Clinton, NY—The Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College presents a one-night-only interactive performance involving vocal input from the audience which will be recorded and form an essential sound component of an upcoming 2027 exhibition at the Museum. The event, Total Response, is part of Hamilton College’s esteemed Performing Arts Series, and will take place at Wellin Hall Schambach Center on Saturday, March 7, at 7:30pm. It is free and open to the public. Join us and be part of this interactive event! Register for free at the link here, or at the door.
About The Performance:
Total Response brings together sound and Simran—a focused practice of the mind rooted in contemporary Sikh philosophy—to upend traditional notions of performer and audience. Embracing Harmolodics—the free interplay of harmony, melody, and rhythm—a collective of six multi-instrumentalists and a Simran practitioner will foster the co-creation of music and sound with concert attendees. Together, we will build a resonant sonic structure that celebrates both individual expression and collective presence. By way of this shared experience, Total Response invites us to reawaken the mind’s resilience through pathways of compassion. Artists include Carlos Niño (also the concert’s Music Director), Surya Botofasina, Austin Williamson, and Michael Alvidrez, with Special Guests Ishmael Butler and Angel Bat Dawid, and ‘Koi’ guiding and voicing Simran.
A recording of the concert will become the heartbeat of a sound installation in the forthcoming Wellin Museum exhibition Nirbhai (nep) Singh Sidhu and without SHAPE without FORM: Awakened by the Unstruck, opening Fall 2027. Deep Kailey, Artistic Director of without SHAPE without FORM says: “We live in a world where we’re constantly connected, yet many of us feel deeply disconnected from ourselves, from one another, and from a sense of meaning. Total Response creates a space to slow down, to listen, and to be present together. In times like these, we believe that cultivating inner stillness can be a quietly radical act of healing.” Tracy L. Adler, Johnson-Pote Director of the Wellin Museum, adds: “The Wellin Museum collaborates deeply with living artists on the development of its exhibitions. That often means each project requires a new way of thinking and a different approach. For the forthcoming 2027 exhibition Awakened by the Unstruck, we began to understand how critical the concert would be to the creation of the sculptural sound towers which will act as a center point of the exhibition. With the on-campus support of Hamilton’s Performing Art Series and the Fillius Jazz Archive as well as drawing on the Wellin’s Dietrich Museum Programming Fund, we were able to work together with Nep Sidhu and without SHAPE without FORM to bring this concert to life.”
Funding for this program has been provided by the Daniel W. Dietrich ’64 Arts Museum Programming Fund, Wellin Museum of Art; the Performing Arts Series at Wellin Hall Schambach Center; the Pellman Fund for the Arts; and the Fillius Jazz Archive.
Total Response is co-organized by the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Nep Sidhu, without SHAPE without FORM, and the Performing Arts Series at Hamilton College.
About the Exhibition:
From September 11, 2027 – June 11, 2028, the Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College will present the exhibition Nirbhai (nep) Singh Sidhu and without SHAPE without FORM: Awakened by the Unstruck. Awakened by the Unstruck brings together artist Nirbhai (nep) Singh Sidhu and the UK-based arts organization without SHAPE without FORM (wSwF) in a new collaboration with the Wellin Museum, exploring both spiritual and material states of being through sculpture, drawing, architecture, sound, and Simran—a focused practice for the mind rooted in contemporary Sikh philosophy. Simran is a specific technique that quietens the mind by eliminating thoughts through the repetition of a neutral two-syllable
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word, with attention placed on one’s own voice. The exhibition encourages visitors to experience how sound can function as an internal instrument for connection, heard not only through the ear but by the mind itself. At the show’s center is an omnidirectional sound sculpture by Sidhu that draws on recordings from the forthcoming Spring 2026 concert titled Total Response, a performance that brings together music, sound, and Simran in acts of collective interplay and presence recorded live at Hamilton’s Wellin Hall. Drawing upon Sikh knowledge production, Awakened by the Unstruck offers an opportunity for open exchange between Sidhu’s artwork, Simran practitioners, and visitors that engenders a deeper awareness of the self. Through sound, image, and guided programming, the exhibition expands the creative potential of Simran as a shared expression of fearlessness and compassion. It offers a space for self-discovery and restoration—a call to reclaim the mind, live with integrity, and act from a consciousness that recognizes its own boundless nature. About the Collaborators Nirbhai (nep) Singh Sidhu is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist who works through labor-based knowledge