Welcome to LACE

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions

  • Programs
    • Projects
    • Emerging Curator Program
    • Apprenticeship
    • Lightning Fund
    • Se habla español
  • Archive
    • Archive
    • Publications
  • About
    • Visit
    • History
    • Ethos
    • Board of Directors
    • Team
  • Support
    • Benefit Art Auction
    • Give Now
    • Membership
    • Supporters
    • Special Editions
  • Shop
    • Online Shop
You are here: Home / LACE / 2020-Current Year / SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance

SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance

Image depicts a woman smoking, a still from a piece of video art featured in the Exhibition.

Image: Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Silent, 2016 (still), performance: Aérea Negrot.

January 8 – March 15, 2020
Curated by Abigail Raphael Collins, LACE’s 2020 Emerging Curator
Opening Reception: January 8, 2020, 7-10 pm

LACE’s Emerging Curator Program is designed to discover curatorial talent in Los Angeles and gives an opportunity for an emerging curator to partner with LACE. Applicants are reviewed by a panel that recommends a compelling project to the LACE team consistent with LACE’s experimental spirit.

Curator’s Introduction, Abigail Raphael Collins-
SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance takes up silence as a tool for political resistance. The work by each artist and activist in the exhibition engages silence as a way to honor the inarticulable, defy demands of production, prioritize deep listening, and refuse to incriminate. Rather than negate the importance of speaking up, speaking truth to power, or raising our voices, this exhibition treats silence as a powerful tool of resistance alongside speech.

Listening is central to almost every work in this exhibition, and it’s been central to the process of curating it. In the work I make as an artist I explore gaps and silences carved out by political trauma, but in addition to that solo work I wanted to think in tandem with other artists about the power of silence as a tool for collective action. Curating work at the intersection of protest and silence is a way to listen to other artists and activists about how we can uphold silence together to shift entrenched power structures.

I approached each work with these questions: How does silent protest function in tandem with sounding? How are they interdependent? How is honoring interiority a political act? How is the right to opacity linked to the right to inaudibility? What does an intersectional feminist refusal to speak sound like?

Each work answers and refuses an answer in different ways. Each artist and activist found a different way to transform being silenced into wielding silence, melting down a weapon used against them to forge a new tool.

EXHIBITION ESSAY BY SAMIRA YAMIN

SOUND OFF: SILENCE + RESISTANCE EXHIBITION CATALOG

Artists: Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Nikita Gale, Sharon Hayes, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Baseera Khan, and Aliza Shvarts.

  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
    Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Excerpts from Éditions Michel Obultra Box, 2019. Vinyl, inkjet prints.
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
    Baseera Khan Acoustic Sound Blanket, profile view, Documentation 04, 2017. Inkjet print.
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
    Sharon Hayes, PAROLE, 2010. Four-channel video installation, Plywood, projection, monitors. Dimensions variable. HD, color, sound, 36 mins.
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
    Nikita Gale, THREE DIMENSIONAL REST, 2019. Edition of 5. Concrete, terrycloth.
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
    Baseera Khan Acoustic Sound Blanket, AP, 2017. Felt, silk, cotton, gold custom thread embroidering, cut out. 90 x 85 inches.
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
  • Aliza Schvarts, Sibboleth, 2016. Interactive sound installation via 5 2”x2” QR codes, 22:51min.
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
    Pauline Boudry + Renate Lorenz, Silent, 2016. Installation with HD, 7 min. Performer: Aérea Negrot.
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
  • Documentation of the Exhibition, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance
    Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Rubber Coated Steel, 2016. HD video, 21 min.

Documentation by Chris Wormald.

EXPLORE THE SOUND OFF ARCHIVE

LISTEN TO ALIZA SHVARTS’ AUDIO PIECE HERE

WORKSHOP WITH KAMEELAH JANAN RASHEED

CURATOR AND ARTIST BIOS

Support for this exhibition provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, CalArts, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and Karen Hillenburg.

