Joe Namy
Assembly Mixtape Club
Artist and composer Joe Namy led on a project called the Assembly Mixtape Club, a collaborative platform for young people across social care services in Barking and Dagenham.
Initiated in autumn 2020, Namy worked with a group of young people through a series of online sessions to explore open source sound technologies and creatively examine how music and deeper forms of listening can shape our experiences, memories, relationships, identity and wellbeing.
Auto Redux at V&A Museum / Photo © Hydar Dewachi
The 2020 Assembly Mixtape Club generated a series of on-line provocations for young people to collectively explore the politics of listening, sharing and distribution, helping to shape a greater sense of self, environment and community. The group’s shared research looked at how different environments or locations may influence our memories.
Through a second session, held in autumn 2021, Namy will host the second iteration of Assembly Mixtape Club at The White House, collaborating with another cohort of young people to produce a new sound work incorporating shared research, reflections and conversations with social care staff and service users.
This site-specific piece is now available to listen to on the soundcloud link on this page - commissioned and presented as part of Becontree Forever, a programme of artwork commissions and community projects to mark the centenary of the estate.
Automobile 3rd iteration at Theater Der Welt / 2014 in Mannheim
Automobile 7th iteration on the corniche / Abu Dhabi for Durub Al Tawaya 2019
About Joe Namy
Joe Namy (UK/Lebanon/USA) is an artist, educator, and composer, often working collaboratively and across mediums - in sound, performance, photography, text, video, and installation.
Namy’s projects often focus on the social constructs of music and organized sound, such as the pageantry and geo-politics of opera, the noise laws and gender dynamics of bass, the colours and tones of militarization, the migration patterns of instruments and songs, and the complexities of translation in all this - from language to language, from score to sound, from drum to dance. Namy graduated with an M.F.A. from New York University, was a participant in the inaugural Ashkal Alwan Home Workspace independent study program in Beirut, and has independently studied jazz, Arabic, and heavy metal drumming.
Recent exhibitions, screenings and performances include Le18 Rooftop Disguised as Dancefloor (1-54 Forum, Marrakech MO, 2020); Half Blue (Berlinale Forum Expanded, Berlin DE, 2020 and Minneapolis Museum of American Art, US, 2019); Libretto-o-o d'artifice(Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 2020); Automobile Redux (V&A Museum, London, 2019); ‘32: The Rescore (Sharjah Art Foundation, AE, 2019); The Eighth Automobile (Art Night London, 2019); Automobile (Durub Al Tawaya, Abu Dhabi UE, 2019).
Namy was a fellow in the inaugural Ashkal Alwan Home Workspace programme (Beirut LB, 2012) and currently serves as the resident advisor. His work has been exhibited, screened, and amplified internationally in museums, galleries, festivals and underground dance floors since 2009.
Libretto-o-o: A Curtain Design In The Bright Sunshine Heavy With Love / 2017
Joe Namy: Assembly Mixtape Club is commissioned by The White House as part of New Town Culture, a programme of artistic and cultural activity taking place in adult and children’s social care and curated by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Assembly Mixtape Club forms part of a broader programme that marks the centenary of the Becontree estate in 2021. This commission is funded by the GLA’s Young Londoners Fund, the MOPAC Violence Reduction Unit, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Automobile 7th iteration / Abu Dhabi for Durub Al Tawaya 2019
Photo © Radfan Alqirsh
Halfstep
About New Town Culture
New Town Culture is a programme of artistic and cultural activity taking place in adult and children’s social care across the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. We work with artists, social care staff and carers to develop creative ways to support systemic change in social care and to unlock the value of art and culture for all communities. New Town Culture celebrates the incredible stories, knowledge and skills of the residents of Barking and Dagenham through workshops, clubs, exhibitions, live performances and training for the staff and users of social care services.
This ambitious project was piloted with the support of a Cultural Impact Award for the London Borough of Culture, a Mayor of London initiative, and is now extending its scope through further funding from the Young Londoners Fund, the GLA and the MOPAC Violence Reduction Unit.