working title No. 5

A pilgrimage through sacred spaces, profane realities, and everything in between!

PROGRAM INFORMATION

MAY 28 - 30, 2026 6:00 – 9:00 PM → ST. PAUL’S EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL

WORKING TITLE is Project [BLANK]’s fifth-annual exhibition of experimental art and music, featuring dozens of visual artists, filmmakers, sound and performance artists, composers, and musicians. This three-day, community-based event will include new works, world premieres, and thought-provoking performances featuring some of the most exciting creative voices in Southern California, Tijuana, and Baja California curated by sculptor Diana Benavídez and Artistic Director Leslie Ann Leytham, and artist submissions will be reviewed by a panel of artists: Alessandra Moctezuma, Alvaro Díaz, Cat Gunn, and Luisa Martínez. Join us on a pilgrimage of ideas, with bold new works that offer invocations and intercessions of sacred and profane inspiration.

PERFORMANCE NOTES

INSTALLATION DESCRIPTIONS

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

PERFORMANCE NOTES

Esther Gamez Rubio (Ensenada, BC. MX)
RITUALS FOR RELINQUISHING A BODY, 2024
Mixed media installation
photo by Robby Bui

ALL THREE NIGHTS

Excerpts from the Office of the Dead
by Michelle Lou
(world premiere)

8:00 PM

PERFORMED BY: Gabriel Arregui (pipe organ), Jonathan Nussman (voice), Jonathan Piper (tuba), Leslie Ann Leytham (voice), Mattie Barbier (brass)

Drawn from Latin texts from the Book of Hours, the Office of the Dead, the Vulgate Psalms, the Book of Job, and the liturgies of Sexagesima, the work can be thought of as a meditation on faith and lamentation - an attempt to give form to suffering. Fragments of chant and scripture emerge and dissolve across shifting sonic tapestries. The Psalms introduce images of entrapment and descent: “The groans of death surrounded me; the sorrows of hell encompassed me,” while penitential liturgy repeatedly returns to the earthbound body, Adhaesit in terra venter noster, “our belly cleaveth to the earth.” In the Book of Job, bodily existence dissolves as flesh is imagined as decaying and porous, reduced to dust, worms, and scattered remains, where life steadily unravels into matter: “My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken and loathsome,” and “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are scattered.”

The work is particularly shaped by the atmosphere of Sexagesima. The liturgy stages humanity crying out from the dust: Exsurge, quare obdormis, Domine? (“Arise, why do you sleep, Lord?”). In these texts, suffering is not resolved or explained, but endured through repetition, lamentation, and ritual utterance. This work emphasizes this sense of ritual listening, where sound moves as invocation and residue.

Timor mortis conturbat me, “the fear of death disturbs me,” is sung repeatedly at the closing of the piece, leaving us suspended in an unresolved articulation of faith suspended between terror and hope.

THURSDAY, MAY 28

LOVE AS A SANCTUARY
BY DUO LINGUA

7:00 PM

Trumpet, voice and electronics

The piece invites us to reflect on love as a refuge. It serves as a metaphor for "resonance," as articulated by Hartmut Rosa, and echoes bell hooks's ingredients of love: care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, trust, and honest and open communication.

For Rosa, "resonance" highlights our connection to the world, consisting of four key elements: Affection, which is the feeling of being genuinely moved; Emotion, our ability to respond and reciprocate that affection; Transformation, the way the experience changes us; and Unpredictability, as resonance cannot be forced or designed, making its occurrence and form unpredictable.

This piece invites you to engage by sharing messages of love on the provided postcards, which act as the performance score. When we ask, “How does love resonate within us?”, please respond aloud, reflect quietly, or complete the prompts. Help us create this resonance so it can serve as a sanctuary of love for all of us.

Datura BY DIA BASSETT

7:30 PM

Dia Bassett (dancer, vocalist and sound contributor), Jessica Rabanzo-Flores (dancer), Demetrius Antuna (sound artist), Jantina Perry (vocalist), Paul Bassett (pianist)

The trickster energy of the Datura flower is revealed through ongoing character shapeshifting derived from a meditative vision. The video features a series of ever-changing characters that expose the psychedelic-deliriant effects of the flower.

In the dance, I seek to engage with and understand the Datura’s powers, whether they be playful, erotic, or sinister. An encounter with a snake begins softly but then becomes charged. A new character’s identity is a mystery. Is she a self-reflection, a lover, or a shadow?

The only answer to my own darkness is to release all to the ever-flowing river of change. Everything is released to the metaphorical water—my love, my own flesh and bones, all that is surrounding me. It all sifts away like sand in a final release. What isn’t released is taken up by the Datura flower. As I face death, I become death, a psychopomp to guide souls home.

The vintage and repurposed costume materials carry histories of labor, femininity, and care; their fragility and endurance shape the movement vocabulary, and influence how our bodies vacillate between tension and release.

Ilana Waniuk & Teresa Diaz de Cossio (San Diego & Ensenada)
ARCHIVE for flute, electronics, and live visuals
photo by Robby Bui at WORKING TITLE No.3, Jan. 2024

FRIDAY, MAY 29

HEART SCENES
BY marguerite brown performed by melissa Achten

7:00 PM

Solo amplified harp

HEART SCENES is a composition for solo amplified harp, composed by Marguerite Brown in collaboration with harpist Melissa Achten. The work unfolds in three contrasting scenes and is inspired by the intimate, kinetic nature of the human heart—an instrument whose sound is driven by tension, vibration, and resonance.

