nami rose
multimedia productions (as artist)
Speak easy Podcast (2024- ) | Los Angeles, CA
is an experimental podcast produced by Nami in collaboration with producer/filmmaker Janice Duncan. Episodes feature conversations and interviews with the provacateur and with attendees of the Black Bar Social, delving into the provocative questions on the future of culture posed during the evenings. Themes include: the future of labor and technology in relation to historically marginalized communities, Afrofuturist visions for the future of society, the relationship between ancestors and their progeny, AI and social logics of hospitality, and the role of ancestral intelligence and diasporic worldmaking in emerging technologies. The podcast extends the impact of the program beyond the physical space of the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion and fosters broader dialogue about the future of cultural and technological innovation. Nami leads the production of the podcast, designing and executing interviews, authoring the script, composing the soundtrack (and other ambient sound design capturing the live essence of the event), and spearheading the audio editing of the 60-minute episodes.Flood of Memory (2024) | Manzanar, CA
is a documentary by Maya Castronovo shedding light on children’s experiences of incarceration during the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Nami composed and recorded the soundtrack for the documentary. Listen to “uguisu song” (nightingale song) and “kazoku shashin” (family photo) here.The film will be screening in Spring 2024 at Yale University, Wisconsin Film Festival, and NFFTY in Seattle. It can now be streamed on Director’s Library.
!["they never told us these things" 「灯台下暗し」 (an immersive installation, 2023-)]()
they never told us these things (2023-) | New York, Osaka, Seoul
is an immersive, multimedia sound installation that was first held in March to April 2023 as Nami’s Artist-in-Residency showcase at the Movement Lab in NYC. Alternative iterations of the project were held in Osaka, Japan (see below) in July 2023 and Seoul, Korea in December 2023 to January 2024.灯台下暗し (July 2023) | Osaka, Japan
is a multimodal sound installation that was held in Osaka, Japan in July 2023 as a reiteration of they never told us these things. This iteration centered Japanese voices and experiences of nuclearization.등잔 밑이 어둡다 (December 2023-January 2024) | Seoul, South Korea
was screened at CICA Museum in Seoul, South Korea in Contemporary Landscapes, an international exhibition running from December 13, 2023 to January 17, 2024.they never told us these things: screendance (2023) | New York, NY
is a short film filmed as a companion to the aforementioned installation of the same name. A collaboration between Nami (music, sound art, projections), Christine Lin (director, dancer), and Tobi Lee (main dancer).azine (2022-) | New York, NY
is an Asian/American Art Collective centering queer and women-identifying artists in New York. As co-founder and head of curriculum, Nami programs and executes biweekly arts workshops that facilitate conversations about identity and community care. The collective also organized teach-ins in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Ethnicity & Race (CSER) at Columbia University, to advocate for the departmentalization of the center and hiring of more tenured-track professors of color, and the Consortium for Critical Interdisciplinary Studies (CCIS) at Barnard College, for greater investment in Asian American Studies. The co-founders of azine published a cumulative zine resulting from these workshops in May, 2023.wild wild east (2022-2023) | New York, NY
is a hybrid talk/music radio show hosted by Nami and her friend, Christine. They co-authored weekly episodes on the transnational circulations of music emerging from East Asia.what does america stand for? (2022) | New York, NY & Hiroshima, Japan
is a zine Nami created during her fellowship at the Athena Center for Leadership. Over the four months of the fellowship, she researched the intimacies of irradiated experience between disparate communities from Hiroshima to the Northwest Territories. She presented her research at the Athena Showcase in December 2022. The zine can be found in the Columbia University Library Barnard Zine Collection.as producer
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BLKNWS in Residence is an unparalleled fusion of art, culture, and community, redefining the narrative of artistic experiences.
BLKNWS in-residence (June - August 2024) | The Music Center. Los Angeles, CA
is a groundbreaking residency program featuring artist Kahlil Joseph's innovative project, BLKNWS®. The multidimensional art experience encompassed several installations:A Reimagined BLKNWS®: The residency expanded on the original two-channel video installation with a special screening of the feature film "BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions," produced in collaboration with A24 and Participant Media.
The Garvey Garden: Jerry Moss Plaza transformed into a free, public green space featuring:
- : A thought-provoking art installation blurring the lines between art, journalism, and social commentary.
- : A unique space offering books, beverages, apparel, and a platform for community gatherings and cultural exploration.
- Events:
- Read the Garden: Communal reading and discussions hosted by Reparations Club.
- BLKNWS® Comedy Night: An evening of laughter hosted by Alzo Slade and featuring top stand-up comics Amberia Allen, Peter Kim, Zainab Johnson, Shapel Lacey, and Aida Rodriguez.
BLKNWS in Residence is an unparalleled fusion of art, culture, and community, redefining the narrative of artistic experiences.
