Haroon Mirza: Canon Remix, 2009

The Island Studio Sessions: Haroon Mirza

The first Clocktower Gallery/Island Studio Sessions project is with British artist Haroon Mirza. Mirza’s sculptures and installations are assembled from an eclectic inventory of objects, from found bits of furniture, electrical appliances and outmoded musical equipment. Networked into kinetic circuits, the abstract sounds created by his sculptural configurations coalesce into rhythmically driven compositions. An insistent compositional order underpins each of Mirza’s ensembles, an order which explores moments when social or cultural experience becomes aligned (or misaligned) with music and historical aural traditions.

From February – March 2012 The Island presented Mirza as the latest in a series of co-produced residencies, exhibitions and broadcasts at the Clocktower Gallery and online. This ongoing project brings together artists who in various ways negotiate the space of transition between aural and visual modes of production and dissemination, investigating how music and noise function as a forms of cultural disruption, charged with the potential to collapse genre boundaries and subvert social and cultural institutions.

Haroon Mirza Live Streamcast

2012 resident at the Clocktower Gallery Haroon Mirza broadcasts a performance featuring a new work created during his residency at the Clocktower Gallery (NYC) as part of The Island Studio Sessions. As in other projects, Mirza has assembled an eclectic inventory of objects including found furniture, kinetic circuits, electrical gadgets, and optical components. Listeners heard a live performance for the rhythmically driven abstract sounds created by this sculptural configuration. The residency was part of The Island Studio Sessions, an artist production project made possible by a collaboration between The Island (Andrew Bonacina and Victoria Brooks, curators, www.theislandarts.org) and the Clocktower Gallery (Alanna Heiss, curator). Haroon Mirza (b. 1977, London) lives and works in London & Sheffield. Recent solo exhibitions include Spike Island, Bristol, UK (2012); Camden Arts Centre, London, UK; Lisson Gallery, London (both 2011). Recent group exhibitions include ILLUMInations, 54 Venice Biennale, Venice (2011); The British Art Show 7 (2010); The Sheffield Pavillion, 11th Istanbul Biennial (2009) and New Contemporaries, The A Foundation, Liverpool, London (2008). Mirza won the Silver Lion at 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and the 2010 Northern Art Prize.