manuel arturo abreu artist statement: "I am a Dominican non-disciplinary artist who works with what is at hand to attend to ritual aspects of aesthetics. My work takes shape in sculpture, moving image, social study, research and writing, sound and performance, and contemplation. I grew up in the Bronx and have lived in Portland, Oregon since 2009. I labor at a foundational register to unsettle the history of ideas and explore spirit. I situate my doing, making, and feeling in relation to the lineages of Caribbean thought and art. I collaborate with communities, objects and histories around and within me to explore the capacities of ritual. I use what is at hand because a portable practice which sculpts the semiotic allows nomadic forms of process-based feeling, in the scope of which I want to organize spaces of otherwise and hone nexuses of relation within and across them. Major ongoing projects include home school, a free pop-up art school and space of sacred duty co-founded with Victoria Anne Reis in 2015, and the Alternative History of Abstraction, a suite of independent online courses that explore art, philosophy, and critical technology studies.

John Andrew Wilhite is a Norwegian-American composer, contrabassist, and sound artist based in Oslo. Working at the intersection of contemporary composition, improvisation, and interdisciplinary art, his music ranges from chamber works to opera, and installation work. He is currently a PhD fellow at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Wilhite's music has been commissioned and performed at some of Europe's leading venues and festivals, including the Nordic Music Days, Cafe OTO, Norwegian National Opera, Only Connect, Sound Scotland, Sacred Realism, Ultima, and Barents Spektakel. His opera work has developed through a long creative partnership with Norwegian playwright Finn Iunker, resulting in three operas, including a commission from Den Norske Opera og Ballett. His orchestral and ensemble works have been performed across Norway and internationally. His work Bristol Silence, a work for jazz orchestra thematizing censorship and silence surrounding the history of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, made history as the first piece ever nominated for both the Norwegian Jazzprisen and the Årets Verk prize - two of Norway's most prestigious music awards, representing the country's jazz and contemporary classical communities respectively. The dual nomination speaks to a body of work that resists easy categorisation.

As a performer, Wilhite collaborates regularly with artists including Elliott Sharp, Sofia Jernberg, Katt Hernandez, and Andreas Røysum performing at festivals and venues like Berlin Jazz Festival, Arte Acts, and Nattjazz. He is a member of the contemporary music ensemble Cop Tears, whose recordings include releases of music by John Cage and Theodor Adorno. In 2024, he appeared as soloist with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra alongside ABYSS doublebass quartet in a performance of a new work by Idin Samimi Mofakham. His discography spans jazz, contemporary classical, and experimental music, and includes collaborative recordings with Elliott Sharp, Andreas Røysum Ensemble, Katt Hernandez, Ulla Strauss, and Cop Tears. John Andrew also curates the concert series Improverk. John Andrew holds masters degrees in both classical double bass performance and composition from the Norwegian Academy of Music, where he studied with Håkon Thelin and Trond Reinholdtsen. Before moving to Oslo in 2016, he worked as a research assistent for Boris Groys at New York University.