Black Bar Social (May 2024 - ) | Dorothy Chandler Pavillion. Los Angeles, CA
is a monthly immersive experience and speakeasy-style social gathering designed to spark public imagination and start conversations about the future of Los Angeles. The price of admission is simply to receive a provocation from the provocateur of the evening. An artist, culture maker, or community partner will design a creative immersive experience for attendees that should give them a peek at the cutting-edge innovations of our time in science, technology, emergent culture, social movements, and the possibility of greater well-being. It is a place to socialize big ideas and, in some cases, make decisions and build relationships that bring those ideas to life in Los Angeles.Resident artists and the focus of their work:
- Alex Rivera: the future of immigration, work and AI technology in relation to Latines communities
- TecLeimert with Ben Caldwell: the future of society through a perspective of Black culture and the practices in the book KAOS Theory: The Afrokosmic Ark of Ben Caldwell
- Kahlil Joseph: Black culture, identity, and history in America and of the diaspora
- Sultan Sheriff: the relationship between ancestors and their progeny
- Lauren Lee McCarthy: can AI do a better job than a human at helping us to be human?
- Mashinka Firunt: can AI divine our future?
Nami developed the program in collaboration with transmedia producer Kamal Sinclair, Sr. Director of Digital Innovation at the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles, as Digital Innovation Fellow at the institution.
Music Off the Wall (March - May 2024) | Jerry Moss Plaza. Los Angeles, CA
Created by PANDAKERO under the creative direction of EyeJack's founder and renowned digital artist Sutu, "Bloomscapes" is an AR sculpture showcasing a flock of abstract sound creatures which take over the skies while emanating a serene soundscape throughout the plaza. Visitors to The Music Center can also engage with the AR sculpture by amplifying their interaction on the Jerry Moss Plaza large screens.
Indiecade Night Games (November 2023) | Indiecade & The Music Center. Los Angeles, CA
Nami collaborated on curating and orchestrating IndieCade Night Games, an evening dedicated to celebrating the vibrant world of independent video games. This unique event with IndieCade Festival showcased a carefully selected lineup of indie games, each pushing the boundaries of creativity and innovation. Attendees were immersed in an atmospheric setting where they could directly engage with developers, explore interactive installations, and experience the diverse spectrum of indie gaming at its finest. IndieCade Night Games epitomizes the spirit of independent game development, fostering a community-driven atmosphere that celebrated creativity, diversity, and the boundless possibilities of interactive entertainment.
FLUX (April 2022) | New York, NY
was a panel and art exhibition featuring New York-based artists organized with the Columbia University chapter of APAHM, or Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. As Arts & Social Activism Chair of Columbia Uni. APAHM, Nami led the programming of the activation.writing
blending & self love.
reflections on a night out, jimmy fallon's hands, and a new york pizza parlor
Free-form personal essay. “I think about this night often, and I remember it in fragments. The rise and fall of a night out. A milestone. The comedown. The welcome touch of one warm pair of hands and the cold invasion of another. A new feeling. An old feeling. The freedom of young adulthood coupled with the helplessness of a small child. So many of us crave freedom, but we often aren't ready to shoulder the responsibility it portends.”
ringo no uta
Personal essay. “Your story begins with the scratch on a record; an apostrophe in time...”
they never told us these things
Personal essay. “Remembering comes in waves until you stub your toe on yet another tiny big hypocrisy, then grief washes in in tsunami tides...”
with Ishii Junko, Kobe-based jazz singer who launched her career performing on U.S. military bases in her teens.
Biting Down on a Double-Edged Promise of “Liberation”:
Musical Performance & Embodied Inflections of Agency
in
the Allied Occupation of Japan 1945-53
Academic thesis advised by Dr. Kevin Fellezs, Dr. Aaron Fox, and Dr. Gillian Gualtieri. A sociological and ethnomusicological study examining musical performance and consumption as sites for enacting and negotiating agency in Japanese people's reimagining of their gendered and ethno-national identities under U.S. Occupation. Using lenses of social performativity, embodiment, colonial mimicry/hybridity, deviance, and historical materialism, I analyze seven in-depth interviews I conducted with Japanese cultural producers who facilitated musical performances on and surrounding U.S. military camps between 1945-53, finding that music imported from and inspired by the United States held a double-edged symbolism as a vector of both liberation from prewar and wartime repression and incurred alignment with a new, globalized patriarchy. Email me for a full copy of my thesis.
coming of age in the age of pandemic: keeping moral stamina alive
an article for Remeeabout me
bio
Born in Kobe, Japan and now based in New York City, Nami is a musician, writer, and multimedia artist whose work considers relationships between the fluid circulation of stories, social imagination, and survival in contexts of asymmetrical power. She is interested in exploring the potential of storytelling to displace distortive visual frames and articulate alternative, multiplicitous narratives about self and place.
email me at nrweatherby@icloud.com to collaborate or for my full CV!
︎ ︎ ︎ ︎
Born in Kobe, Japan and now based in New York City, Nami is a musician, writer, and multimedia artist whose work considers relationships between the fluid circulation of stories, social imagination, and survival in contexts of asymmetrical power. She is interested in exploring the potential of storytelling to displace distortive visual frames and articulate alternative, multiplicitous narratives about self and place.
email me at nrweatherby@icloud.com to collaborate or for my full CV!