Throughout the piece, the performer uses both traditional playing and unconventional techniques to draw out a wide range of textures. These include activating the pedals by hand, creating buzzing tones by positioning the pedals between notches, plucking near the tuning pins, and preparing the lower strings with honey dripper spoons. These approaches expand the instrument’s sonic character and contribute to the distinctive atmosphere of the piece, where noise-based and unstable sounds are treated as integral components of the musical language.

For the duration of the work, the performer sits with their back to the audience, reinforcing the theatrical dimension of the piece and shifting focus toward the sound itself. The score combines traditional notation, graphic elements, and written instructions, allowing for interpretive flexibility within a defined structure. Overall, the work seeks to expand the expressive and sonic possibilities of the harp beyond its conventional role.

Our Intention Driven Anomalies: Copper Tunnels
by don nichols

7:30 PM

Circuit bent omnichord

Our Intention Driven Anomalies: Copper Tunnels crosses radical musical frontiers, grounded in glitchy, analog synth sounds of the 1980’s. ‘Intention-driven anomalies’ alludes to the mysterious phenomenon where the power of a person’s thoughts may influence patterns within randomly-generated numbers. ‘Copper Tunnels’ suggests themes of insulation, sanitization, and directing flow, while also referring to the physical properties of this Folktek circuit-bent Suzuki Omnichord. Rows of copper pads covering the instrument allow sound to be activated through touch and manipulated through the performer’s body, creating a direct electrical connection between performer and circuit.

This performance uses no overdubs, special effects, pedals, loops or other enhancements, reflecting Nichols’ intent to reveal the Omnichord’s vast and unpredictable nature in its purest form. It is part of an ongoing investigation of this mercurial instrument in real-time improvisation. The accompanying video was co-created with Rebecca Bryant and allows a closer view of the subtle movements involved in the instrumental manipulations.

David Aguila (San Diego, California)
GHOST TONES by Nasim Khorassani
photo by Robbie Bui at WORKING TITLE No. 3, Jan. 2024

SATURDAY, May 30

: out of : away : off
by William kuo
& julia anne cordani

7:00 PM

mouth, microphone, loudspeakers

severance as transfiguration;
voids upon voids.

Sanctuary for a Vanishing Sound
by anqi liu

7:30 PM

choor khuur & electronics

Sanctuary for a Vanishing Sound is a site-responsive solo performance for Mongolian choor khuur and speakers that imagines sanctuary as a condition of listening: a space where fragile sound may emerge, unfold, and remain with care. At its center is the choor khuur, a traditional Mongolian skin-fiddle whose grain-rich, breath-like voice is deeply tied to touch, material, environment, and embodied presence. Hovering at the edge of silence, its resonance carries a subtle vitality felt as much as heard.

The work emerges from Liu’s long-term research on Mongolian choor khuur and Indigenous musical practices, developed through her dissertation framework, Ecology of Fraysonics. Within this framework, sound is understood as a threshold shaped by memory, erosion, relation, and endurance. The choor khuur is approached as a living sonic body, porous and situated, carrying modes of perception and transmission.

In dialogue with the cathedral’s stone, height, and reverberant air, the instrument enters an expanded field of acoustic and spiritual resonance. Speakers gently extend its delicate textures, allowing the sound to breathe beyond itself. The performance invites listeners into a temporary sanctuary where sound is encountered, sheltered, and allowed to continue on its own terms.

INSTALLATION DESCRIPTIONS

beck haberstroh & Kirstyn Hom (San Diego, CA. USA)
The fruit of the tree looks like a human head, 2024
multimedia sculpture
photo by Robby Bui, WORKING TITLE No.3, Jan. 2024

ANGIE JENNINGS: Painted Futures (2017)

New Orleans, Louisiana
Performance Art

Painted Futures is a participatory performance work that includes the making of paintings or drawings to denote and foretell one’s future. When performed live, participants write their name on a piece of paper that is then given to the reader, in which the participant's future is made visible.

These intimate prophecies serve as devices of personal reflection, functioning as reminders of the expanse and possibilities found in the past, present and future.

Participants are encouraged to keep their futures, navigate them with insights and great care.

APRIL ROSE: HOME ALTAR (2025)

Escondido, California
Found materials

“Houses are really bodies. We connect ourselves with walls roofs and objects just as we hang onto our liver skeletons, flesh and bloodstream” - L Carrington

This altar represents the sanctuary of an idealized home and the fires within that warm us. Made from a Victorian doll house representing a form of ideal refuge providing safety and comfort. A safe space filled with rituals performed and cycles celebrated.

A sanctuary for holding on to disappearing traditions. Ritual as resistance to our societal shift of the rapid changing culture where less human connection is encouraged and we are having less authentic shared experiences.

The gatherings of life by fire light and the rituals of candle lighting for celebrations, in memory of loved ones, or for a prayer, a wish, an intention.

ARMANDO DE LA TORRE, Marcos Solorio, & Mindy Donner: LA CASITA (2026)

San Diego/ New Mexico
Recycled cardboard & wood

Shadow puppet screen where shadow puppets shelter behind rejas aka Window Bars which onced protected them from crime now offers protection from our own government.

San Diego, California
single-channel audio-visual piece

CAROLINA MONTEJO: Dimensions (2026)

Dimensions (2025) is a video poem that explores physical, spiritual, and emotional aspects of the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth dimensions of space/time. Using Super 8 footage, analogue photography, compositing, and 3D animation, the video poem views the material, ethereal, and virtual world as sacred places for groundedness, transcendence, pain, and liberation.

