Xana is a live loop musician, sound designer, interaction designer and poet who often works collaboratively with other artists, researchers, theatre practitioners and filmmakers.
Xana’s interests are the intersection of tech and the arts, interrogating the next evolution of queerness within futurism, inclusivity in tech, narratives of migration, trauma/depression, and archives as the basis for redefining the voice of the other. Xana is also passionate about working with young people, devising creative workshops, and encouraging the engagement of others with improvisational sonic experiences.
In 2018, Xana held a workshop ‘Challenging Categories and the Hierarchy of Language’ at Iniva exploring the impact of language found in libraries, how problematic cataloguing systems affect our search for information, determine what we find and ultimately shape the knowledge that we acquire.
Xana’s past works include sound design for The Ancestors Came directed by Cecile Emeke and commissioned for the ‘Soul of a Nation: Art in the age of Black Power’ exhibition at Tate Modern, 2017; a sound piece at Sound Acts Festival in Greece, entitled Nothing to hide, 2017; a sound installation
titled De/personalisation in group exhibition ‘The Other’d Artists’ at Transmission Gallery, Scotland, 2017; and sound design for Half Breed which was shown at Soho Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe and recently finished touring in India.
Xana is one of the co-organisers of Afrotech Fest (afrotechfest.co.uk), is artist-in-residence at the Tate Schools Workshop Programme and is a guest artist on the Seed Ensemble album released on Jazz Refreshed.