“To move together and remain separate;
to move away from one another and remain connected.”
In July we participated in FIVE JULY, organized by FÖDA at L-O-R-A. The project brought together artists, musicians, and performers in a collective action exploring creativity, impermanence, silence, and sound.
The performance centered on the musical composition The Wilderness Anthology by Patrick Harlin. In response to ongoing funding cuts affecting the arts and education—including the loss of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts—the project invited artists to interpret fragments of the score through drawing and gesture.
Each participating artist was given a large sketch pencil, a blank wall, and a short segment of the score. In fifteen minutes or less, artists translated what they saw in the notation—whether or not they could read music—directly onto the wall. The room remained silent as each interpretation unfolded and was documented and time-stamped.
Our drawing translated the score into an abstracted map locating Austin, Texas nonprofit organizations that previously received NEA funding, tracing a network of cultural institutions across the city. The marks functioned both as a response to the musical notation and as a visualization of the local arts ecosystem shaped by public support.
On July 5, 2025 the non-profit classical ensemble Kinetic—which recently lost its NEA funding—performed the composition in part and then in its entirety as a quintet. The resulting drawings, created independently but within the same framework, formed a visual chorus of responses to the score, reflecting the relationship between individual interpretation and collective expression.
Photo credit: @foda_studio