Filed Under: 2020-Current Year, Emerging Curator Program, Exhibition, LACE Tagged With: 2020, abigail collins, abigail raphael collins, aliza shvarts, Baseera Khan, emerging curator, emerging curator exhibition, Eve Arballo, Eve Moeykens-Arballo, kameelah janan rasheed, lawrence abu hamdan, nikita gale, Pauline Boudry, protest, Renate Lorenz, resistance, Samira Yamin, Sharon Hayes, silence, sound off, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance, Tess Carota

Visit

TEMPORARY OFFICE LOCATION
6464 Sunset Blvd.
Ste. 1070
Los Angeles, CA, 90028

tel: 1(323)250-0940
info@welcometolace.org

LACE recognizes our presence on Tovaangar, the unceded ancestral lands of the Gabrielino-Tongva people who are its rightful caretakers.

Lace Logo

Follow

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

GIVE NOW

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • YouTube

News

LACE’s Lightning Fund Opens August 15, 2025!

PRESS RELEASE: Announcing LACE’s Next Emerging Curators

Announcing the 2025 Lightning Fund and Jacki Apple Awards

More News

LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)

welcometolace

VideoLACE is now live as part of the LACE Digital VideoLACE is now live as part of the LACE Digital Archive! Check out the link in our bio to watch documented performances from the last few years with more to come. Explore documentation from LACE projects including “This Home, Forever” (2025), “ENDURANCE” (2025), “ABUNDANCE” (2024), and “APOLAKI” (2023).
“A Tender Excavation” approaches research-base “A Tender Excavation” approaches research-based artistic practices through propositions of alternative histories, bringing together a group of artists who work with historical and familial photographic archives as a point of departure to construct new narratives and elicit transformation.

LACE is thrilled to introduce three of the artists featured in the exhibition...

❥ Jamil G Baldwin (@juh_mile) was born in Lancaster, CA and raised in and across the Inland Empire and Los Angeles. Baldwin’s work explores the ability of the photographic document to reconstitute the histories of images and material into value systems of care.

❥ Camille Wong (@camillexwong) is a research-based artist living in Los Angeles, CA. Their practice examines power, geopolitics, and historiography through the lens of media and spectacle. They approach the gaze of ethnography by authoring the personal into the world through experimental documentary.

❥ Artemisa Clark (@bustilacaca) is a multidisciplinary artist from Los Angeles. She received a MA in performance studies from Northwestern University in 2016 and a MFA in visual arts from the University of California, San Diego in 2015. She has exhibited and presented research in spaces such as MOCA, The Hammer, the Mexican Consulate, the Vincent Price Art Museum, and more.

Join us at the opening reception on Saturday, November 1, 2025 from 2–5 PM at CSULA’s Luckman Gallery. Light refreshments will be provided. RSVP at the link in our bio.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the Teiger Foundation.
Swipe to see selections from LACE’s archive over Swipe to see selections from LACE’s archive over the last almost 50 years!

LACE is excited to announce that we will be at the Los Angeles Archives Bazaar this Saturday, October 18, at CSULA! The event will feature 80 local and regional collections, along with practical workshops and exclusive presentations by archivists, filmmakers, and preservationists.

This year’s Archives Bazaar is presented by the LA as Subject Research Alliance in partnership with the USC Libraries, the Cal State LA University Library, and the Cal State LA Pathway Programs Office.

The Archives Bazaar runs from 10–3 PM in the Golden Eagle Ballrooms at Cal State LA. Admission is free. For the full program and exhibitor list, visit laassubject.org.

Slide 1: “The Archival Impulse: 40 Years at LACE” (March 15, 2018 – November 7, 2021). Photos by Chris Wormwald (@christopherwphoto).
Join LACE and multidisciplinary artist Marnie Webe Join LACE and multidisciplinary artist Marnie Weber (@marnieweberstudio) on Thursday, November 13 from 7-9 PM at the Philosophical Research Society (@philosophical_research_society) for the Los Angeles premiere of her latest film, “House of the Whispering Rose” (2025). The screening will also feature Weber’s film “Song of the Sea Witch” (2020).

Filmed at the historic Beverly Estate in Beverly Hills, where silent film star Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst shared their final days, “House of the Whispering Rose’’ takes place against a backdrop of forgotten wealth and grandeur.

Following the screening, LACE’s Curator and Director of Programs Selene Preciado (@selene__preciado) speaks with Marnie Weber to learn more about the making of the films and her collaborations. Light refreshments will be provided.

Reservations are filling up quickly and space is limited. RSVP at the link in our bio.

This program is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Follow on Instagram

Copyright © 2025 Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions