Daniel Beban - 2025 Sonic Artist in Residence
Photo by Ebony Lamb
Toi Pōneke Arts Centre and Victoria University’s New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī (NZSM) are delighted to announce Daniel Beban as the 2025 Toi Pōneke/NZSM Sonic Artist-in-Residence.
Daniel Beban lives in Pōneke, Aotearoa. His interests and projects are many and diverse, ranging from composing and performing with internationally acclaimed touring acts, releasing recordings on NZ and international labels, creating sound sculptures and sculptural instruments, producing radio documentaries and experimental radio works, making field recordings, conducting oral history research, sound engineering, running venues and curating concerts and festivals. He has been a central figure in Wellingtonʼs creative music community since the early 2000s. He founded the Bomb the Space festival in 2001 and produced many performance events, tours and recordings as part of the Space and Happy collectives. In 2009 he formed the Sound and Light Exploration Society, an organisation that fosters sound art and creative music making in Wellington. He founded and ran the venue Fredