About
okcandice / sonic seamstress is an artist-curator living and working in Birmingham. Their practice is concerned with methodologies of grief, Black audio-visual archives and uses of the sonic in civic space.
okcandice is a Guest Curator for Sheffield Doc Fest 2025; previously the 2023/24 Woven Foundation Curatorial Fellow, Digital Curator at Birmingham Museum & Gallery, Jerwood Foundation Curatorial Fellow, Obsidian Foundation Poetry Fellow and artist-curator at Eastside Projects.
In recent years, they have performed and exhibited work at Sophiensæle (Berlin), New Art Gallery (Walsall), The Barber Institute (Birmingham), Festsaal Kreuzberg (Berlin), Fabric (London), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Kunstverein Hamburg, Birmingham Symphony Hall, NN Contemporary Art (Northampton), Gropius Bau (Berlin), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Southbank Centre (London), HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), and BOZAR (Brussels).
okcandice has been a Guest Lecturer at the Royal College of Art (London), an acquisitions advisor for the Government Art Collection (London) and has delivered workshops and talks at Wysing Arts Centre (Cambridgeshire), D&AD (London), IKON Gallery (Birmingham), New Art Exchange (Nottingham) and ifa Gallery (Berlin).
okcandice hosts the monthly radio shows Bedtime Stories on Cashmere Radio (Berlin) and Must Be The Music on Refuge Worldwide (Berlin). They are also the founder-director of Bedtime Stories; a sonic practice studio championing experiments in sound and oral heritage.
Offering
> artist
> live performance
> live sound
Info
Offering is a live series exploring rituals of grief in shared space through sound, immersive performance, and archival materials. Each iteration is site-specific and facilitated for collective eflections on bereavement.
Performances
2025 Offering V8 — Medūza Gallery (Vilnius, LT)
2023 Offering V7 — NN Contemporary Art (Northampton, UK)
2023 Offering V6 — Gropius Bau (Berlin, DE)
2023 Offering V5 — Haus am Waldsee (Berlin, DE)
2023 Offering V4 — La Casa Encendida (Madrid, ES)
2023 Offering V3 — Oyoun (Berlin, DE)
2022 Offering V2 — St James’ Church Piccadilly (London, UK)
2022 Offering V1 — Samuel Worth Chapel (Sheffield, UK)
Bedtime Stories
> founder
> sound practice / research
> live / digital
Info
BEDTIME STORIES is a sonic practice studio championing research on experimental sound and oral heritage.
BEDTIME STORIES is powered by collective knowledge, community-led exchanges, and creative uses of music technology in civic space. We critically explore sonic heritage and live sonic practice via creative production, curation, and academic research, alongside experimental broadcasting and peer to peer mentorship.
Our work fosters intergenerational learning and appreciation of undervalued scholars, practitioners, collections, libraries, and pioneers in sonic learning.
visit the studio
listen to radio show
okcandice archive
> artist
> photography / text
> archive
Info
okcandice archive is a collection of observations by writer, artist-curator and musician, okcandice. It began as an experiment in 2012 and is now a lifelong audio-visual project on memory and imagining futures. more life / more love / more fruits.
visit the archive
No Coração Dela
> writer/dramaturg
> dance/choreography
> performance
Info
no c o r a ç ã o dela explores heartbreak, romance and its cheesiness, and the process of mending a broken heart. The project delves into how these individual feelings are profoundly collective experiences that defy quantification. Rather than isolating heartache as a private, internalised experience, no c o r a ç ã o dela investigates how these emotions connect us: how we impact those around us and how they influence us. How do our hearts transform through love and loss? How do emotional fractures create new connections, forming a collective map of our experiences?
The artistic team uses dance, music, and storytelling to convey this collective journey of the heart. This goes from call and response, a freestyle dance floor practice brought in by Myriam Lucas and DJs Vanyfox and Shaka Lion, through okcandice’s writing on grief and Filipa Rocha Nunes’ field research on public policies and poetics, to the visual archive of the project by Rafaela Nato. The musicians, writers, and dancers merge their individual experiences of heartbreak with their artistic practices, creating a shared narrative of romance and loss. It abandons a vision of romance only meant for two, looking for a collective one, ready to embrace and address feelings of heartbreak and longing.
no c o r a ç ã o dela is a production by Marga Alfeirão in co-production with Sophiensæle and Kampnagel Hamburg. Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. Supported by Teatro Municipal do Porto – Festival DDD, Impulstanz. Media partners: Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.
