Isaac Silber

Recording//Mixing//Mastering Engineer

Lavender Deal

Performance by Niko Hallikainen at the Tibet House for Performa 2023

November 2023

Niko Hallikainen (b. 1989, Helsinki, FI) is a performance poet and novelist whose text-based works delve into themes of class, sexuality, romance, collective grief, and mysticism. His durational performances intertwine personal narratives and historical collective memory, drawing from all facets of popular culture and urban life to underscore how societal shifts profoundly influence the human condition. For his New York debut at the Finnish Pavilion Without Walls, Hallikainen will reflect on desire and loss through the narrative of a romance in Lavender Deal. The text, which unfolds as a site-specific, two-part narrative, concerns a pandemic-era relationship over Zoom with a long-distance lover whose course shifts once they plan to meet in person.

Calling on the titans of New York’s queer art and literary scenes of the 1970s and 1980s as “guiding spirits,” Hallikainen contextualizes longing and solitude through the art and writing of iconoclastic cultural figures such as David Wojnarowicz, William S. Burroughs, and John Wieners in an intergenerational “séance” inspired by poet John Giorno’s Buddhist ceremonies. During the performance, Hallikainen will incorporate live sound mixing and scents to create a multi-sensory poetic narrative.

Curated by Job Piston, Curator at Large.
A co-production with Tibet House.

This performance featured a sculptural installation by Man Yau.

I contributed the sound system design and installation, and live sound mixing for the run of performances.