Walter Kitundu (2016): Block Museum - Northwestern University
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Walter Kitundu at the Big Draw

Walter Kitundu (2016)

In Fall of 2016, as part of Evanston’s city-wide Big Draw, people of all ages were invited to join artist Walter Kitundu in drawing a response to The Block Museum's architecture and the view beyond.  Kitundu is a multimedia artist and MacArthur Fellow whose practice ranges from building instruments to photographing wildlife. The Block Museum, a modernist structure designed by Chicago architect Dirk Lohan, sits a stone’s throw from Lake Michigan. 

About Walter Kitundu

Walter Kitundu is a sound artist and instrument builder, photographer, performer, installation artist, and designer (print, web, environmental). He is the inventor of a family of Phonoharps, multi-stringed instruments made from record players that rely on the turntable’s sensitivity to vibration. As an artist he has created hand-built record players powered by the wind and rain, fire and earthquakes, birds, light, and the force of ocean waves. He received a MacArthur Fellowship for his work in this field.

He has received public art commissions, residencies, taught as a visiting professor, and lectured on topics from the creative process to bird behavior.

Kitundu has performed and been in residence at art centers and science museums internationally. He has collaborated with the renowned Kronos Quartet, bassist Meshell Ndegeocello, the electronic music duo Matmos, and the legendary Marshall Allen - in venues from Carnegie Hall to a high school library in Egilstaadir, Iceland.