Insurgent Learning Workshop: Solidarity (Cooperative) Economics Conduction System 

Description:

Over the course of Marshall Trammell’s two-week residency at Western Front, he hosted three participatory, improvised music workshops connected to his ongoing Insurgent Learning Workshop series. Using ideas developed by the US Solidarity Economy Network as a framework, the cumulative workshops served as a public and collective process towards developing a new language through improvisation. 

Insurgent Learning Workshop: Solidarity (Cooperative) Economics Conduction System was an open rehearsal and workshop with Trammell and Vancouver-based percussionist John Brennan that reimagined Underground Railroad quilt codes as scores. The two-and-a-half-hour workshop began with a presentation by Trammell on his interdisciplinary research into historical resistance practices and tactical media. Set up in the Grand Luxe Hall with two drum kits side-by-side, Trammell and Brennan performed alternating solos that transitioned into “multi-solos,” where each percussionist improvised simultaneously. Trammell’s solos also incorporated contemporary African-American face jugs by potter Jim McDowell, who creates replicas of the historical vessels used in spiritual practice. 

The next module of the workshop invited audience members to form small groups to discuss different examples of Underground Railroad quilt codes. These patterns, which communicated secret instructions to help direct enslaved people to freedom, were analyzed as both visual culture and community-developed apparatuses for resistance. Observations, questions, reflections, and interpretations of the quilt code symbols were shared in an open discussion between audience members and the musicians. The workshop closed with a collaborative improvisation by Trammell and Brennan that translated the audience’s responses to the quilt codes into a sonic narrative. 

Curated by Pablo de Ocampo. 

Video documentation of these events is available upon request.