Molly Balcom Raleigh makes participatory performance and installation through media including food, singing, found objects and vernacular texts. Through a widely-varied practice, she seeks to surface the places within large social systems where individual actors, working solo or collaboratively, can effect radical change and regain agency. She has presented her work at many public sites and galleries, including Northern Spark, The Soap Factory, the Walker Art Center, The Nash Gallery, and The Wormfarm Institute. She is twice a fellow of Public Art Saint Paul’s groundbreaking City Art Collaboratory and a 2014-2015 Art(ists) on the Verge fellow. Balcom Raleigh studied playwriting and directing at the University of Minnesota and holds an Individually-designed Bachelor of Arts in Food Studies and Performance Studies from Goddard College. Originally from the US, she currently lives and works in Finland.

I'm developing a participatory performance project around collective listening practice and exploration of the aural environment. Right now my research is on how to put together a field recording setup from a smartphone, mini-microphone and headphones for use by anyone who would like to particpate in the listening exercises and workshops I'm developing. Eventually I hope to make the library of sounds recorded via this listening practice available to composers, DJs and whoever else might like to use them as raw material for collage and beats.