The Contemporary Museum is pleased to announce the launch of The Story of This Place: Charm City Remix, an audio walking tour of Baltimore by Boston-based artist Kianga Ford.
Watch MovieBoxStudio’s documentary video about Charm City Remix on current TV.
Charm City Remix is part of a series of site-specific narratives created by Ford that offer a portable audio soundtrack that guides listeners on a walk through a city, neighborhood, or location. The Story of this Place: Charm City Remix is a fictional narrative informed by the stories shared with Ford by people in Baltimore during her residency at the Contemporary Museum over the past year. Ford’s Baltimore narrative features a new musical score by Baltimore-based Erik Spangler and Brian Sacawa and is influenced by the area’s rich history, architecture, geography, social climate, and diverse demographics.
Ford’s unique walking-tour begins around the corner from the Contemporary Museum in the parks of Mt. Vernon, the center of one of the most visited and historic neighborhoods in Baltimore and a central geographical marker of the four distinct quadrants of the city, with Charles Street marking the East/West Divide and Monument offering a break between North and South. As Ford’s narrative unfolds, listeners will be offered choices in the four cardinal directions.
About Kianga Ford:
Kianga Ford works primarily with sound and environment. Her installations and site-specific projects like The Story of This Place, are often grounded in narrative and ask questions about the relationship between physical and cultural proximity. In the increasingly considered field of sound art, she has worked collaboratively with a range of international composers from Toronto to Berlin. She has been working on The Story of This Place since 2003 and has completed stories for Los Angeles, North Miami, Bergen, Norway, and Alexandria, Egypt and is currently developing new works for Italy and Turkey. Her work has been shown at venues including The Studio Museum in Harlem, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, The Banff Centre (Alberta, Canada), USF Verftet (Bergen, Norway), The Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, and the 2006 California Biennial at The Orange County Museum of Art.
About the Composer:
Erik Spangler (a.k.a. DJ Dubble8) is a composer and electronic musician working within a wide range of listening environments. His compositions have been performed across the United States and internationally from Canada to China, by ensembles including the Atlantic Brass Quintet, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and International Contemporary Ensemble. Recent performances as a turntablist include collaborations with Cornell Symphony Orchestra, Sonic Circus, Ithaca College Percussion Ensemble, and VJ Art Jones. Spangler works regularly with saxophonist Brian Sacawa as the genre-defying duo Hybrid Groove Project.
HOW TO EXPERIENCE CHARM CITY REMIX
There are two ways that you can experience Kianga Ford’s Charm City Remix
1. Come to the Contemporary Museum, pick up a map of Ford’s tour routes and borrow an iPod from the museum.
2. Download a Tour Map and Ford’s Charm City Remix MP3 files here