Excerpt from the poem~

In the second dimension, I was a stone
Polished by pain and masquerading as a crystal,
or perhaps,
A crystal surviving as a stone.
But the dimension was flat,
I am certain I could not distinguish volume.

A pre-photographic image,
existing before technology.
That is what I was,
The fear kept me contained within the margins.

A polished stone waiting for two hands to hold it tight during prayer,
to press against her chest,
to visualize the size of the ocean.

A two-dimensional object of the Earth,
longing for the smell of mud,
for a cave, a shaman, and a crone,
For the fire burning in the pit
and moving in the stars.

A picture of a stone left by that fire burns slowly,
fighting transformation.
Soon it turns into a spiral of heat,
and without intention,
The destruction of the second dimension made me a pile of the past,
Tall,
and wide.

In that state of apparent destruction, my third dimension was revealed,
and we rejoiced in being a bundle of warm ash.

CLAUDIA CANO: ¿Dónde está Rosa? (2026)

San Diego, California
32-gallon trash can and cleaning products

¿Dónde está Rosa?

Was she detained, or did she flee out of fear of being detained?

The number of ICE arrests in San Diego has risen faster than the national average (16,000 since January 2025)

Undocumented immigrants still find refuge in churches, but federal immigration authorities no longer see them as "off-limits". Physical shelter at some churches is now considered civic disobedience.

Many immigrants avoid public places to prevent detention and separation from their families due to this constant stress.

FRANKIE MARTIN: Angel of uncertainty (2026)

Portales, New Mexico
meandering performance

Frankie Martin presents Angel of Uncertainty, a quiet, encounter-based performance in which they gift small, optional handwritten notes as surprises. This gesture revives Martin’s extinct childhood practice of passing notes- an intimate mode of connection reimagined as a performance. Here, sanctuary is framed as freedom from expectation and routine. Evoking the spirit of Leonard Cohen’s “Sisters of Mercy,” the performance invites viewers to understand themes of gentle refuge and unexpected connection. This performance is an extension of Martin’s practice, developed through Surprises- playful, participatory events organized in their NM Studio. Angel of Uncertainty disrupts expectations by suspending time and ordinary behavior, providing sanctuary from normalcy for those who may encounter Martin as they wander. Gifts are offered freely, never owed.

JAIME LEYNES: Nuestra Señora de Lakwatsa, Mahal na Birhen ng Lamyerda (2026)

San Diego, California
Sculpture & Installation, Epoxy Clay, Mixed Media, Found Objects

"Nuestra Señora de Lakwatsa, Mahal na Birhen ng Lamyerda" is the amalgamation of the image of the altar in a Filipino Catholic home, syncretized and indigenized, with a seedy dive bar, a Goth post-punk nightclub, and queer radical spaces. The coalescence of familiarity in the home alongside the departure from it(Lamyerda and Lakwatsa being Tagalog words for going out), finding community, safety, and acceptance in alternative spaces. The collision and contradictions found in the self are thus represented through an altar installation. The installation contrasts contexts within itself, pairing images of the Virgin Mary and saints with the grit and grime of nightlife, cigarette ashtrays holding candles and incense, liquor bottles housing dried flowers and rosaries, shot glasses with holy water, protest flyers set against lace. The installation serves to redefine that which is sacred, in finding sanctity and sanctuary in unlikely places, and invites others to do the same.

Joseph Bourdeau & Ilana Waniuk: tent (2026)

San Diego, California
Video

Tent (2026) is a multimedia installation by Ilana Waniuk and Joseph Bourdeau, which uses light, projection mapping, multichannel audio, and video loops to fill an eight by eight space with sounds and images from the artists’ shared home environment, aiming to create a welcoming interactive space from defamiliarized scraps of personal material.

projection by Ilana Waniuk
video by Joseph Bourdeau
construction and design by Ilana Waniuk + Joseph Bourdeau
sound by Ilana Waniuk + Joseph Bourdeau

Leila Khalilzadeh Aghdami: Temporary Shelter (2026)

Los Angeles, California
multimedia sculpture

Temporary Shelter is a single-channel video that documents the intimate act of sewing torn fabric by hand. Through repetitive gestures of stitching, the work reflects on sanctuary not as a permanent structure, but as a fragile and ongoing act of repair. The torn textile becomes a metaphor for the body, memory, and the emotional and social ruptures carried through personal and collective experience.

The video focuses on the labor of mending, an action historically associated with care, survival, and often invisible domestic work. Rather than presenting repair as completion or healing, the work remains in a suspended state, emphasizing vulnerability, endurance, and the continuous effort required to hold things together.

Through close observation of hand, thread, and material, Temporary Shelter invites viewers to consider shelter as something constructed through attention, repetition, and resilience, an unstable yet necessary space of protection.

Yasmine K Kasem (San Diego, CA. USA)
The Philosophers are Incoherent. 2023
Textile and fiber at WORKING TITLE No. 3, Jan. 2024
photo by Robby Bui

Maddie Butler & Joe Cantrell: retreats (2025)

San Diego, California
Broken smartphone screen, LEDs, miniature figurines, arduino, wood, galvanized steel

These works are a collaboration between artists Joe Cantrell and Maddie Butler. We are both interested in digital technology as a tool for communication and communion, while also acknowledging the deep isolation these devices often propagate. This project posits that the screen is society’s contemporary (and imperfect) sanctuary.

