David Chavannes

I blend music and sound performances to animate and interrogate histories of race, gender, sexuality, immigration, and knowledge. I recently received a grant from The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation to complete my dissertation. The project responds to the ecological and sociopolitical legacies of British colonialism in the Caribbean by revealing a speculative narrative through fragments of sound and text. In the story, I dramatize futures of care, repair, and equity for the peoples of colonized lands. 

I believe in the creative, transformative power of empathy and compassion, and I believe that art can help us cultivate these practices. As an aspiring history and music educator, I want to help young people foster critical, compassionate understandings of themselves and their worlds by developing critical, compassionate ways of thinking about history.