{Re}HAPPENING 13 Artist Lineup
The 2025 {Re}HAPPENING celebrates the event’s 13th anniversary, featuring a host of artists presenting work throughout the Lake Eden campus. Visitors will encounter an immersive collection of projects in the tradition of BMC—installation, sound, movement, visual art, interactive media, and more. Detailed event schedule out now!
slu
Gavin Stewart & Vanessa Owen + Douglas Carr + Colston Byrd & Early Gima
A team comprising Gavin Stewart & Vanessa Owen (Stewart/Owen Dance), Douglas Carr (Soft Talk), Colston Byrd & Early Gima (DRUGStm) will present slu, a performance synthesizing digital and analog media, live dance, sound, and set pieces within an evolving, interactive feedback loop. The project embodies Black Mountain College’s exploratory ethos by merging technology, organic material, and chance encounters in a work that both responds to and reflects on experiences of natural and technological worlds.
mediacircus
//sense
//sense is a Chicago-based experimental participatory theater troupe focusing on community building through an intermix of arts, life, game, and technology. Referencing Fluxus happenings and John Cage’s Musicircus (1967), they create brave spaces through “mediacircus” for participants to unleash their imagination in artmaking through deskilling and unlearning.
Swannanoan Silt
Tristan Turner + Isaac King + Agis Shaw
Swannanoan Silt is a two-channel live projection performance examining how communities in WNC cope and rebuild in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The projected 16mm motion pictures and slide photography engage directly with the hurricane's invisible ecological impact, as the film was processed in the contaminated Swannanoa and French Broad Rivers. This work strives to highlight the perseverance, radical empathy, and dedication to one another in our mountain communities despite such adversity.
Wonder Metal Arabesque
Susan Hefner and Kevin Shea
Experimental dancer Susan Hefner and percussionist Kevin Shea blur the roles of dancer and musician using a unique sound-making/movement vocabulary to create structured improvisational percussion pieces. Their slapstick, nonsensical play creates both accidental and intentional sound, and an absurd use of junk as vehicles for the aural/visual imagination.
The Atlanta Improviser's Orchestra
The Atlanta Improviser's Orchestra is a unique musical experience in conducted improvisation. Conductors take turns guiding a group of some of Atlanta's most talented improvisers in a collaborative and spontaneous group composition that pushes the boundaries of genre and expression.
Tech play
Heather Coker Hawkins + Dr. Maurice Moore
This immersive, evolving installation integrates movement, light, and technology to inspire play and engagement. Heather Coker Hawkins + Dr. Maurice Moore are educators and artists committed to fluidity of exploration and unsettling rigid structure, categorization, and definition.
til human voices wake us
Paul Bright
"til human voices wake us" is a four-channel sound and projected video installation, collaged from elements recorded at two locations: the Quiet House on the campus of BMC and the fields of the Reynolda House Museum of American Art. Sounds and images from both sites evidence differently the erasure of 'pure' nature and acknowledge the presence, even incorporation, of human and man-made intrusions into nearly every environment.
Message In A Bottle (DANCE for RAY JOHNSON)
Dane Cree
A dance/performance homage of Ray Johnson’s KAFKA “reading.” Inspired by parts of Ray’s movements and vocalizations, a cardboard box and a leather belt. This contemporary dance will be performed in front of a projected animation using the square grid structure of Ray’s ‘Calm Center’ painting.
Ant Float Dream Boat
Swannatopia
Swannatopia presents "Ant Float Dream Boat," a series of parade floats on the lake, inspired by ants and how collectively and cooperatively they work together to create a phenomenon called the “ant raft”. A property of surface tension called the “Cheerios effect” happens when a group of ants are close together in water, and they are pulled together, saving one another. Taking influence from the collaborative spirit of BMC and WNC's community response to Helene, the Ant Float Dream Boat will create illuminated ant ballet using shadows and light and pageantry.
Collaborative Paper Quilt
Local Cloth
In this collaborative installation project, participants will be invited to create individual paper quilt squares that will be added to a large quilt frame, about 6ft x 6ft. Once all of the quilt squares are completed, a pattern will emerge to reveal a large, bold, all caps word - "RESIST." Local Cloth, a non-profit network of more fiber artists in WNC, hopes to embody the spirit of non-hierarchical collaboration and embodiment of the power of the collective through this project.
Camera Obscura: A World Turned Upside Down
Grace Clark + Ash Strazzinski
A pop-up camera obscura tent honoring the perspective-altering history of photography at Black Mountain College, both in its role in art and the historic documentation of a legacy that we celebrate through {Re}HAPPENING today.
graceclarkart.com | ashstrazzinski.com
I Was Borne Upstairs
Ellen Boyette & Archer Boyette
This project uses recorded fragmentary poetry derived from Gothic literature as well as projected disintegrations of 16mm film to expand the ideals of the Black Mountain College movement into a feminist space. The projections of hand-manipulated film create a space for language to reverberate, enabling audiences moments of necessary reflection and rumination on the text.
Seeing Is Not Knowing
bea lamar
A happening shaped by invisible cues, where the collective moves through a field of heightened perception, directional gaze, extrasensory activation, and the felt presence of the mysterious threads that connect us all.
Troubled Water 2.0
Caro + Chri
Caro & Chri will present an installation exploring the power of water and impact of impermanence. Made of water bottles saved after Hurricane Helene with live performance and projected images and video of the storm in WNC, Troubled Water 2.0 reprises the artist duo’s 2021 installation and performance in a new context.
Sustenance
Oskar Gambony-Steding
“Sustenance” is an installation using ant farms filled with edible poetry to explore the nourishing aspects of creation.
¡MIRA!
E Medina
A solo performance of English/Spanish poetry and musical sound collage by Mexican-American electronic composer, E Medina. The performance aims to highlight and expand on the historic dialogue between several Black Mountain College artists/composers and their contemporaries in Mexico during the late 1960s and early 70s.
Musical Quiltation
Gwyn Lyles
A workshop which will teach participants to read quilts as musical pieces. Participants will be conducted through exercises which require them to build a repertoire of sounds in which to associate with the patterns of the quilts. Quilts with progressively more complex patterns will be introduced as participants build their skills to play them.
Chinderella a la Normando
Normando Ismay
A participatory workshop and installation by Normando Ismay. This project will result in a collaborative sculpture and will focus on creating a sense of community.
trans-Art performance
Astrid Rieder + Erik Spangler
A transdisciplinary dialog between abstract drawing and new, improvised music. Two artists enter a bidirectional dialog based on mutual inspiration, in which they meet without hierarchy. The performance functions as an experiment, as an exercise in the encounter between two dialog partners, two arts, and thus two different worlds.
www.astrid-rieder.com/en | www.erikspanglermusic.com
the lake & the boy
John Fifield-Perez
The lake & the boy is a weaving and sound installation that evokes the events on the night of January 28th, 1952, when Cy Twombly called Robert Rauschenberg back to shore from a near-fatal, frigid swim out into Lake Eden. It uses the forces between queer body and place to tension a loom, stirring up the muddiness of queer histories at Black Mountain College while simultaneously signaling an alarm and calling in our queer relations to shelter and safety on shore.
The Knitted Plane
Jonathan MacGillis + Jennifer Meakins
The Knitted Plane is a site-specific installation inspired by Black Mountain College’s legacy, particularly Anni Albers’ exploration of textiles as pliable planes. Using digitally knitted fabric stretched over a framework of interconnected pipes, the installation transforms through a series of cuts, creating three-dimensional forms that interact with light, movement, and the surrounding environment. Designed to be adaptable, it offers an immersive, multi-sensory experience for either an outdoor or an interior space, reimagining the intersection of digital fabrication, craft, and spatial practice.
Impulse
Meg Mulhearn + Kim Rueger
This experiential performance will explore concepts of intention, motivation, and curiosity, utilizing modular synthesis, violin, live sampling, and interactive tools engineered to allow audience members to manipulate sounds. The audience will be invited to consider their motivations to change the piece through a series of questions embedded in cyclical visuals, empowering them to participate in a way that prompts an examination of impulse and intent.
PHENOMENAL-PROJECTIVE TEXTILE-FIELD
Daniel C. Remein and Arthur J. Russell
The PHENOMENAL-PROJECTIVE TEXTILE-FIELD is an experience of sensory space woven with a Warp of Language and Sound and a Weft of Color and Kinetics. The project draws directly on the writings of Charles Olson and the writings and textile work of Anni Albers to construct a participatory, multi-sensory installation. PHENOMENAL-PROJECTIVE TEXTILE-FIELD invites participants to explore how the relationships between language and perception (aural, tactile, visual, and kinetic) can modulate a spatial field or manipulate an invisible textile.
Monument to the Promise of Tomorrow
Nyssa Collins, Kyle Cottier, Vanessa Hartman, Madisen Saunders + Kit Buckley
A durational sculpture and performance in which the artists and participants will build and deconstruct a monument over the course of twelve hours. This work is representative of the creative potential of artists and workers that is frustrated and misplaced in our current economic system.
Radio Infrequencies: Walk-and-Talk
Christopher Hamilton
This installation will consist of a long string of radios broadcasting archival recordings of BMC instructors. The radios will be on cascading timers, allowing the participants to stroll casually and listen as if having an (admittedly one-directional) walk-and-talk with a BMC instructor.