This series of dioramas are made from wood, steel, miniature figurines and recycled iPhone screens. LED lights concealed inside the dioramas are programmed to turn on and off at random, revealing different areas of the constructed universe behind the screen.

Our screens are an inherently contradictory space: they offer both protection and exposure, collective engagement and atomisation, reverence and addiction. They are with us always, structuring our relationships, memories and identities. Our dioramas combine digital and analog technologies, questioning the reality of our coded world while reveling in its potential for magic.

MATTHEW HEBERT: Home Light and Space Depot (2026)

San Diego, California
turf, lights, electronics, and belfry sounds

Home Light and Space Depot, inspired by my nightly dog walks through my neighborhood streets, is also a nod to and spoof of the Light and Space art movement that is so central to the art historical canon of the Southwest. While landscape lights used to be few and far between, the contemporary solar powered LED lights has lead to a more dynamic suburban nightscape. Like fairy rings of the built environment, the lights sprout along the perimeters of walkways and planters often creating mesmerizing patterns on the foliage and pavers. In Home Light and Space Depot I deploy a field of these lights as a “magical ward” around a central clearing that features a sound bath of captured sounds of bells. The viewer is invited to inhabit that central space and bask in the space of light and sound.

SHAR GARCIA: Un cerco Una cerca (2026)

San Diego/Tijuana
sculpture & photography

“cerca” in Spanish means close or near, but as a noun, “la cerca” or “el cerco” means fence or wall.

Un cerco y una cerca is a play on words. One side of the structure is “un cerco de puas,” a barbed wire fence. The other side is “una cerca de madera”. One is close, and one is far; some photographs are from San Diego, and some are from across the border.

To me, houses have never felt like a true sanctuary; they’ve always felt like a cage. I’ve felt most at home in nature, with animals, in the gardens or patios, that sometimes liminal space between a house and a fence. Growing up, I would spend many weekends on ranches where my dad worked. I'd crawl under barbed wire to explore the unknown, slide down cliffs, or see animals; I was allowed to be wild and free.

Having lived in neighborhoods like La Libertad in Tijuana and City Heights in San Diego, I find it comforting to walk around, finding little pieces of myself between fences, finding what to me feels like home, a sanctuary, a resistance to becoming domesticated or homogenized, and remaining true to who we are and where we come from.

San Diego, California
Branches, pine needles, clay

TASIA PAULSON: Spirits in Waiting (2026)

Our Dreams thread into one through the ritual of recording. The night open into a space, hopefully of rest, perhaps for glitches. The rest is an absence.

Yerbamala Taller de Arte y Gráfica

Ensenada, Baja California, México
Textile assemblage and audio installation.

We deeply believe in the power of feeling welcomed, embraced, and cared for by a community. "Refugio" represents that collective embrace. Using sweaters and other garments from our own homes, each of us altered them to convey that hug and present them intertwined as a group hug. You may find an embroidered phrase, a cherished object, a photo or gift from someone that has sheltered us, a helping hand or many. If you peek inside or get closer, you might find a little light and a familiar voice.

There is a harsher reality represented in this piece, however, that cannot be avoided: the fragility and impermanence of our current safe spaces, the reality of displacement and the brutal dangers of migration. This piece, for all of the artists involved, is also a ritual of manifestation and desire for a different reality, where every person has comfort, a roof, a friend,a community. A permanent "refugio".

Marlon PV (Tijuana, BC. MX)
AI, in you I trust / IA, en ti confío, 2024
Projection on paper
photo by Robby Bui

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

ANGIE JENNINGS

Angie Jennings centers painting and drawing in conversation with modes of performance, video and sculpture. She investigates perception through strategies of surrealism and abstraction with an emphasis on identity, oppression and erasure. Formations of new mythologies linked to agency and mysticism are frequently employed.

Jennings grew up in southeastern Minnesota, and earned her Bachelor of Science in Art Education from South Dakota State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art from the University of California San Diego. Her works have been exhibited at Anthology Film Archives, The Miller Institute of Contemporary Art at Carnegie Mellon University, The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Erie Art Museum, Lehman College, Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, Coaxial Art Foundation, Human Resources, Abode Gallery, Franconia Sculpture Park, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, among others. Jennings is currently an Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at Tulane University.

ANQI LIU

Dr. Anqi Liu is a composer, interdisciplinary multimedia artist, photographer, and filmmaker whose work moves across acoustic composition, free improvisation, electronics, modular synthesizer, traditional Mongolian choor khuur, interactive systems, and audiovisual ecologies. Her work has been recognized by The Wire, Boomkat, The San Diego Union-Tribune, de Volkskrant, Sonograma Magazine, Reportersonline, musique machine, El Compositor Habla, Nowhere Street, and many others, with Peter Margasak describing her practice as having “veered from all conventional pathways.”

Liu’s works have circulated internationally across the United States, Europe, Mexico, and Asia, appearing at KM28 Berlin, Elektronmusikstudion EMS, ICMC, NIME, Ligeti Zentrum Hamburg, IRCAM ManiFeste Academy, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Château de Fontainebleau, Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, Pen and Brush, Le Poisson Rouge, Downtown Music Gallery, and many others.

