Jonnie Nelson (he/him) artist statement:
As a trained musician who practiced architecture for seven years, I find a frustrating disconnect between the built environment and the soundscape. I feel in the west there is a vast cultural bias favoring vision, to the detriment of listening. In response to this critique, I began a practice creating installation art, with a focus on interactivity, senses, and the body. In 2024, I was awarded the Bob Hull Research Grant by The Miller Hull Partnership to build sound art installations and explore sounds in the built environment. My academic work at MIT further explores authorship, power, meaning, and delight of auditory phenomena.
Outside of my academic work, I write children’s music as a hobby. My spiritual home is a century-old family cabin in Wisconsin. Leonard Bernstein’s The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard is my greatest inspiration.