If These Trees Could Talk
Forest Gamble, Liz Williams, Leslie Rosenberg
A multimedia installation that will act as a vehicle for sharing reflections about Helene’s damage to the people of WNC and our natural places. It consists of three or four sculpted stumps of different sizes in an environment reminiscent of the forest after Hurricane Helene. A Pepper’s Ghost hologram appears above each stump and animates the stories of Helene victims through a mixed media approach, incorporating stop-motion animation, 3D animation, and 2D animation.
www.dforestgamble.com | www.theartofbelonging.org | www.makemesomeart.com
www.dforestgamble.com | www.theartofbelonging.org | www.makemesomeart.com
The John Cage Room
by Lamplight AVL
LamplightAVL will be curating the North Lodge. Participants will include: Lindsay Mercer, Andrew Weathers, Nate Northrup, Matthew Boman, Peter Speer, Brett Naucke, Olly Scarberry, Tara Foley + Alex Theodoropulos (as Spyrodon), Zach Cooper, Hannah Eicholtz + Abe Leonard (as Mere Fever), Shane McCord + Mikey Powers + Dave Portner (as Ellicott Hooligan). Lamplight AVL is an arts nonprofit based in Asheville NC.
The John Cage Room Lineup:
one from the river, one from the mud
Lindsay Mercer
Using quilts found buried in the creek muck and other found objects, Lindsay builds a tent, a home, and an altar to what once was.
Vine Shrouds
Zoie Reamer
A multimedia installation created from invasive vines manipulated into grid formations, reflecting on the balance of what is forced and what flows.
Installation
by Brett Naucke + Peter Speer
Former Chicagoans and current Asheville-based arsts Brett Naucke & Peter Speer present a self-playing and continuously evolving audio and visual installation inspired by the experimental spirit and techniques of Black Mountain College-era artists.
Performance + Installation: XOR
(Matthew Boman)
XOR is the experimental/electronic project of Matthew Boman. With haunting melodies, pulsating rhythms, and seductive hooks, XOR propels electronic music into a realm of sonic uncertainty. At times ambient, at times darkwave or synthpop, the tracks draw listeners into a labyrinthine soundscape where the familiar dissolves into the enigmatic.
Interactive Web
by Olyver Scarbeary
Drawing from a background in textiles, sculpture, installation, performance, and poetry, Olyver Scarbeary is a maker and facilitator who’s objects and happenings intend to ground audiences in their immediate social and environmental landscapes. By weaving tangible and abstract webs, happenings present an interactive experience aimed at deepening presence and opening the doors to collective imagination.
Performance: Ellicott Hooligan
(David Portner + Michael Powers + Shane McCord)
Ellicott Hooligan is the Western North Carolina based project of David Portner, Michael Powers, and Shane McCord. The trio utilizes improvisation, experimentation, and acoustic instrumentation. Part trance inducing sonic exploration, part emotional release; Ellicott Hooligan occupies a space somewhere between wholeness and nothingness.
Performance: Zach Cooper
Zach Cooper is a Grammy award winning composer, producer and songwriter based in Black Mountain, North Carolina. He has contributed to works by Leon Bridges, Jazmine Sullivan, Jon Batiste, Moses Sumney, Billy Porter, and Ellie Goulding, among others. Zach is also a founding member of experimental soul group, King Garbage.
Performance + Installation
by Andrew Weathers
Andrew Weathers is a composer, improviser, and intermedia artist based in the Front Range region of Colorado. His work is equally concerned with the disjunction of duration and place, as well as improvisation’s prospect as a vessel of discovery and collective practice.
The Demon
by Nathan Northup
The demon will accept requests of malice and ill will from attendants, made anonymously and deposited into a collection box.
Performance: Mere Fever
(Hannah Eicholtz + Abe Leonard)
ode to a pond
by Madeleine Sis
This visual recreation of a pond world serves as an ecological representation and a metaphor for an equitable, harmonious community whose health relies on a balanced exchange of production and consumption. The pond invites participants to practice reciprocity in the wider landscape of life.
Performance: SPYRODON
(Tara Foley + Alex Theodoropulos)
SPYRODON is a sound and a visual project: a collaborative entity between husband-and-wife artist team, Alex Theodoropulos and Tara Foley. SPYRODON creates music, makes all of their own music videos, and makes unique visual content for other bands, labels, and projects.
Superflower
Zoie Reamer
Blending the worlds of experimental, pop, and traditional folk ballads, auditory moments of everyday life, chordal melodies, and haunting vocals come together to weave an immersive tapestry of sound.
Performance: Shane Justice McCord, Splashblade, and Ashley Paul
(Shane McCord + Jake Pugh + Ashley Paul)
Shane McCord’s Tree of Heaven (2025) explores sound through textured acoustic instrumentation, field recording collage, woodwind composition, tape manipulation and lyrical songs. Shane will perform a piece on piano accompanied by Jake Pugh on computer.