NewBridge Gallery is currently closed—you can still shop NewBridge Books.
We will reopen Friday 16 October, 5pm for the preview of Form and Display!
Join Spike Island Associates for an interactive online conversation and listening event with writer, professor and curator Alexander Ghedi Weheliye and multi-disciplinary artist and DJ Olukemi Lijadu, on the occasion of her solo exhibition, Feedback, at Spike Island.
Alexander and Olukemi will come together to discuss the exciting possibilities and challenges of researching, thinking about, and thinking through sound and music. They’ll reflect on the legacies of electronic music and the space where personal histories and social research collide, through the lens of Olukemi’s film commission, Feedback (2026), and Alexander’s current project, Between Continents – a critical memoir about their early life in East Germany and Somalia.
Music and visuals will underpin the conversation, with the audience being taken on a sonic journey from heavy baselines, to emotional vocals, and electronic, funk-driven productions. They’ll discuss the process of collecting and incorporating non-traditional media, such as film, music and collage, into scholarly and non-scholarly writing. How do you approach research around a field of study which is under-researched? Can DJing be used as a methodology that travels across mediums?
Book your ticket on Eventbrite.
This is an online event ofr Kaleidoscope Network members only. Members of NewBridge are automatically part of the Kaleidoscope Network.
Olukemi Lijadu is a multi-disciplinary artist and DJ, with a focus on moving image and sound. She recently was a recipient of London’s ICA Image Behaviour grant where she was commissioned to create and debut her most recent film-performance Guardian Angel. In 2018, she graduated from Stanford as a masters student in Philosophy where she focused on African philosophical systems. Her academic background grounds her research-based approach to her artistic practice. Her work explores questions around music of the diaspora, heritage and the complexity of feeling.
Alexander Ghedi Weheliye is a writer, professor, and curator focusing on Black Studies, critical theory, gender and sexuality studies, social technologies, and popular culture. They are Malcolm S. Forbes Professor in the Department of Modern Culture and Media and the Brown Arts Institute at Brown University. They are the author of Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity (2005), Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human (2014), and Feenin: R&B Music and the Materiality of BlackFem Voices and Technology (2023). Currently, Weheliye is working on two projects.
The event will be streamed via Zoom and live captioning will be available.
This event has been organised by Spike Island for the Kaleidoscope Network, a collaboration between Spike Island (Bristol), Primary Nottingham), The NewBridge Project (Newcastle), Bloc Projects (Sheffield) and Eastside Projects (Birmingham). Membership of any of the above organisations automatically makes you part of the Kaleidoscope Network.
Monday 20 April 2026
6.00–7.30pm
Free for Kaleidoscope Network members
This event is accessed remotely online.
The NewBridge Project is a charity, registered charity no. 1173849.
We are grateful to our funders, including Arts Council England, Newcastle City Council, Garfield Weston Foundation, Jerwood Foundation, Community Foundation North East, Newcastle University and the The North East Mayoral Strategic Authority.
We are proud to be a Gallery of Sanctuary.
