Resonance, presented by the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ), Vanderbilt University. On view 8 May – 8 July 2026 at Fondazione Giorgio e Armanda Marchesani, Dorsoduro, Venice.
Artistic Directors: María Magdalena Campos-Pons & Kamaal Malak
Curators: Grace Aneiza Ali and Selene Wendt
Exhibition Design: Pure Object
Photos by Joe Habben.
During the Venice Biennale 2026 opening week, acclaimed Vanderbilt faculty members María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Kamaal Malak (KaMag) shared immersive performance Poetry Caravan, transforming the Biennale grounds into a living site of collective reflection, healing and artistic communion.
Photos by Olivia Forrester.
PRESS: CULTURALEE article written by Lee Sharrock.
The Venice Biennale 2026 opening week continued with Campos-Pons and Malak (KaMag) sharing immersive performance Whispering in III Movements with an audience of hundreds.
Photo by LeXander Bryant.
PRESS: HYPERALLERGIC article written by Greta Rainbow.
MAY 10, 2026
Resonance opened with a full day of listening, in all forms. Artists, scholars, curators, and Venetians, led by EADJ founder María Magdalena Campos-Pons, spent a day in conversation: on image and archive, on practice and inheritance, on water and soil and what the body carries across geographies.
Some of the most important voices in contemporary art — among them Deborah Willis, Georges Adéagbo, Naiza Khan, Salah Hassan, Siddhartha Mitter — gathered in one room for conversations including What the Image Carries, Stitching Geographies, How We Arrived Here, Sounding In Minor Keys, and Root and Return.
Photos by LeXander Bryant.
MAY 12, 2026
A durational performance by acclaimed artist Jeannette Ehlers, with Shari Petti and Ella Myers.
Photos by Olivia Forrester.
MAY 16, 2026
An Evening of Resonance
Members of the Vanderbilt community gathered for a Sonic Welcome with Vanderbilt faculty, María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Kamaal Malak, offered in the spirit of In Minor Keys and in memory of Koyo Kouoh.
The evening continued with a performance of Cantiga del Merolico — a collaboration between Blair School of Music flutist Molly Barth, dancer Emiliano Moncada Zohn, and composer Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon.
The program closed with a conversation with Campos-Pons, Malak, and curator Dan Cameron.
The Vanderbilt community continued gathering the following morning with a private tour of the In Minor Keys exhibition at the Giardini della Biennale to see the artworks that Campos-Pons and Malak contributed to the project.
Photos by Vito Poma.
MAY 20, 2026
A participatory performance with Vesna Pavlović, the Paul E. Shwab Chair in Fine Arts at Vanderbilt.
Photos by Vesna Pavlović and the EADJ team.
This performance was part of Pavlović's residency at Resonance.
MAY 26, 2026
Vanderbilt Department of Art faculty member Jana Harper, whose works Song for the Water and Ancestor Bulletin are featured in Resonance, presented a participatory program honoring La Laguna and the waters of the Veneto.
Photos by Olivia Forrester.
This program was part of Harper's residency at Resonance.
MAY 28, 2026
What does science carry that art can hold? This session brings together two Vanderbilt perspectives — Jessica Ingram (director of Dyer Observatory) and Lutz Koepnick (professor in German and in Cinema & Media Arts) — on resonance as method and as meaning and asking how we listen across time, distance and discipline.
Photos by Olivia Forrester.
June 6, 2026
The public was invited to an afternoon program of film, talks and poetry with artists and scholars Javier Castro, Gigi de la Torre, Luis William, Elvira Aballí Morell and Tamara Reynolds.
Photo (right) of Elvira Aballí Morell by María Magdalena Campos-Pons.
Tamara Reynolds, documentary photographer and lecturer in Vanderbilt's Department of Art, was in residence at Resonance during this time, where her work Melungeon was featured in the exhibition.
JUNE 11, 2026
Resonance: Between Shores is a new performance work exploring migration, displacement, and the relationship between land, body, and sound through clay and performance. This two-person performance, between Raheleh Filsoofi (Vanderbilt Department of Art) and Reza Filsoofi, brings poetry and resonance into dialogue through a pair of ceramic vessels made from Nashville soil. Connected and partially veiled with beads and threads, the vessels create a fragile landscape between instrument, body, and archive.
Photos by Joe Habben, courtesy of the NIRMA Project.
This program was part of Filsoofi's residency at Resonance.
JUNE 16, 2026
A discussion and performance led by Vanderbilt University's Department of History of Art and Architecture and the minor in Museum and Market Studies.
Photos by Olivia Forrester.
JUNE 23, 2026
For more than two decades, African and African diaspora artists have reshaped the contours of contemporary art on one of the world's most storied stages. This panel brings together curators and artists behind two consequential efforts at the Venice Biennale to mediate African presence, inviting them to reflect on a generation of creative transformation, critical inquiry and hard-won visibility.
Photos by Olivia Forrester.
JULY 2, 2026
Resonance presented a Sonic Listening Session led by Artistic Director Kamaal Malak (electric bass), with Tracy Silverman (violin), Roy Wooten (percussion) and Samuel Alexandre (modular synthesis). The four musicians converge at 40Hz, the gamma threshold where sound is felt before it is heard. The bass anchors the room and vibrates through the body, while the percussion entrains the nervous system to its pulse. The violin ascends through harmonics and dissolves, and the modular synthesis builds a living architecture of sound around it all. This was both a concert and a shared altered state, where music became medicine, ritual and communion.
Photos by Riccardo Banfi.
JULY 4, 2026
In this artist talk, Dawit L. Petros explored the powerful connections between memory, migration and colonial history through two works featured in Resonance. Drawing on film, photography and archival imagery, he examines how water, sound and colonial records reveal the lasting impact of empire and the enduring ties between Africa, the Caribbean and Europe. The conversation offered a deeper understanding of the histories, geographies and ideas that shape his work.
Photos by Riccardo Banfi.
This program was part of Petros' residency at Resonance.
JULY 7, 2026
Artist Evelyn Rydz led Comida Casera, an intimate evening of storytelling and meal-sharing honoring the people and places that form our sense of home. At the shared meal attendees exchanged recipes and the memories they carry across generations and geographies.
Since 2016, Comida Casera has brought together participants for multigenerational gatherings grounded in active listening and open exchange as a means of cultivating community across divides. Together, participants explore ways migration, familial traditions and environmental change shape our relationships to food, place and belonging.
Photos by Joe Habben.
JULY 7, 2026
Columnas de Luz, a captivating concert blending violin, electronics and visuals, featured evocative music by Cuban composer Ileana Perez Velazquez, whose work transforms the rich sonic memories of her homeland through a contemporary lens.
Violinist and interactive electronic music visionary Mari Kimura brought these pieces to life while performing her own interactive compositions — using her innovative MUGIC® motion sensor to seamlessly process sound and visuals. Together, their program weaves a vibrant dialogue inspired by Cuban culture and urgent environmental themes.
Photos by Joe Habben.
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For the EADJ team, please email eadj@vanderbilt.edu.