Kymbali Williams
*1997, Estonia & Switzerland
Kymbali Williams is a multi-instrumentalist producer, composer, and interdisciplinary performance maker based between Estonia and Switzerland. Her practice explores the intersections of sound, movement, and audiovisual space, weaving together voice, lamentation, memory, and site-specific performance.
Central to her work are psychogeographic methods that treat walking and stillness as forms of research into grief and embodied memory. Through intentional wandering and extended periods of immobility in chosen locations, she investigates how landscape and weather activate mourning, memory, and connections to absent presences.
Her performative audio walks guide participants through urban and rural landscapes via spoken word and multi-genre soundscapes, operating as a form of singing people through place. Rooted in psychogeography and embodiment research, these site-specific works transform pedestrian routes into intimate listening experiences.
Recent collaborative projects include Border EUphoria (steirischer herbst), Hundertachtzig 180 (Treibstoff Theatertage Basel), Gardeenia (Estonian Youth Theatre), and Five Gestures Towards… (elektron.art). She was artist-in-residence at Rote Fabrik (Oct-Dec 2024).
At Nairs, she will dedicate time to working with the surrounding mountain landscape as a reflector and amplifier for her singing and physical practice. She will document her artistic practice to create a mini archive of her creative findings, while researching and practising care and friendship through ritual with Arina Frölich and Martha Mutapay.