Doors 7:30p
Show 8:00p

UnionDocs
352 Onderdonk Ave
Ridgewood, NY

UnionDocs is thrilled to present a showcase of live, audio-driven performance pieces from the exceptionally talented cohort of our first-ever Audio & Performance Lab. Across six collaboratively produced works, the group explores and transmutes original and archival sounds that illuminate the self, our loved ones, and our political consciousness.

Since mid-September, the Lab has brought together a multidisciplinary group of seven audio artists, whose backgrounds range from audio production, oral history, and instrumentation to improvisation, dance, and new media. Together, they’ve pitched, conceived, researched, and created a series of audio-first experimentations, with the rigorous guidance of program director Aaron Edwards, mentors Jazmine T. Green and Lisa Schonberg, and an inspiring roster of guest artists with diverse approaches to how sound can be experienced in physical space. 

The resulting pieces take on a range of voices and subjectivities, drawing from personal and public material, recorded testimonies, and moments of quiet introspection, grief, and play. What does it mean to reshape echoes and fragments of what’s absent or amorphous? How can movement, presence, and adaptation help us make sense of memory, longing, and political identity?

We hope you’ll join us for this remarkable show and help celebrate the deeply talented artists of the inaugural Audio & Performance Lab!

Doors open at 7:30pm, show starts at 8:00pm. Hope to see you there!

Program

to act like it is not there by Ahmed Ashour

To pretend that what is broken is actually being fixed. To feign belief that the actions you take have a reaction. To live in denial in the face of complete and utter existential threat. To conceal hopelessness. To question the validity of your hopelessness. To hope that what is there will cease to exist. To hope that what is not there will someday come.

Artemio’s Birthday Mix by Jonah N. Buchanan & Audrey Chou

Is an imagined memory worth the same as a real one? Can we hear moments we were not present for? How do we miss someone fully if we only knew them in part? Blending archival mixed media with illusory soundscapes, this piece explores the confines of recollection within the family, in loving memory of Artemio Mondala Nebrida.

Sequential Disclosure by Warner Meadows

Sequential Disclosure is an audiovisual performance exploring the transitory moments within the grieving process that are rarely accounted for, even to ourselves. The project pushes against exploitation and commodification of grief and suffering that has become a touchpoint of the internet age. S.D. features a live musical improvisation responding to an accompanying graphic score and video piece.

We’re all in this greenhouse together by Reid Jenkins

Carl Sagan testified before Congress on December 10, 1985, about the science of the greenhouse effect and the importance of addressing climate change. Clearly, something didn’t work. Perhaps the nature of the problem is too complex to solve, or perhaps our political systems are too balkanized to confront an issue on such a global scale. Or maybe Carl Sagan was… kind of boring.

Administrative error by Valeria Perez

Administrative error traces the body’s encounter with the sonic infrastructure of the surveillance state, using sound and movement to explore how these hidden systems pursue, infiltrate, and codify the body. Using telephone mics to expose the hidden frequencies of surveillance systems, the piece is composed alongside analytical sources, lived testimonies, and our sonic interpretations of voyeuristic policing tools to offer a critical meditation on state monitoring. The piece responds to the state’s desire to treat the body as a dataset, composed of biometric information, digital footprints, to maintain control amid waning sovereignty.

In her Absence by Hannah Rehak

What does a person sound like when they no longer have a body? in her absence is an attempt to surface an answer and communicate a response through effort and audio manipulation. All organic sounds in this piece have been composed through archival audio of Mary Elizabeth Keys Buttitta.

Bios

Ahmed Ashour (he/him) is a Bahraini-Egyptian anti-disciplinary artist and journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. His work focuses on using sound and live performance to trouble dominant narratives of Arab and/or Muslim communities. Select work has been featured on Kerning Cultures, Sparkler Learning (2023 Signal Award), Sowt, and Al Riwaq Arts Space. For his work, Ahmed was named one of 50 Young Arab Media Leaders in 2024. He is currently pursuing an MA in Audio Journalism at New York University.

Born and raised in San Diego, California, Jonah N. Buchanan is an audio producer and oral history practitioner based in Queens, New York. His work explores self-archiving, shared experience, and memory work in audio and mixed media forms. 

Audrey Chou is an Audio-Visual Artist and Performer. She works across mediums of sound, light, and immersive performances that challenge and question the perception of audience in space and time. She is interested in the research of questioning how an experience will make people feel and engage with culture, technology, nature, as well as navigating the globalization of hybrid digital and physical identities.

Warner Meadows is a pianist, musician and composer based out of Harlem, NY. After graduating from Brown University in 2019 with a BA in Music, Warner moved back to NYC where he’s been working on his solo musical career, composing music for podcasts, short films and audiobooks, and producing for other artists. Warner is currently pursuing his MFA in Sonic Arts from Brooklyn College. He also teaches piano and production classes, and is an artist mentor at Recess Art in Brooklyn.

Reid Jenkins is a New York City based violinist and songwriter. Having an extensive background in classical and jazz traditions, his eclectic violin playing incorporates elements of bluegrass, American old time, rock, and pop. As a solo artist, he has released an EP “A Beautiful Start” (2021) and an LP “Hall of Gems” (2023), both forays into a blend of confessional bedroom folk-pop songwriting adorned with lush acoustic-electric orchestrations.

Valeria Perez-Pijuan (they/them) is a Puerto Rican experimental filmmaker and mixed-media animator based in New York. Their practice draws on personal memory, embodied history, and societal taboos, employing visual languages rooted in material and audiovisual deconstruction. Weaving fragmented memories and marginalized histories throughout their work, they invite communal reflection on identity, resilience, and collective experience.

Hannah Rehak is a performer and storyteller based in Brooklyn. She is the Executive Producer/Co-Founder of Witch, Please Productions — the folks behind beloved scholarly culture podcast, Material Girls. She is a teacher and performer at The Second City and the co-producer of Fuck It Film Fest, a bi-monthly show featuring DIY films. Hannah is currently in post-production for her film, A Perfect Pair. Other work can be found on her website: hannarehak.com.