Fri 4/24 @ 5-7:30PM

You never know what will be going on at Akron Soul Train, which provides short-term “residencies” for artists to work on a specific project. These artists could work in virtually any discipline and increasingly, they seem to cross boundaries to create projects that draw on multiple disciplines.

That’s the case with the two new projects which go on view Wednesday April 22 and official open with a free public reception on Friday April 24.

Jeff France is an Akron-based musician and visual artist, who has played in punk bands and explored electronic music and soundscapes while creating graphics, animation and video to expand upon the sonics. His An Attempt at Three Things with Four People at Akron Soul Train installation in AST’s CapSoul Gallery combines sound and video projections to “deconstruct the nature of classical rhythm structure in music.” With three projections playing simultaneously videos might sync up or go off in different directions.

“I experiment with musical and time-based video mediums,” says France. “I am visually influenced by the filmmaker Michel Gondry and the mosaic aspects of David Hockney’s Joiners. Musically, I’m inspired by turntablism, Musique Concrète, and Neoclassical composers. I draw on aspects of these influences to create large-format video sculptures and installations that contain loosely composed music for multiple playback devices. Everything I did led me to the conclusion that the works should not attempt to be hectic and instead be slow and surreal.”

Also going on view in Akron Soul Train’s galley is Kim Kapera’s The Lucky Ship, which delves into her family history of how her grandparents left Poland for the U.S. in order to reconnect with her own family story. Using photographs, multi-sensory displays, and ephemera, the exhibit “explores themes of immigration, homesickness, assimilation, the grandparent and grandchild relationship, and grief.”

“Following the death of my maternal grandparents, I had to reconcile a dual identity that suddenly felt hollow and conflicted,” she says. “What happens when we lose ties to language, culture, and memory? How can we heal something that feels both personal and foreign to us? As anti-immigrant sentiments continue to rise globally, my objective is to instill greater empathy toward foreigners by sharing pieces of my own family’s history.”

In addition to the show, Kapera and Akron Soul Train will host a community pierogi dinner at The Electric Frankenstein on Saturday May 8 @ 6-8pm, where you can share stories about your own culture with other guests. Go to akronsoultrain.org/events for more information.

For more information about the shows, visit www.akronsoultrain.org.