SOUDIO is a collective of six U.S. artists working together to investigate future models of personal financial stability. Individually, their artistic practices are multimodal, spanning sculpture, dance, time-based media, and more. The artists connect primarily through social media. Using live broadcasts, memes, timeline posts, and direct messaging as virtual gathering spaces, they communicate conceptual modalities, exhibition schedules, and material explorations.  

The collective’s name, “SOUDIO,” comes from the term sou-sou/susu, an informal loan club that originated in West Africa and the Caribbean. Central to SOUDIO’s practice is an investment exercise where each individual commits to contributing to a communal bank account. This habit of shared accountability confronts the individualistic practices encouraged by American consumerist economies. Patrons are held to the same contribution schedule as the artists, voluntarily opting out of the quarterly payouts as an investment in the artists themselves. SOUDIO is responding to inequitable socioeconomic systems – employment, real estate, lending practices, the art market – that have historically disadvantaged women, non-binary folks, and people of color. Their alternative investment model, like the sou-sous that inspired it, is unregulated. Trust, integrity, and mutual aid are central to the collective’s practice.  

SOUDIO’s residency at St. Olaf College’s Flaten Art Museum serves as an incubator for the collective’s creative expression, providing the artists time to interface and push their practice, engage and collaborate with St. Olaf students, faculty, and staff, and build bridges with like-minded cultural producers in the Twin Cities. Students in Visiting Assistant Professor of Art and Art History Anda Tanaka’s Printmaking 226 Relief and Lithography course will collaborate with the SOUDIO artists to produce a limited edition print portfolio. The portfolio will be acquired by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem and other collecting institutions. Several editions are still available. Please contact Jane Becker Nelson, Director, Flaten Art Museum for acquisition information.  

Programs

Monday, March 3, 7-8pm 
SOUDIO Roundtable moderated by Assisstant Professor of Art Peng Wu
Viking Theater, Buntrock Commons

Join the SOUDIO collective for a roundtable conversation about money and art. The concept of mutual aid has been reinvigorated through social media, but many mutual aid networks are associated with times of crisis. This is a critical time for young people, particularly young artists, creatives, and entrepreneurs, to explore the values and structures underlying economic systems, and imagine sustainable models for financial thriving. Presented in conjunction with the SOUDIO Residency at the Flaten Art Museum, and the St. Olaf Department of Art and Art History’s 2025 Flaten Artist Lecture Series. This event is free and open to the public.

The SOUDIO artists are Elia Alba, Abigail Deville, Angela Drakeford, Kenya (Robinson), Sydney Vernon, and Nafis White.

We are are grateful to Public Functionary for their community-expanding partnership to connect SOUDIO artists with like-minded thought-leaders in the Twin Cities. Public Functionary (PF) is artist-led space to dream and live in a world where our multi-faceted identities are celebrated and centered. A place where creative production is reparative and generous. PF Studios is a program that cultivates BIPOC + marginalized artists’ presence and growth in the Northrup King Building, to build diverse communities of practice within the cultural economy of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District.

The SOUDIO residency is generously supported by the Glen H. and Shirley Beito Gronlund Annual Exhibition Series Fund and the Leraas Fund at St. Olaf College.