Adrian Wood

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I am a sound artist.

I make installations, soundscapes and happenings that take place within and beyond gallery walls, in underground tunnels, woodland trails and over the airwaves as radio broadcasts. I collaborate with dancers, architects, filmmakers, activists, pastors, musicians, scientists and the public at-large to tell stories that distill and center emotional truths emerging from political experience.

I sample and collage elements of research – text quotes, field recordings, movement patterns – to build my compositions and installations. My research methods include traditional academic modes, as well as journalistic interviewing and experiential processes like drawing and deep listening. I record and edit sounds from everyday life, like creek babble and wind rattles, or voices that speak, scream and whisper. I analyze my research to reveal invisible forces and histories that shape our social, sonic, ecological world.

My projects create spaces for play and reflection, where audiences can encounter and disrupt their roles in hierarchies, from societal-scale to interpersonal. I aim to dissolve hierarchies and reconnect audiences to themselves, their environments and each other through listening. Listening is at the heart of my work as a mode of extending attention to others that can disrupt harmful patterns and ignite collective joy.

Bio

Adrian has shown work in the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Union Docs, Institut für Alles Mögliche (Berlin), Hundred Years Gallery (London), the University of Virginia and the College of William & Mary. Adrian’s work has been featured in online broadcasts and publications including Hyperallergic, WHRO, small audio art, Viral Ecologies and Jupiter Review. Adrian has been recognized and awarded through institutions including UnionDocs, The University of Michigan, Experimental Sound Studio, Robert Wood Johnnson Foundation, Johns Hopkins Peabody School of Music and the University of Chicago.

Adrian plays music and live sound as Sugarlift. Find their music and live sound works here on Soundcloud. As a live musician, Wood has shared stages with George Lewis, Claire Rousay, Cindy Lee, Christopher DeLaurenti, Zomes and more.

In their role as Multimedia Producer with the University of Virginia's Repair Lab, Adrian wrote and produced the podcast The Repair Lab. Season 1, Wading Between Two Titans, won two 2023 Signal Awards in the categories of Sustainability & Environment and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Season 2, Crosswinds, was shortlisted for a Press Gazette Future of Media award in 2024.

Additional links:

CV

Movement Reel

LinkedIn