Team
Concept, Choreography & Performance — Marga Alfeirão
Choreography, Dance & Development — Myriam Lucas, Marga Alfeirão & Mariana Benenge
Dramaturg, Text & Spoken Word — okcandice & Filipa da Rocha Nunes
Music Production & Mixing — Vanyfox, Shaka Lion & Nidia
Costume — Isabelle Edi
Scenography — Francisca Spuzi
Light Design — Thais Nepomuceno Veiga
Documentation & Visual Communication — Rafaela Neto
Production Advisor & Support — Tiphaine Carrère, Tammo Walter & neon lobster
Distribution & Accompaniment — neon lobster - Giulia Messia & Katharina Wallisch
Thanks — Mateusz Szymanówka and SLIC unit
Performances
2025 — Kampnagel (Hamburg, DE)
2024 — Sophiensæle (Berlin, DE)
BREATH TAPES
> artist/producer
> ep
> ambient / experimental / freestyle / leftfield
Info
BREATH TAPES is a collection of unmastered, one take recordings, meditations, and demos by okcandice from 2019-2021. These recordings are called 'exhales' and can be listened to in order or as stand alone breaths whenever you need them.
All songs on BREATH TAPES were written, produced, and mixed by okcandice except for 'Crystal Eyes' and 'Riding Waves (S-Bahn)' which were co-produced by Tony Bontana. 'Day At The Riad' features live drumming from Mohamed Ouzyou.
Tracklist
Brain Muscle
Crystal Eyes
Riding Waves (S-Bahn)
Day At The Riad
I Go Inside
Falling Down (Wilted Flowers)
Manners
Don't Forget (raw mix)
Release
September 2024
dub2techno
> artist
> music
> sonic research
Info
dub2techno is a sonic scrapbook tracing the lineage of western techno music through early innovations and experiments in Jamaican dub. This piece was commissioned by Montez Press Radio.
Broadcast
2024 — Montez Press Radio (London, UK)
listen
CoLab
> curator/project manager
> workshops
> zine production
Info
iniva takes CoLab to Handworth, Birmingham, returning to Holyhead School to further develop relationships and knowledge exchanges, with a focus on the urgent matter of the climate emergency.
CoLab Birmingham aims to enable young people to understand and address the complex issues surrounding the climate crisis. CoLab’s aim is to provide durability and lasting impact to the climate crises in individuals and in the Holyhead School.
Throughout the workshop sessions, students use sound, painting and sculpture to explore eco-anxiety and autonomy. During the sessions, students will experiment with environments to respond to themes such as nature and landscape preservation and food and water scarcity. The project will conclude with a printmaking experiment for students to create their own climate protest posters, inspired by the 1968-1971 Camden poster workshop.
Team
Curatorial Lead — Beatriz Lobo (iniva)
Artist-Educator — Exodus Crooks
Art Therapist — Karen Dhlamini
Climate Specialist and Researcher — Dr Susanne Boerner (University of Birmingham)
Zine
Promise Me Tomorrow: Notes on Climate Change (2023)
Project
2023 — iniva (London, UK)
Blood & Fire
> curator
> photography
> archives/ephemera
Info
As one of the UK’s leading Black artists of the commonwealth generation, Blood & Fire: Our Journey Through Vanley Burke’s History focuses on Vanley Burke’s journey to illustrate a wider, connected history of Black British experiences using the communities of Birmingham as a lens.
The artist has re-examined his personal collection after he lost a number of archival materials to a house fire. The fire served as a turning point for his art practice and this exhibition questions what it means to put these objects into a curatorial and historical context, gathering our past to pave the way for our future.
Display
2022/23 — Soho House Museum (Birmingham, UK)
Northern Souls: Why We’re Here
> director
> film
> documentary
Info
Northern Souls: Why We’re Here is a documentary by okcandice produced for the exhibition Portals.
The film features an interview with the artist’s grandparents in their living room. The couple discuss their arrival to England from Jamaica in the 1960s; touching upon their first impressions of living in northern England (Sheffield) and how the growing Caribbean community positively impacted the city’s development.
The exhibiton cut zeroes in on the couple’s family heirlooms, the role of the display cabinet in West Indian culture and legacy through collected objects.
Display
2021 — Eastside Projects (Birmingham, UK)