Born and raised in Inner Mongolia, Liu’s practice is shaped by the tangible texture of life there, later deepened through years of research with Indigenous Mongolian song and bowed-fiddle traditions. Her current work unfolds through what she calls the Ecology of Fraysonics, asking how artistic life might grow from real human experience, sustained interaction, and shared care. Beginning June 2026, she serves as Assistant Professor and Music Production Program Lead at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design.

APRIL ROSE

Multi media artist April Rose works within themes of mysticism and escapism. Frequently led by color as a meditation method she preforms, documents and makes marks within her own rituals.

Pulling from deep inner worlds she weaves dreams and memory together translating them into her own surreal visual language. She utilizes art making as storytelling and creates mythic allegories that transmute grief.

ARMANDO DE LA TORRE

I am a Fronterizo artist and activist using alternative materials to tell stories which are entwined with place, borders, and Identities, offering a possible new worldsI was born in Tijuana and raised in San Diego by a single mother. I joined the military and served with the 82 Airborne Division when I was 23 years old with two duties overseas, Germany and Korea. I attended Santa Monica community College where I earned an associates degree in Art, I then graduated much later from San Diego State University in the multimedia Art Department, Currently I'm enrolled at University of New Mexico for an MFA in art and ecology. I have been performing and teaching puppetry through the San Diego Guild of Puppetry for a long time, I also have a long history of making art in the San Diego Tijuana region with exhibitions at MCASD, SDMA, ICA San Diego, Bread & Salt, Centro Cultural de la Raza, and The Front Cultural Center in San Isidro. I leverage my exhibitions by supporting marginalized communities through a teaching practice.

CAROLINA MONTEJO

Carolina Montejo is a Colombian-American filmmaker, artist, and educator. She has a BA in Communications from Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia, and an MFA in Visual Arts from UC San Diego. Her films and multimedia works include documentary, experimental, and narrative non-fiction styles centered on the power of nature, the sacredness of life, and the expansion of consciousness. She is an argumentative writing professor at Muir College, UC San Diego; a Journalism and Media lecturer at San Diego State University, and Creative Director of her independent film production company, Telepathine Studio. She is also the 2025-26 Co-Chair of the Master’s of Advanced Studies in Marine Biology and Conservation at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Her films and artworks have been most recently shown at the Sturt Haaga Gallery at Descanso Gardens, CA, Espacio Morelos in Guadalajara, Mexico, and the New York Movie Awards.

CLAUDIA CANO

Multidisciplinary artist and educator whose body of work challenges the inequalities of female immigrants. Cano, an immigrant herself, migrated in 2002 and has since resided in the United States. Her oeuvre collides performance, photography, textiles, serigraphy, and social practice to question the convergence of the cultures of Mexico and the United States.

Cano has degrees from el Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, the University of Wisconsin-Stout, La Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, San Diego Community College, and an MFA from SDSU, where she is currently adjunct faculty. Cano has lectured, performed, and exhibited at universities, museums, galleries, and alternative spaces across the United States and México.

Lives and works in San Diego, California. Unceded land of the Kumeyaay and Luiseño.

DIA BASSETT

Dia Bassett is a San Diego–based interdisciplinary artist whose practice merges movement, fiber installation, wearable art, and ritual to explore cycles of life, death, and rebirth. Grounded in meditative encounters with poisonous plants, her work transforms grief and vulnerability into collective experiences of resilience and renewal. Most recently, she choreographed and performed a dance segment from Morning Glory at the Mingei International Museum. Her performances echo the strength and fragility of women’s bodies and the human spirit, inviting audiences into immersive, sensory environments of reflection and transformation. A recipient of grants from the California Arts Council, Idaho Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Rising Arts Leaders San Diego, Bassett holds an MFA in Sculpture from San Diego State University and brings over a decade of experience as both an exhibiting artist and arts educator.

DON NICHOLS

Don Nichols is a percussionist and composer whose work spans experimental, jazz, chamber, and electro-acoustic music, with a focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. His practice integrates performance, improvisation, and real-time electronics, often in dialogue with dance, visual art, theater, and spoken word. Drawing on an expansive sonic palette from traditional percussion and drum set to found objects, resonant metals, and digital systems, Nichols cultivates a highly nuanced approach to rhythm, timbre, and textures.

Over the past two decades, Nichols has developed a sustained international practice as both a composer and performer, with presentations at venues such as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall, New York’s Judson Church and 92nd Street Y, as well as festivals across the United States, Europe, and Latin America. His long-term collaborations with choreographers and interdisciplinary artists have shaped a responsive, hybrid approach to composition and performance.

Nichols is a Fulbright Scholar and a recipient of an Individual Artist Grant from the Indiana Arts Council, among other awards. His diverse collaborations have included Max Roach, Roger Reynolds, Evelyn Glennie, and Ron Athey. His work reflects an ongoing commitment to expanding the boundaries of musical form, interactivity, and audience engagement. https://donnichols.bandcamp.com/

DUO LINGUA

Duo Lingua, composed of David Aguila and Natalia Merlano Gómez, explores and improvises through graphic scores, utilizing synthesizers, trumpet, and voice. The duo has participated in various seminars, concert series, and festivals, including the Saty Series by PROJECT [BLANK] in San Diego, the MOXsonic (Missouri Experimental Sonic Arts Festival) at the University of Central Missouri, and the II Encuentro de Música y Tecnología: Transferencias Aurales at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. In the summer of 2024, they recorded the album "Unrestricted Lines" with members of Bogotana Records. This summer, Duo Lingua will collaborate with visual artist Natalie Miecabach during an artist residency in Eastport, Maine.

