Test Pattern 03: Moor Mother

Doors open at 6:30 PM. Performance begins at 7 PM.

Can’t make it to the ICA? Watch the livestream HERE!

Moor Mother reunites with Richmond musician Ohbliv—one of the producers on her debut studio album Fetish Bones—for a live musical performance. They will be joined by Philadelphia-based artists Vitche-Boul Ra and justmadnice, and local cellist Elijah Hall. Followed by a conversation with artist and VCU professor Caitlin Cherry.

Test Pattern is a hybrid performance series that invites visiting artists to use the ICA auditorium as an experimental production studio, inspired by the legacy of public access TV and alternative video movements in the US.

During each week-long residency, the artists will collaborate with members of the local community, transforming the ICA auditorium into a space for music, movement, activism, and deep conversations. Each week will culminate in a live performance and broadcast.

Test Pattern presents the public with a unique window into the creative process, to observe rehearsals, participate in live tapings and online streams of the performances, and to later access each episode in its final form.

6:30 PM: Doors open with refreshments and a cash bar
7 PM: Performance begins
8:30 PM: Intermission
8:45 PM: Panel conversation

Please note that masks are required inside the auditorium.

Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother) is a national and international touring musician, poet, visual artist, and workshop facilitator. She is a vocalist in three collaborative performance groups: Irreversible Entanglements, Moor Jewelry, and 700 Bliss. As Moor Mother, she released her debut album Fetish Bones to critical acclaim in 2016. Since then, Camae has released multiple albums each year, working with frequent collaborators, Olof Melander, Mental Jewelry, and billy woods. Her latest work, Black Encyclopedia of the Air, came out in September 2021 on ANTI- Records. Camae has facilitated workshops at Cornell University, MOFO Festival, Moogfest, Black Dot Gallery, among others. She is the co-founder of the multidisciplinary collective Black Quantum Futurism (BQF), co-founder and curator of Rockers! Philly, and has been an Artist-in-Residence at West Philadelphia Neighborhood Time Exchange and WORM! Rotterdam residency. Camae is a Pew Fellow (2017), a The Kitchen Inaugural Emerging Artist Awardee (2017), and a Leeway Transformation Awardee.

Bradford Caudle, better known by his stage name Ohbliv, is an American record producer from Richmond, Virginia. He is best known for his work with Nickelus F, and the two have released the mixtapes Yellow Gold and Yellow Gold 2. Ohbliv is also known for his beattapes published through Bandcamp, having released over thirty since 2009. He also records under several aliases, such as Bradford Thomas, and Dark Twaine. Several of his beat tapes have been released in physical format, primarily on cassette and vinyl and released through labels Thrash Flow and Fat Beats. In 2016, he was one of four producers featured in Fat Beats’ Baker’s Dozen series.

Vitche-Boul Ra is a Transhumanist Folk-Theurgist with a BFA in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts from The University of the Arts. To develop a physicalized performance practice adjacent to western sculpture, It also studied dance in the UArts School of Dance directed by Donna Faye Burchfield. In Philadelphia, It has shown solo and collaborative works at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Vox Populi Gallery, Little Berlin Gallery, and Hightide Gallery. In New York, Ra performed in Fridman Gallery’s 5th Anniversary Festival and was curated into the Center for Performance Research’s Spring Movement Festival 2018 as well as the New Dance Alliance’s 2019 Performance Mix Festival: 33. In 2021 It has collaboratively worked alongside Moor Mother (Goddess) showing at Pace Gallery (NY), CalArts REDCAT (LA), and The Kitchen (NY).

justmadnice is an African-Diasporan singer-songwriter currently residing in Philadelphia. From minimalist, delicate, folk tunes to a stage performance that will shake you to your core, justmadnice is entering into an era of experimental sound. While still holding onto their love of minimalism, they are clearly influenced by elements of noise, psychedelic rock, and negro spirituals. Names like Billie Holiday come to mind when you hear their spellbinding vocals and their choice of instrumentation hits right in the pocket of blues and jazz. Brushes on the drums, trumpet in the air, guitar licks coming straight from the gut, justmadnice isn’t interested in sticking to any one genre, but rather creating the sonic world that best communicates their spirit, their song, and that tangible intangible force that connects us all.

Elijah Hall is a multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter with a heavy concentration in cello and vocal performance. A Hampton Roads native, he studied cello performance in Richmond as an undergraduate in VCUarts Department of Music. He has performed at both Carnegie Hall and dive bars with the same enthusiasm and skill. His talents cross disciplines and genres and he hopes to bring his knowledge and ear to this experimental performance piece with Moor Mother. This will be his 3rd collaboration for a performance at the ICA, after Richard Kennedy’s “Touch of Elegance” opera, and Benae Beamon’s “Time Blackened for the Capture of Dawn”, both in 2019. 

Caitlin Cherry draws on painting, sculpture and installation in her multifaceted practice, coalescing into articulate and alluring representations of Black femininity. Filtering these media through layers of digital manipulation, her work draws parallels between Black femme bodies, frequently commodified and positioned as sexual assets, and the seductiveness of art objects in the commercial gallery circuit. Cherry is currently Assistant Professor of Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University and the founder of the new online program Dark Study, a contra-institutional space for radical learning about art and theory. Her paintings have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Performance Space and The Studio Museum in Harlem, among other institutions of note. She is a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Fellowship Residency and Leonore Annenberg Fellowship.