the Museum’s curator of collections, and Ben Coleman, a British multidisciplinary artist, Still in Sound explores how visitors may experience abstract visual language through sound. In this video, learn more about Matana Roberts and Kalyn Heffernan’s sound interpretations of Clyfford Still paintings.
Matana Roberts is a sound experimentalist, musician, and alto saxophonist who works in many performance and sound mediums, including improvisation, dance, poetry, and theater. Their music aims to expose the mystical roots and the intuitive spirit-raising traditions of American creative expression. Working across many contexts and mediums, Roberts is perhaps best known for their acclaimed Coin Coin project – a multi-chapter work of ‘panoramic sound quilting’ mixed media performance work that aims to expose the mystical roots and intuitive traditions of American creative expression while maintaining a deep and substantive engagement with narrative, history, community and political expression within sonic structures.
Kalyn Rose Heffernan is the wheelchair-using, rap-heavy, freedom-fighting producer, educator, and foul-mouthed rabble-rouser. Raised by the DIY (Do It Yourself) spirit of experimental independence, Kalyn fronts the internationally acclaimed band Wheelchair Sports Camp. The band has since stretched into theatre, performance art, television, politics, prison tours, permanent installations, and more. Kalyn led Denver’s first disabled, queer artist campaign for the mayor’s seat in 2019. The tiny, happy mayor has advocated for herself and other marginalized communities through music, direct action, education, and art. Commonly known for fighting for access and human rights and calling out those in power who protect capital interests over the future – Kalyn makes herself heard with a very loud and distinct, high-pitched sense of humor.