production, Sikh interiority, and blood memory as an adaptive method for resilience and remembrance. For this exhibition, Sidhu will create a new body of drawings, sculptures, multimedia works, and paintings that reflects a Simran focused visual output to address realities of languaging and musicking as natural modes of ‘embodying a text’ (Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji) or ‘becoming the sound’ (Unstruck Melody) in the pursuit of expanding the mind while losing one’s autobiographical self. Sidhu’s practice draws from a personal lifetime and family lineage of working in metal manufacturing plants in Toronto and the building of community-based sites for youth development such as Sher-E-Punjab Sports Academy in Chakar, Punjab. Through sound and silence, precedent works by the artist reveal an expansion of both the social external and cellular internal including omni-directional sound systems such as A Disappearance Potential (2021) and the interactive counter surveillance drum machine engaged by the public as a dual pinball arcade entitled The PIGG500 Security and Leisure Enhancement Console (2017). His varying material approaches to artmaking put forth a nondual guiding principle of detachment, leading to hyper presence, as seen in They Awakened in Algorithm (2021), an embroidered painting which bring together text, glyphs, architecture, and patterning. The ambition of his work is “to center realities of oneness that we don’t encounter physically, by pointing to the ecstatic and sensual in revealing a greater presence, with entities, ideas and one another.” Sidhu’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Aichi Triennale, Nagoya City Museum, Japan; Frye Art Museum, Seattle; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; Esker Foundation, Calgary; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, among others. He is a member of the Black Constellation collective and designs clothing and adornment under the Paradise Sportif moniker.
Deep Kailey is artistic director of without SHAPE without FORM. She plays both a strategic and creative role in establishing without SHAPE without FORM as a leading contemporary, spiritual art space dedicated to mind well-being, working collaboratively with a network of partners nationally and internationally. Deep has collaborated with renowned institutions such as Arnolfini, Ikon Gallery, New Art Exchange, Queens Museum and the V&A. Her work is a testament to the power of creativity and its ability to bring people together and inspire change. She is on the British Pavilion Selection Committee for the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2027. Without SHAPE without FORM is an assembly of artists, thinkers, and cultural practitioners committed to making moments of self-discovery accessible for everyone. Rooted in Sikh philosophical concepts, their contemporary artistic program and partnerships enable people to have meaningful conversations about the mind. Guided by insights and tools from over 500 years of Sikh knowledge, without SHAPE without FORM explores transformative teachings that pursues self-mastery in the service of others, connecting courage, compassion, and community with a commitment to education, collaboration, and exchange. They are headquartered in Slough, England.
Organization The exhibition is organized by Alexander Jarman, Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Academic Outreach, Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College.
About the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art:
A teaching museum on the campus of Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, the Wellin invites visitors to discover the arts and form unexpected connections through groundbreaking exhibitions, a globally representative collection, and engaging high-touch programming. Artists whose work has been featured in solo exhibitions include Jeffrey Gibson, Yun-Fei Ji, Sarah Oppenheimer, Michael Rakowitz, Elias Sime, and Renée Stout. Through its exhibitions, public programs, and educational outreach, the Wellin Museum sparks dialogues across disciplines, inspires experimentation, and fosters creative inquiry.
The Wellin Museum opened in 2012 with Tracy L. Adler as its founding director. The innovative facility was designed by Machado Silvetti Associates and features a 27-foot-high visible archive, a large exhibition gallery, and other amenities that foster common exchange and learning. Positioned as part of a newly developed arts quad that includes the sprawling Kennedy Center for Theatre and Studio Arts, which opened in 2014, and the Molly Root House, a restored McKim, Mead & White building housing the art history department, the Wellin provides a gateway to the arts and acts as an incubator for interdisciplinary learning for Hamilton students and faculty, and a resource for the community. These facilities marked a major leap forward for Hamilton and ushered in a new era with a dedication to the arts at its core. https://www.hamilton.edu/wellin
Social Media Join the conversation on social media. Tag @wellinmuseum, @hamiltoncollege, and @withoutshapewithoutform, and use the hashtag #wellinmuseum. Media Contact Meg Blackburn, meg@blackburncreative.com
