The Mother Patch ©: Mapping Hidden Currents in Diasporic Sound
What is it, exactly?
The Maafa (or great disaster in Swahili) is a term coined to reference the centuries-long commerce in African lives by European and Asian empires that created forced migration routes across the Atlantic and beyond. These routes were, on the surface, merely paths of incredible death and devastation. But, as a lineage holder, golden reminds us that through cultural practice, they also became something else: networks through which African diasporic communities circulated culture, memory, resistance, and joy.
The Mother Patch© is golden lionheart collier’s original body of innovative transdisciplinary research that reimagines the Maafa's routes as dynamic, interconnected, living systems of cultural exchange.
countdown to show opening:
An image of weekly gatherings in New Orleans’ Congo Square shot entirely with analog in-camera effects by golden.
Using cutting-edge tools from cybernetics, network theory, and sound design alongside ancestral wisdom from African and diasporic traditions, golden lionheart’s exciting original research maps what lies beneath the surface: hidden currents of kinship, rhythm, and collective imagination that have allowed our communities not just to survive, but to stay jubilant, creative, and free.
Audium Theatre of Sound hosts a month of 360° immersive
Mother Patch © performances this August!
Founded in San Francisco in 1967, Audium Theatre of Sound was the world’s first spatial sound venue and represents a revolutionary approach to treating space itself as a compositional element rather than just a container for sound. Audium Theatre of Sound is the only theatre in the world constructed specifically for sound movement and acousmatic (complete darkness) spatial composition. Each year, Audium invites 4 amazing Bay Area sound artists to a 3-month residency—2 months to learn their unique bespoke spatial system ending in a month of performances in the gorgeous sanctum pictured below.
The Physical performance Space is a custom-built environment with 176 speakers embedded throughout sloping walls, a floating floor, and a suspended ceiling. Up to 49 listeners sit in concentric circles and are enveloped by sounds that move around, above, and below them in complete darkness.
Check out this short documentary on the inaugural spatial sound residents:
The theatre treats the entire environment—walls, floor, ceiling, lighting, and seating—as part of the composition itself. When sounds move between different speaker locations, their timbre, texture, and harmonic qualities change based on the speakers' technical characteristics, creating a singular, constantly shifting three-dimensional audio landscape that interrogates the ways that spatial performance explores cognition and sonic relationships in real-time.
A member of northern brazil’s palermo descendants speaking to joy’s manifestation in the Maafa’s myriad afterlives.
After a brutal years-long crush on Audium, being chosen as one of their Spatial Audio residents is truly a dream come true! Audium's immersive 360-degree sonic environment is structurally aligned with the work's core logic: seemingly infinite routing possibilities and signal flow, the capacity to surround and envelop listeners in the complex, generative soundscapes. Audium is a sonic crucible for experiencing
the deeply allopoietic world-building of The Mother Patch©.
About golden lionheart collier
golden lionheart collier (he/they) is an award-winning transdisciplinary artistic researcher and archival alchemist whose polymathic practice flourishes in the generative nexus where disciplines, communities, and epistemologies converge. For example, their synergistic work has recently spanned a performance of Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, film/sonic collaborations in the Arctic Circle, hosting a weekly radio show, and receiving a CODEX International Book Arts Biennial Research Fellowship. A current Audium Theatre Spatial Sound Artist in Residence, recent MacDowell fellow, and contributor to the Kirkus-starred Black Punk Now, collier was also a Fulbright Research Grant Nominee and finalist for the XENO PRIZE for Artists' Books. Through engaging, accessible artistic research disseminations, they forge portals to encounter marginalized histories as living testimonies of resistance.
Learn more about their innovative practice here
FAQ
What should I expect to experience at the Audium performances?
You'll be enveloped in a complex, evolving soundscape that shifts and responds over time. You may encounter field recordings, algorithmic/generative processes, ritualistic elements, moments of silence, invitations to participate. Rather than a linear narrative or didactic presentation, you're being invited into a world—to listen deeply, to feel in your body, to imagine alongside others. Come prepared to be present and sit with complexity.
Is this a concert? A lecture? An installation?
The work is difficult to categorize by necessity, unfolding across multiple forms—immersive sonic environments, ritualistic performances, prints, artist books, lens-based work, interactive experiences, oral/aural storytelling, and more. The research will continue to deepen and unfold across iterations, but for the Audium performances specifically, golden's creating an immersive experience where people are invited into active meaning-making that honors both contemporary artistic practice and ancestral ritual traditions.
Who is this work for?
First and foremost, this work is for Black and African folks, the ancestors, diasporic folks, and all who carry this knowledge in their bodies, hearts, and spirits. Fellow sound artists and modular synth nerds especially welcome! That said, the work will speak to anyone interested in alternative ways of knowing, creative resistance, sonic practice, spatial audio, sound synthesis, systems thinking, or the question of how we collectively imagine and build liberated futures. This work is for everyone who is hungry for unique experiences and revels in the lush complexity of our world.
get in touch.
no, seriously.
©golden lionheart collier, 2026. All Rights Reserved. The Mother Patch© and all associated research, including text, images, audio, video, and conceptual frameworks, are original works protected by U.S. copyright law and international treaties. Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or commercial use is strictly prohibited. For permissions, inquiries, or collaboration: [email protected]