THEWAVES create temporal installations and evanescent events celebrating water using sound and light. Connecting to the depths, we explore the historical, ecological and political importance of water in natural and urban environments, neglected local histories, in human and non-human communities. Works appeal to feeling through the senses for an audience that is always a participant. We are inspired by environmental and sound art, relationality, happenings, site-specificity, heightened perception, urban geography, libidinal economies, and cultural practices of immersion such as concerts and carnivals. These traditions engage without necessitating an intellectual or artistic background or explanation, and leave us with a renewed sense of connection to community and environment. THEWAVES include artist-architect Christie Pearson, writer-DJ Marcus Boon and sound artist-composer Darren Copeland.

CHRISTIE PEARSON Studied architecture at the University of Waterloo. Critic and instructor in the architecture schools at Waterloo, Ryerson and Toronto.  Member of the art-activist October Group (1995-2000). Co-founded of the wade festival of installation and performance art in 2002, and the performance collective Urbanvessel in 2005. Concept and environments for theatre works Slip and Stitch 1. Co-curated the TTC-based performances for Four Lines. Founded THEWAVES for water-based performance-events in 2006. Environments amplify our bodies’ relation to the natural and constructed, engaging architecture, urbanism, ecology, theatre, sculpture, installation, poetry, and ritual. Research in world traditions of public bathing feeds a diverse artistic practice rooted in space. Writing and work has been widely published and exhibited. Exhibitions in Toronto include the Contact, Nuit Blanche and Soundaxis festivals.. www.christiepearson.ca

MARCUS BOON is a writer, DJ and associate professor of contemporary literature and cultural studies in the English department at York University.  His work moves between interests in sound and music cultures of all kinds, transcendental and spiritual cultures and practices of various sorts, contemporary popular cultures around the world and theory of the most incomprehensible but valid kind. Aside from teaching, Boon has written about music for the New Musical Express, Wire, Signal to Noise and others.  He is the author of The Road of Excess: A History of Writers on Drugs, editor of America: A Prophecy by Sparrow and wrote the introduction to Walter Benjamin’s On Hashish.  He has been DJing and performing for 20 years. The Orixasound project is concerned with amplified transmission of sustained tones, field recordings of nature sound, folk musics from around the world and silence. www.marcusboon.com

DARREN COPELAND is an electroacoustic composer and sound designer who has produced work since 1985 for concerts, radio, theatre, dance, and site-specific installation. After studying theatre sound design at Niagara College, he studied electroacoustic composition with Barry Truax (Simon Fraser University) and Dr. Jonty Harrison (University of Birmingham). He has composed a number of soundtracks for theatre and dance productions in Toronto, including works by Jessica Runge, Danny Grossman Dance Company, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, and Factory Theatre. Darren Copeland is the Artistic Director of New Adventures in Sound Art, which produces electroacoustic and experimental sound art events in Toronto, Canada, and is the President of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology. Previously he served on the board of directors for Canadian Electroacoustic Community, Vancouver Pro Musica, and Rumble Theatre. www.darrencopeland.net