Performance + Film Screening: Soundbites with Lynne Smith

Organized by Counterpublic 2026 artist Lynne Smith, an evening unfolds with a music and film screening for the artist’s projects at the National Building Art Center. An improvisational strings performance at the water’s edge of The Unloading Dock (receiving, holding), an aquatic artwork for Coyote Time, features Mere Harrach (cello) and Evan Saito (violin) ushers the American Lotus into dormancy. Following the performance is a screening of Nightshift (2026), a film by the artist installed in the x-ray room of the former foundry. 

Smith’s night-viewing-only installation of Nightshift uses imagery derived from the ongoing underwater archive of The Unloading Dock (receiving, holding). The single-channel video features volvox, multicellular algae. The regenerative activities of this new ecosystem counter a decades-long history of nefarious nighttime dumping of hazardous waste in Dead Creek and the waterways in and beyond this region. What the pond is growing daily, above and below the water’s surface, counters a dark environmental history with abundance, optimism, and hope.