FRANKIE MARTIN

Frankie Martin is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in video, sculpture, painting and performance. They hold an MFA from UC San Diego and a BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Martin teaches photography and filmmaking at Eastern New Mexico University and was previously an Educator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Their work has been shown internationally at venues such as MoMA PS1 and CANADA Gallery, and the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. Martin’s honors include the City of Chula Vista Performing & Visual Arts Grant and the Mary L. Nohl Foundation Emerging Artist Grant.

GABRIEL ARREGUI

Gabriel Arregui holds degrees from the University of Southern California (M. Mus., Collaborative Piano) and Loma Linda University (B. Mus.,Organ Performance). He studied with Gwendolyn Koldofsky, Brooks Smith, and Jean Barr (Collaborative and Solo Piano), Anita Norskov Olsen (Solo Piano), Malcolm Hamilton (Harpsichord), and Donald J. Vaughn and Thomas Harmon (Organ).

He has collaborated in performances with such luminaries as Julianne Baird, Elizabeth Blumenstock, Stephen Cleobury, David Shostac, Stephen Sturk, John Thiessen, David Willcocks, and many others. He also performed for Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh during their 1983 visit to St Paul’s Cathedral. As a pianist, he performed with the orchestra in San Diego Opera’s production of Nixon in China, and has many recitals of chamber music and art-song to his credit. He has served as an adjunct professor at La Sierra University, teaching 18th-century counterpoint. From 1994 until retiring in 2024, he performed in the annual Baroque Music Festival of Corona del Mar both in ensembles and solo performances on organ and harpsichord. He has served as Organist and Director of Music at the Roman Catholic Parish of The Immaculata on the USD campus, Organist-Choirmaster at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Encinitas, and Organist and Assistant Choirmaster at St Paul’s Cathedral, where for nearly nine years he performed 25-30 organ recitals per year in addition to liturgies. He presently services as Associate Organist at St James by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, La Jolla.

ILANA WANIUK

Ilana Waniuk is a versatile violinist with interests ranging from improvisation to visual arts. She is a founding member and co-artistic director of Tkarón:to (Toronto) - based ensemble Thin Edge New Music Collective, Balancing on the Edge (multidisciplinary production company merging contemporary music and circus arts) and in^set (flexible chamber ensemble dedicated to improvisation, creation and experimentation. Ilana has performed on concert stages across Canada, Italy, Argentina, Poland, Japan, Iceland, Mexico, the U.S and Germany. She received a doctorate in contemporary performance from the University of California, San Diego where her research explored crossmodal perception in collaborative audiovisual practices.

JAIME LEYNES

Jaime Leynes (Jose Jaime Palmera Leynes, he/they) is a Filipino visual artist primarily working in figurative painting and sculpture. His works are informed by their experience having been born and raised in the Philippines, grappling with a Catholic upbringing, and paying reverence to friends, family, and community, with reference to traditional and historical forms of art making. Moving to San Diego in 2020, they have received their BA in Studio Art from UCSD.

JOE CANTRELL

Joe Cantrell is a digital artist and DJ whose work spans sound art, installation, and performance, exploring the implications of technological objects and practices. Using the physical remnants of these processes as raw materials, his work investigates the acceleration of technological production, ownership, and obsolescence. He has presented work at venues across the United States and internationally, and has received support from New Music USA, Creative Capital, and the Qualcomm Institute’s Initiative for Digital Exploration of Arts and Sciences, among others. He holds a BFA in Music Technology from California Institute of the Arts, an MFA in Digital Arts and New Media from UC Santa Cruz, and a PhD in Music from UC San Diego.

JONATHAN NUSSMAN

Jonathan Nussman is a baritone whose varied interests include opera, theater, improvisation, and chamber music, with a special emphasis on works from the 20th and 21st centuries. Appearances include San Diego Opera, Opera Boston, Guerilla Opera, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Cape Cod Opera, the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, Bodhi Tree Concerts, Project [BLANK], the La Jolla Symphony, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project, and soundSCAPE New Music Festival. As a performer of contemporary and experimental music, he frequently premieres his own compositions as well as pieces by composers from around the world.

In addition to originating prominent roles in over twenty world-premiere operas and theatrical works, he has performed extensively in more traditional repertoire, with notable roles including Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), Larry Foreman (The Cradle Will Rock), and Sid (Albert Herring). Jonathan is originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, and currently lives in San Diego, California. He holds a doctoral degree in Contemporary Music Performance from UC San Diego, and master’s degree from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

JONATHAN PIPER

Dr. Jonathan Piper is a San Diego-based tubist and technologist. His work as a tubist centers on the exploration of sonic and gestural possibilities found at the limits of both the instrument and the performing body. Supported by extended techniques and live electronic processing, he combines elements of drone, doom, noise, free jazz, and contemporary idioms. Jonathan performs as a soloist and in collaboration with musicians including Ryan Ebaugh, Michelle Lou, Stevie Richards, Nathan Hubbard, Nathan Berlinguette, Meghann Welsh, and Nick Lesley. He has presented work at Oracle Egg's BROILER Residency Series, Drone Not Drones, High Desert Soundings, Project [BLANK]'s Working Title, Sudden Somethings From Nothing, and Vernacular New Music.

Jonathan has given talks on his work as a tubist and experimental musician at CalArts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UC Irvine. As a scholar, he has researched and presented work on ontologies in digital media, online fandom practices, and embodiment in heavy metal music. Jonathan received degrees in musical performance at UC Los Angeles and music at UC San Diego, where he completed his dissertation Locating Experiential Richness in Doom Metal.

