Nadia Buyse is our current researcher-in-residence at ONCA.

About the Research

Utilizing a trans-disciplinary practice building on a foundation of Fluxus art, DIY punk, and cultural activism, my intent is to interrogate the role of passivity and victimization as it applies to work produced by, or for, marginalized bodies performing within the axis of contemporary art and music-based performance. How do we approach space as temporal and conceptual concerns when making political art? How are punk and decolonization being re-framed within practice led art discourses? As a part of my practice based research, I am creating a Fluxus style score book called “How to DIY (DIE)” which will act as a performative conduit or instigating tool to create collaborative ‘installations’ using the tropes of punk music.

This performance will tour like a DIY band. This Performance will use drums, amps, guitars, screams, blood. sweat. tears. This performance will be site specific. This performance will never happen the same way twice. This research will contribute original knowledge to how DIY and punk have directly contributed to nomadic art practices, social justice histories, cultural activism and empowerment narratives; while also renegotiating the value systems attached to lo-fi music by including this aesthetic into contemporary art discourse.

HOW TO DIE (DIY) is a Band/ social sculpture/ an installation/ a performance/ an experiment aimed at creating an anthology of work as a means to process and reconcile the proximity to death and trauma when you are a “marginalized” person. This process exists outside of production and without the expectation of making art that is marketable because of social capital and inclusion initiatives hand fed by cultural gatekeepers. THIS SHIT IS PUNK.

This body of work will be included in my dissertation entitled 37 Bands: Dismantling hegemonic concepts of identity in contemporary art through DIY Punk to be completed at the University of Sussex School of Film, Music, and Media. – Nadia Buyse

About the Artist

Nadia Buyse is a musician, trans-media artist and cultural activist who starts bands as art projects. Using tropes of pop music and DIY processes, her work is in conversation with Post diaspora, nomadic art practices, emotional incapacitation, consumer technologies, hybrid art practices, decolonization, intersectional feminism and transnational communities. Nadia has released music, published text, taught workshops, exhibited work and performed internationally. She has had the opportunity to collaborate with many people but thinks name dropping is boring A F. She is currently a research assistant at the Music, Film and Media school at the University of Sussex and in the bands G L ü T E N, Knight of the Comet, and DUBAIS.  

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