Ben Hall, Choir: The Theology of Preservation, 2026. Print, radio broadcast. Courtesy of the artist. On view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, September 9, 2026-April 21, 2027. Image by Timothy Johnson.
Event Location
Choir: The Theology of Preservation
Performance
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Wednesdays, 12pm – 2pm
MOCAD is pleased to present Wednesday listening sessions with Detroit-based artist, activist, and composer Ben Hall as an extension of his exhibition CHOIR: The Theology of Preservation, part of the Museum’s milestone Fall retrospective, 20 years of MOCAD: A Practice of Multiplicity – Part I.
Weekly, from October through December, Hall will activate from inside Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead. Each session will feature different historical recorded media, 45s, 78s, and LPs from Hall’s Bap-Tizum gospel archive, which, before a 2019 house fire, was one of the largest recorded collections of Black/African-American gospel music in the world.
The recordings shared during the listening sessions include both what survived the fire and new recordings Hall archives through his storefront, Circle Game Records, on Detroit’s west side. These sessions are free and open to the public!
Performance Dates:
- October 14, 2026
- October 21, 2026
- October 28, 2026
- November 4, 2026
- November 11, 2026
- November 18, 2026
- November 25, 2026
- December 2, 2026
- December 9, 2026
- December 16, 2026
ARTIST BIO
Ben Hall is an artist, essayist, and composer who was profiled in Fred Moten’s book Black and Blue. He is currently working on the book, A Black Liberation Music Guide. His primary ensemble is field kitchen, a band he co-leads, focusing on a bass-heavy, “trunk rattle” sound that has been termed “rustbelt minimalism”. Ben is a co-director of Catalytic Sound Collective, an experimental music streaming platform. He is a 2014 Kresge Arts Fellow.