JOSEPH BOURDEAU

Joseph Bourdeau is a composer, performer, and multimedia artist currently based in Los Angeles, California. Influenced by diverse artistic interests, his work often blends music, theater, and visual elements as a way to manipulate familiar sounds and situations into surreal new experiences. His work has been presented internationally, at events like CAMPGround ’26 in Tampa, Florida, and the Festival de Música Nueva, Ensenada, in Baja California, Mexico. Joseph holds bachelor’s degrees in music education and composition from the University of South Florida, as well as master’s and PhD degrees in music from the University of California, San Diego.

JULIA ANNE CORDANI

Contemporary vocal trailblazer Julia Anne Cordani “creates an intense crossfire” in the artistic world (Frank Housh). Passionate about the performance of contemporary repertoire, her work gravitates towards experimental sonic portraits of women on the margins of theology and spirituality. Seeking to mediate the ancient voice through modern technology, her sonic practice explores themes of temporality, mysticism, power, and transformation.

Julia is a vocal artist and scholar from Lewiston, New York who holds bachelor’s degrees from the University at Buffalo in Voice Performance and Linguistics and master’s degrees from UB in Voice Performance and Choral Conducting. She is currently pursuing a doctorate (DMA) in contemporary voice performance at the University of California, San Diego under the tutelage of Grammy Award-winning contemporary vocalist Susan Narucki.

Leila Khalilzadeh Aghdami

Leila K. Aghdami is an interdisciplinary artist based in San Diego. Working across painting, sculpture, textile, video, and installation, her practice explores identity, memory, gender, and the psychological experience of living between cultures. Through materials such as fabric, thread, and paint, she investigates themes of fragmentation, repair, visibility, and resilience. Her work often draws from personal experience while engaging broader conversations around the body, cultural displacement, and the labor of care. Aghdami received her MFA from San Diego State University and her BA from University of California San Diego. Her work has been exhibited in the United States, Tijuana, Europe, and the Middle East, including her current exhibition at San Diego International Airport.

LESLIE ANN LEYTHAM

Leslie Ann Leytham is a San Diego-based mezzo-soprano who actively commissions mutli-media narrative vocal works, and collaborates with composers not only as a singer and actor, but as a director and producer as well. Ms. Leytham has premiered numerous works by composers including Laure Hiendl, Nicolas Reveles, Carolyn Chen, Marti Epstein, Andy Vores, Nicholas Deyoe, Roger Reynolds, and countless more. She has performed as a featured artist with San Diego Opera, The Industry, WildUp, Noon 2 Midnight produced by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Monday Evening Concerts, La Jolla Symphony, wasteLAnd, Bach Collegium San Diego, and Guerilla Opera. Leslie earned her D.M.A. in experimental music performance at UC San Diego, her Masters in Vocal Performance at the Boston Conservatory, and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance form the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Ms. Leytham is Artistic Director of Project [BLANK], an experimental concert series in San Diego.

MADDIE BUTLER

Maddie Butler was raised on an island in Minnesota. She is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and educator. Her work is concerned with the ways in which technology alters lived experience. Through sculpture, installation and video, she explores the emotional, bodily and environmental consequences of a society reliant on hyper-mediated communication. She has been awarded fellowships at the Ucross Foundation (Clearmont, WY), the Banff Centre (Alberta, Canada), the Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art (New York, NY) and the Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles, CA), among others. Her work has been supported by the ICA San Diego, the Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts and the Andy Warhol Foundation. Butler holds a BA from Yale University and an MFA from the University of California San Diego.

MARGUERITE BROWN

Marguerite Brown is a composer who explores new mediums, forms, and performance practices, with an emphasis on unconventional approaches to tuning and temperament. In her compositions, algorithms often serve as frameworks for indeterminate elements to unfold, inviting interpretive freedom within a shared artistic vision. Her work has been performed at KM28 (Berlin), The Composers Conference (New Hampshire), Underscore Festival (Atlanta), Espacios Sonoros Electroacoustic Festival (Argentina), ClarinetFest (Denver), La Chapelle Theater (Canada), Center for New Music (San Francisco), REDCAT Theater (Los Angeles), Indexical (Santa Cruz), Wayward Music Series (Seattle), among others.

MATTHEW HEBERT

Matthew Hebert is an artist and educator living in San Diego, CA. He grew up in various parts of the world, but almost entirely in California. His work meanders around the mundane, the weird, and the spooky while maintaining a focus on the lived experiences of our built environments and the histories of art and design. A background in architecture and furniture design and fabrication allows him to work in a range of materials and forms, from small-scale craft objects to room-size immersive installations. It is not uncommon for his work to employ interactive technologies to create immersive and generative content that unrolls over time and through space. He explores how spaces and objects can allow for solitary or social experiences. Lately his work has dealt with the notion of our contemporary times being haunted by the utopian dreams of the past. Matthew received his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley; and his Master of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts. He has taught at several schools including the University of Wisconsin – Madison, CalArts, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is currently Associate Professor of Art at San Diego State University.

