Saturday, September 23rd at 8pm, ISSUE is pleased to present multidisciplinary artists Lime Rickey International & Masma Dream World as part of ISSUE Project Room's 2023 Fall Season. This year marks the 20th Anniversary of ISSUE and will be celebrated with a series of commissioned programs, orbiting around our annual Gala and affiliated Benefit events. As part of these celebrations, ISSUE invites past Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellows (SFCF) to perform and present work on programs in collaboration with important members of the community who inspire their practice.
Lime Rickey International (Leyya Mona Tawil, 2020 SFCF) uses voice, transactive choreography, interactive surfaces and electronics to build hybrid performances and sound compositions. Her work slips between codes of fiction, concept and embodied action in a manner that challenges cultural legibility. In her “diasporic imaginary,” Lime Rickey International digs into how specific reference points collide and transmit nomadic knowledge through sound signaling and distortions of form. These ideas, relayed through voice, body and object, are meant to cue new ways of listening and future building.
Introduced to each other’s practice through ISSUE, the multi-ethnic, non-binary, multi-disciplinary artist Masma Dream World (Devi Mambouka) will present work with ISSUE for the first time. Masma Dream World's music reflects the current times of darkness, and provides a space for listeners to exorcise, worship, and explore their inner demons through a ceremonial experience – music for the shadow world. Culture journalist and editor Antoinette Isama writes: “tapping into her training as a reiki practitioner, Sound Therapist and a Butoh dancer, Devi’s debut showcases her ability to abide by her own precise rules when producing music.” They wish to awaken the magician within themselves, and bring back magic, sacred ceremony, and myths to the world.
Featuring artists from across our history as well as new projects, ISSUE’s 20th Anniversary presents an opportunity to celebrate and support the organization as we continue an ambitious calendar of programming. Since its inception in 2003 under the vision of late Founder Suzanne Fiol, ISSUE has evolved from a small East Village garage, to a grain silo on the Gowanus Canal, to a project space in The Old American Can Factory, to now owning our 22 Boerum Place theater as an internationally-recognized leader for fostering experimental cross-disciplinary performance.
Across 20 years of programming, ISSUE has sustained a thriving Artists-In-Residence program, encouraging generations of NYC-based artists to take creative risks in reaching the next stage of their artistic development. ISSUE has also inaugurated the Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellowship, assisting emerging curators to realize ambitious new projects. The organization has bolstered close partnerships within NYC’s cultural ecology, collaborating with like minded nonprofits, galleries, theaters, and non-traditional spaces as we’ve embarked on a period of off-site programming. Bringing commissions, premieres, and rare performances to new contexts and spaces throughout NYC, including The Invisible Dog, ISSUE has doubled down on its commitment to artists whose work eludes convention. Join us in recognizing this important milestone in our history.
Leyya Mona Tawil [Lime Rickey International] is an artist working with sound, performance, and hybrid transmissions. Tawil is a Syrian, Palestinian, American engaged in the world as such. Her work has been presented throughout the US, Europe, Russia, and the Arab region. Tawil was the 2020 ISSUE Project Room Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow for her NOMADIC SIGNALS series, which continued with presentations of Mirages and FRKTL & TARKAMT in 2021 and "A" Trio & Nava Dunkelman in 2022. Her work ‘Lime Rickey International's Future Faith’ - commissioned by Abrons Arts Center (NYC) and the KONE Foundation (Helsinki) - was nominated for a 2019 “Bessies” Award in Music (NYC). Recent residency/engagements include Wysing Art Centre/British Council (UK), Sharjah Art Foundation’s Tarek Atoui Sound Residency (UAE), The Poetry Project (NYC), JAM3A Festival (Detroit), TBA:22 (Portland) and Yucca Valley Material Lab's Music Residency Program. Tawil is also the director of TAC Temescal Art Center (Oakland) and the Arab.AMP platform.
Masma Dream World is the solo recording project of multi-disciplinary artist and degree Sound therapist Devi Mambouka. Born to a Gabonese father and a Singaporean mother, Devi (pronounced: day-vee), is a child of the world who learned to tap into their inner magic to overcome trauma, abuse, and addiction. After their release of the Debut Album "Play At Night'' in 2020, Devi has toured worldwide as a solo performer and as well been a support artist for Duma in their month-long US 2022 tour, Masma Dream World has performed at international festivals Le Guess Who?, REWIRE, Transmission Waves Festival, Raw Power Festival, Afrofuturism Festival presented by Carnegie Hall, Nyege Nyege Night Shift to name a few.
