About the speakers
Tabitha Thorlu-Bangura
Tabitha Thorlu-Bangura is a London based cultural programmer whose work traverses live music, radio and visual arts.
Throughout her career she has worked with closely with the Tate Modern and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, programming a variety of music events. She has produced and presented radio broadcasts for the Serpentine, and programmed multi-venue music festivals across London. Tabitha hosts a monthly show on NTS championing new music, and also DJs under the name TTB. Currently Creative Partnerships Director at music platform and online radio station NTS, her work celebrates diversity and supports emerging artists in underground scenes worldwide. Tabitha was recently a curator in residence at Somerset House Studios.
Kelman Duran
Kelman Duran is a Dominican musician, and visual artist. Duran started taking music seriously when he moved to Los Angeles. Born and raised in New York City, Duran graduated from LaGuardia and moved to South Korea before studying at CalArts.
As a DJ and producer, he is mostly affiliated with LA’s Rail Up crew, HUNDEBISS Records in Milan, and Riobamba’s Apocalipsis label, who also released his album, 13th Month. The creation of the record was inspired by indigenous moon cycles that Duran learned about while living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where he shot a documentary titled To the North.
While he sees his music as a purely emotional counterpart to his visual arts and film work, his artistic and scholarly interests focus on issues of racism, police brutality, and the interplay between disenfranchised groups and civil architecture.