MATTIE BARBIER

Mattie Barbier is a sound maker focused on experimental intonation, latent acoustic worlds, and the physical processes of instruments.

they are a member of RAGE Thormbones, wildUp, echoi, Diapason, and are an active soloist on low brass instruments. Mattie has made work for a wide range of institutions and festivals including Borealis (NO), Donaueschinger (DE), Musica Nova Helsinki (FI), Maerzmusik (DE), Bludenz Tage zeitgemäßer (AT), Spor (DK), Chicago’s Frequency Festival, Bemis Center, Museum of Jurassic Technology, and the San Francisco Exploratorium. Their work has been released on Sofa Music, Dinzu Artefacts, Discreet Archive, Carrier, Tripticks, Populist, Mode, Hat Hut, Late Music, Ideologic Organ, and Kairos Records.
they primarily work with trombone, as well as euphonium, bass trumpet, electronics, and bagpipes.

MELISSA ACHTEN

Melissa Achten is a Los Angeles–based harpist and composer grounded in a personal mythology that traces mirrored patterns between the real and the sublime. She treats the harp as a divining instrument, creating work that is diaristic, intimate, and cathartic. Melissa is a member of the experimental new music nonet Ghost Ensemble, harp and cello duo Rán, and the avant-garde duo Deathflavorkiss. She is also the co-founder and executive director of Oracle Egg, an experimental sound and performance incubator in downtown Los Angeles. Melissa has premiered work in New York, Berlin, Reykjavík, Copenhagen, and London, unfolding in abandoned water towers, cemeteries, black sand beaches, and other liminal spaces.

MICHELLE LOU

Michelle Lou composes mainly in the realm of electro-acoustic music, both in hardware and in computer based forms. She has also created large scale sound installations which are often performative and collaborative. Her work has been presented at Wien Modern, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, The Festival of New American Music (Sacramento), the MATA Festival (New York City), The 66th American Music Festival at the National Gallery in Washington D.C., The Rainy Days Festival (Luxembourg), Ultima Festival (Oslo), Chance and Circumstance (Brooklyn), Klub Katarakt (Hamburg), Klangwerkstatt and MaerzMusik (both in Berlin), amongst others.

She received degrees in double bass performance and music composition from UC San Diego with additional studies at The Conservatorio G. Nicolini in Piacenza, Italy (double bass) and The UDK in Graz, Austria (composition), the latter on a Fulbright Fellowship, and a doctorate in composition from Stanford University. Michelle was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University and an Elliott Carter Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She has been granted commissions from institutions like the Fromm Music Foundation, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, and the Norwegian Arts Council. Michelle has taught as visiting faculty at Dartmouth College, the Akademie für Neue Musik in Boswil, Switzerland, and the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is currently Associate Professor of Composition and Computer Music at the University of California, San Diego.

SHAR GARCIA

Born in the US, assembled in Tijuana, MX.

Shar is a multidisciplinary artist and educator living in San Diego, CA. She found her passion for Art working in set design for Opera de La Calle when she was 15. An opportunity that opened up a world otherwise unknown to her.

Her work is autobiographical; it is a reflection of her life or her visions. After becoming a mom, her primary medium became film photography, and she has slowly transitioned back into painting, drawing, installations, and playing with wild clay and natural pigments. The common thread in her work is Nostalgia, the longing in the stories we tell ourselves about our past.

Shar received her B.A. in Visual Arts Studio from UCSD. She has run workshops for CECUT, Opera de Tijuana, and multiple orphanages around Tijuana. She currently teaches STEAM at High Tech Elementary, Chula Vista.

TASIA PAULSON

Tasia Paulson is a visual artist who grew up and resides in San Diego. She earned a BFA from the University of California, San Diego. She currently teaches art at High Tech Elementary Chula Vista while continuing to develop her artwork.

Through close observation and an intuitive connection to the natural world, Tasia creates art inspired by landscapes and organic forms. Her work reflects the delicacy and endurance of nature, and explores how it shapes our curiosity about the world around us.

Working across mixed media and varying scales, Tasia is drawn to the transformative qualities of natural materials. The way nature changes over time informs her contemplative works, inviting stillness, reflection, and an ethereal sense of connection.

WILLIAM KUO

William Kuo’s music engages with emergent systems and behaviours through thinking about sound as material, space, place, and condition. He has presented his work at Ars Electronica (Austria), High Desert Soundings (US), Wandering Sound Festival (Taiwan), Naxoshalle (Germany), Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik (Austria), Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Netherlands), and ManiFeste Festival (France), among others.

Yerbamala Art Collective

Adriana Martínez Espinosa, Arian Luhrs, Carmen Arelí Castro López, Carolina Zepeda, Claudia Durazo Villegas, Esther Gámez Rubio, Hernán Cuahutémoc de la Cruz Vásquez, Irma Paredes, Lourdes Zepeda Cafuentes, Marielos Zazueta, Nastia Huerta Kondratiev, Paula Nudelman Mouriño, Vannya Sofía González Paredes

Yerbamala is a working studio, a reading circle, a curatorial practice and a community. We strive to open up spaces where women and gender non-conforming persons can make and exhibit their artistic production. We want these spaces to be productive and available for our peers, and to allow us to speak of themes and practices that concern us. We have curated 8 exhibitions for regional artists, and just last year were selected for PECDA 2025, a regional grant for our project “Remiendos”, a series of textile workshops that culminated in a group show currently on display. We have collaborated with other collectives such as Hoja Santa and Randas from Oaxaca, and with Centro Cultural Tijuana to highlight textile practices. Our number of participants is very fluid and may change according to a specific project but our core/founding members are: Adriana, Carolina, Claudia, Esther, Lulú, Irma and Olivia.