︎ ︎ ︎ ︎
Selected Projects & Press
2024 Oxford University “The Royal Shakespeare Company launches international research project to explore the future of creative practice”. Oxford, UK.
2024 The Stage, “RSC announces nine fellows to lead research into sector's 'survival and growth’” by Georgia Luckhurst.
2024 “AHRC-funded international creative research projects launched”. UK Research and Innovation Arts. London, UK.
2024 “New fellows explore the big questions facing the creative and cultural sector”. Royal Shakespeare Company. Stratford, UK.
2024 Documentary score. Flood of Memory. Manzanar, CA.
2024 International Exhibition. “Contemporary Landscape 2024” CICA Museum. Seoul, South Korea.
2024 Solo Exhibition. 「灯台下暗し」 Kyoto, Japan. [upcoming]
2024 Collaborative Multimedia Production. Zerospace. New York, New York. [upcoming]
2023 Solo Exhibition. “they never told us these things,” Barnard College Movement Lab. New York, New York
2023 azine: an Asian/American queer & women’s art collective. Issue 1. Self-published magazine.
2023 Bwog “Speaking The Unspeakable: Nami Weatherby’s “they never told us these things”” by Marino Bubba
2023 Columbia Spectator “CSER Student Advisory Board, AZINE hosts teach-in on center departmentalization” by Amanda Chapa
2022 Athena Showcase. Talk given. “Unmapping Logics of Conquest: Intimacies between Stories of Irradiation from the African Congo, the Northwest Territories, Navajo Territory, and the Bikini Atoll”
2022 Barnard Movement Lab “Nami Weatherby”
2024 Oxford University “The Royal Shakespeare Company launches international research project to explore the future of creative practice”. Oxford, UK.
2024 The Stage, “RSC announces nine fellows to lead research into sector's 'survival and growth’” by Georgia Luckhurst.
2024 “AHRC-funded international creative research projects launched”. UK Research and Innovation Arts. London, UK.
2024 “New fellows explore the big questions facing the creative and cultural sector”. Royal Shakespeare Company. Stratford, UK.
2024 Documentary score. Flood of Memory. Manzanar, CA.
2024 International Exhibition. “Contemporary Landscape 2024” CICA Museum. Seoul, South Korea.
2024 Solo Exhibition. 「灯台下暗し」 Kyoto, Japan. [upcoming]
2024 Collaborative Multimedia Production. Zerospace. New York, New York. [upcoming]
2023 Solo Exhibition. “they never told us these things,” Barnard College Movement Lab. New York, New York
2023 azine: an Asian/American queer & women’s art collective. Issue 1. Self-published magazine.
2023 Bwog “Speaking The Unspeakable: Nami Weatherby’s “they never told us these things”” by Marino Bubba
2023 Columbia Spectator “CSER Student Advisory Board, AZINE hosts teach-in on center departmentalization” by Amanda Chapa
2022 Athena Showcase. Talk given. “Unmapping Logics of Conquest: Intimacies between Stories of Irradiation from the African Congo, the Northwest Territories, Navajo Territory, and the Bikini Atoll”
2022 Barnard Movement Lab “Nami Weatherby”
Selected Residencies & Grants
2024: iF Fellowship. (international consortium comprised of MIT, Oxford, Stanford, Royal Shakespeare Company, Watershed, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Music Center).
2023: Sony Music Spring 2023 Audition Jury Prize
2023: Fulbright Scholarship. The U.S. Fulbright Association
2023: Projects for Peace Grant. Middlebury College
2023: Phi Beta Kappa Inductee Barnard College, Columbia University
2023: Barnard College Exemplary Writing Archives Inductee for “Biting Down on a Double-Edged Promise of Liberation: Popular Jazz Performance & Embodied Inflections of Agency in the Allied Occupation of Japan 1945-53”
2022: Lucyle Hooke Travel Grant
2022: CJC For the Arts Grant
2022-2023: Movement Lab: Artist-in-Residence
2022: Athena Fellowship
2024: iF Fellowship. (international consortium comprised of MIT, Oxford, Stanford, Royal Shakespeare Company, Watershed, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Music Center).
2023: Sony Music Spring 2023 Audition Jury Prize
2023: Fulbright Scholarship. The U.S. Fulbright Association
2023: Projects for Peace Grant. Middlebury College
2023: Phi Beta Kappa Inductee Barnard College, Columbia University
2023: Barnard College Exemplary Writing Archives Inductee for “Biting Down on a Double-Edged Promise of Liberation: Popular Jazz Performance & Embodied Inflections of Agency in the Allied Occupation of Japan 1945-53”
2022: Lucyle Hooke Travel Grant
2022: CJC For the Arts Grant
2022-2023: Movement Lab: Artist-in-Residence
2022: Athena Fellowship