In November 2020, we welcomed musician and composer Treya Lam into our studios and galleries as they returned to MASS MoCA to work on a site-specific audio/visual piece. In collaboration with Jason Chew (filmmaker) and Marie Lloyd Paspe (choreographer and movement artist ), as well as Bretony McGee (dancer) and s. lumbert (movement collaborator/movement artist), the piece — a year in the making — takes place in Ledelle Moe’s exhibition When and uses music, movement, and film to explore themes of grief, migration, and the element of earth. Lam first visited the exhibition, currently in Building 5, in December 2019 and felt an immediate kinship with Moe and her work. The exhibition meditates on death and mourning, and Lam was in the midst of processing the recent loss of two close family members; Moe’s work struck a poignant chord. Following Lam’s July performance — which christened our Building 5 courtyard stage — they now return to the exhibition for a third time to memorialize the monumental installation on film. The film will be released next year in conjunction with Lam’s upcoming second album.

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About the Artists
Treya Lam (they/them) is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter whose cinematic songs and compositions are built on dynamic classically trained piano, ethereal vocals, meditative guitar, and lush chamber-folk arrangements. Their debut album Good News was created by an all womxn and genderqueer team including Catherine Popper (Jack White, Norah Jones) on upright bass, mixing engineer Erin Tonkon (David Bowie, Esperanza Spalding) and headed by Kaki King who produced and released the record on her label June 2018.

Lam was one of the five artists selected for the 2019 Joe’s Pub Working Group residency and was recently invited to develop a work in response to Ledelle Moe’s exhibit When at MASS MoCA. Treya is a Core Member of the eco-theatre group Superhero Clubhouse – and was part of the development team for the musical Mammelaphant which was selected to participate in Theatre Row’s inaugural Kitchen Sink Residency. This piece was initially developed during a residency at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre center has been performed as a work in progress at HERE Artist Center and The New Ohio.

Lam is an active member of the Resistance Revival Chorus with performances ranging from at Carnegie Hall and the Delacorte Theatre to direct action events throughout New York and DC. Lam’s song Dawn is featured in the RRC’s upcoming album which was released on Ani Difranco’s label Righteous Babe Records. Lam seeks out extraordinary venues and has performed original music at the Prospect Park Bandshell, Greenwood Cemetery, American Museum of Natural History, New York Botanical Gardens, New York Public Library, and Madison Square Park.

Jason Chew is a global filmmaker connecting the Far East with his Asian American Culture. He grew up with a traditional Taiwanese upbringing. With a Marketing background from Carnegie Mellon University he brings his minimalist style to his storytelling. Him and his motley crew of New York bred filmmakers are making giant strides in the Asian American Filmmaking Community. In 2015, Jason completed his Master of Fine Arts in Film Production studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia in Singapore.

Marie Lloyd Paspe (she/her), originally from Singapore, Toronto, and Boston, is a Filipina-American multidisciplinary choreographer, concept creator, movement artist, and singer in Queens, NYC of Canarsie-Lenape Territory. Marie currently performs with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company; and choreographs work for stage, film, and site-specific spaces. She has danced for Carolyn Dorfman, Renee Jaworski, Rami Be’er, and performed with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and The Equus Projects.

Marie is interested in creating and collaborating through a matriarchal, reclamative, and deconstructive lens. Her interests in artmaking focus on making sense of Philippine identity, queerness, and the brown “other” within foreign, colonized spaces. She questions the intersections of her eurocentric dance training within her Filipinx body as an active place of commenting on and challenging normative roles. Marie’s work has been presented internationally in Israel, Philippines, and Berlin; as well as in NYC/NJ: Dixon Place, Queens Theater, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Reeds Arboretum, and Smush Gallery. Her commercial work has been featured virtually for Kapwa Konversations, Good Call NYC, LF Cornerstone, EBY, and Titov Label.

s. lumbert (ze/zim/they) is a genderqueer/trans-masculine humxn dancer and aspiring novice rock climber based in Brooklyn, NY. s. is committed to a continual practice of working to renavigate how to be in zis body and in the world as a trans* person who experiences chronic illness. ze often finds solace and healing in nature. s. is currently working with and performing for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company.

MASS MoCA’s Artist-in-Residence program is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Additional support is provided by the New England Foundation for the Arts through the New England Arts Resilience Fund, part of the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund, an initiative of the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with major funding from the federal CARES Act from the National Endowment for the Arts.