Abinadi Meza (born 1977 in

Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

, Texas) is an American visual artist,

sound artist Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary time-based medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, ...

, and experimental

filmmaker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

whose works focus on transformation, spatial politics, and poetics. His

films A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of Visual arts, visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are gen ...

sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary Time-based media, time-based Artistic medium, medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in Cross-genr ...

performances A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Performance has evolved glo ...

, and installations have been presented at

Anthology Film Archives Anthology Film Archives is an international center for the film preservation, preservation, film studies, study, and film distribution, exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent film, independent, experimental film, ex ...

, New York;

Brooklyn Film Festival The Brooklyn Film Festival (BFF), prior to 2011 called the Brooklyn International Film Festival (BiFF) is an independent film festival held every June in New York City. Started by Marco Ursino, Susan Mackell, Abe Schrager, and Mario Pegoraro in ...

, New York;

MAXXI MAXXI (, 'national museum of 21st-century arts') is a national museum of contemporary art and architecture in the Flaminio neighborhood of Rome, Italy. The museum is managed by a foundation created by the Italian Ministry of Culture. The buildi ...

, Rome;

Matadero Madrid Matadero Madrid is the site of a former slaughterhouse, the El Matadero y Mercado Municipal de Ganados (English: Municipal Slaughterhouse and Cattle Market) in the Arganzuela district of Madrid. Today, it is a contemporary arts centre. History ...

; Cinemateca Nacional del Ecuador, Quito; Cinemateca do Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro; SF Cinematheque, San Francisco;

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill, Minneapolis, Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in ...

, Minneapolis;

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome, Italy. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History 19th century In 1893, a group of American architect ...

;

Irish Museum of Modern Art The Irish Museum of Modern Art (), also known as IMMA, is Ireland's leading national institution for the collection and presentation of modern and contemporary art. It is located in Kilmainham, Dublin. History Irish art collector Gordon Lam ...

, Dublin;

Blaffer Art Museum Blaffer Art Museum is a non-collecting contemporary art museum located in the Arts District of the University of Houston campus. Housed in the university’s Fine Arts Building, it is part of the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts. It was ...

, Houston; FACT, Liverpool;

La Casa Encendida La Casa Encendida is a social and cultural centre in central Madrid (on the Ronda de Valencia where it is met by Calle Valencia). It began operations in December 2002. It belongs to the Fundación Montemadrid (the formal title of which is Funda ...

, Madrid;

Minneapolis Institute of Arts The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United Stat ...

;

Mexic-Arte Museum Mexic-Arte Museum is a fine arts museum in Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis Count ...

, Austin;

New Orleans Film Festival The New Orleans Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the nonprofit organization New Orleans Film Society, a film society founded in 1989. The festival has been held since the society's inception. The festival takes place in mid-O ...

;

, Madrid, and Lisbon Architecture Triennale. Meza primarily uses ephemeral, precarious, site-specific and salvaged materials in his work. As a young artist Meza studied

Butoh is a form of Japanese dance theatre that encompasses a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement. Following World War II, butoh arose in 1959 through collaborations between its two key founder ...

with teachers from Japan, Europe and South America.Debating the Darkness: Talking Film with Abinadi Meza (NY Arts Magazine)
/ref> Later he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the

University of Northern Iowa The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) is a public university in Cedar Falls, Iowa, United States. UNI offers more than 90 majors across five colleges. The fall 2024 total enrollment was 9,283 students. The university was initially founded in 1 ...

, (1999); a Master of Fine Arts degree from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

(2004); and a Master of Architecture degree from

SCI-Arc Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is a private architecture school in Los Angeles, California. SCI-Arc was founded in 1972 when it was initially regarded as both institutionally and artistically avant-garde. It consists of ...

, the

Southern California Institute of Architecture Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is a private architecture school in Los Angeles, California. SCI-Arc was founded in 1972 when it was initially regarded as both institutionally and artistically avant-garde. It consists o ...

(2009). Meza's family background is Native American, Portuguese, Moroccan, and Russian. Meza is a professor of Interdisciplinary Practices and Emerging Forms in the School of Art at the

University of Houston The University of Houston (; ) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas, United States. It was established in 1927 as Houston Junior College, a coeducational institution and one of multiple junior colleges formed in ...

. In 2014 he was awarded a

Rome Prize The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Recipients must be American citizens. Prizes have been aw ...

in Visual Art by the

. In 2021 his book Manual For a Future Desert was published by Mousse Publishing, Milan, Italy.

Selected filmography

*Snow, 2001 *All Light is Late, 2001 *Sonnambula, 2001 *Marco Polo, 2002 *The City in Which I Find You, 2002 *Double Blind, 2004 *The Prisoner, 2005 *Seeing is Dreaming, 2006 *Silence, 2006 *Left Songs, 2006 *Beacon, 2007 *Sound Sweep, 2009 *Like Snow Falling, 2010 *News From Home, 2012 *Black Box Recorder, 2012 *Hour Between Dog and Wolf, 2013 *Melencholia, 2013 *The Dream Surplus I, 2013 *Ghost Station, 2014 *Air, Condition, 2014 *Hand By Hand, 2015 *Nocturne, 2015 *The Dream Surplus II, 2017 *Monuments in Reverse, 2017 *The Dream Surplus III, 2019 *Time Crystals, 2021 *Surrounded by Colors We Could No Longer See, 2023 *Umbrella Music, 2023 *Tlaloc (Lines Drawn in Water), 2023 *Parangolé, 2023

Selected Sound Performances/Concerts

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a not-for-profit institution in the Museum District, Houston, Texas, founded in 1948, dedicated to presenting contemporary art to the public. As a non-collecting museum, it strives to provide a forum for visua ...

*Deep Wireless Festival of Radio & Transmission Art (Toronto) *Ende Tymes Festival of Noise & Experimental Liberation (Brooklyn) *FILE Festival/Hipersonica (São Paulo) *Helicotrema Festival (Italy) *Lisbon Architecture Triennale (Portugal) *

Muesum (Rome) *O' (Milan) *Radio Kinesonus (Tokyo) *Radiophrenia (Glasgow) *Radius FM (Chicago) *Scaniaparken (Mälmo) *Sonorities Festival (Belfast) *

(Minneapolis)

References

External links

Interview, Arts+Culture Texas, 2014
*
"Murmur" project, Finland. Commissioned by the Culture Programme of the European CommissionBio information, Art NewsAll Things Considered: National Public Radio Feature'Sound Sweep' mobile radio project in Los Angeles. Vague Terrain Journal, Toronto, 2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meza, Abinadi Living people American video artists American sound artists American conceptual artists University of Minnesota alumni American installation artists American experimental filmmakers Southern California Institute of Architecture alumni Filmmakers from Texas 1977 births