Reflections on March 2018

Earthquake Survival Guide

Sound Footprint: Our Trash Remixed

The Red Room’s 8-Year Anniversary was an amalgam of imaginaries. Artistic luminaries gathered to share their creations with a global audience of wanderers, families, kindred spirits and community members. Navigating the rich intersections of painting, music, writing and dance, the Red Room led the way in an explosively inclusive and vibrantly warm festival of experiences.

As one of the participating artists, my partner Jonathan Sherman and I blended together the sounds of trash with environmental awareness. Our goal was to bring to light people’s respective waste footprints, using sound. The concept began with the realization that while you can look away from waste, you can’t turn your ear away from it; you can still hear it, even if you can’t see it, and therefore, you can musically understand your contribution to the waste ecosystem.

To reach this goal, we set up a trash station outside the entrance to the Red Room featuring five different bins composed of multiple categories– plastic, paper, food waste, glass, and landfill. Before people were allowed to “throw” out their waste, they had to make a sound with their rubbish. Crumpling paper, squishing plastic, shaking tea leaves out of a tea pot– many different types of sounds were collected as Jonathan turned on the microphone he designed and caught the sounds. All noises were then looped in an algorithmic-fashion, building the sound of trash via the individual sounds using what was captured.

We did this experiment twice and brought the “trash soundtrack” into the Red Room to stimulate conversation over trash, discuss proper sorting techniques and inspire the kids to sort, recycle, make music, and ultimately reduce of single-waste items.

Our signs for the exhibit were also made from Lovely Taiwan’s recycled materials, a nonprofit organization that collects bins of sorted, cleaned and separated waste for reuse by the public in any shape, way or form.

We are thankful for the opportunity to educate, inform and hopefully inspire using the sound of musical trash in the exhibition
Sound Footprint: Our Trash Remixed.

Lillygol Sedaghat
Storyteller, Fulbright – National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship
University of California, Berkeley | Political Economy, 2014
Email: lillygol.sedaghat@gmail.com

2017, the year in review

Dear friends and Red Roomers,

We’ve had an unforgettable year at the Red Room, thanks to the support of dedicated people like you from around the world. We celebrated several key milestones in 2017: surpassing 220 events and 4500 participants in all of our programs and workshops. We have expanded our work to serve a few charities in Taiwan and around the world, including refugee communities. We have collaborated with many partner organisations to promote art and culture in Taiwan, and we recently hosted our eighth year anniversary festival in November 2017.

As we look towards 2018, we are more committed than ever to building community through our programs, and continue to create a platform for creatives such as yourself to explore their own potential. We are going to stay at the TAF Air Force base under the Ministry of Culture. Their vision of creating a vibrant culural venue at the base is perfect for our mission and vision. We hope to continue to bring you programs and opportunities to dive deep and make a difference.

But we can’t do it alone. We have many ideas brewing and we would love to have your support to help us get there.

Thank you again for all you do to keep the idea of Red Room alive. Let’s keep working together towards a more creative and joyous world in 2018!

Happy Year of the Dog!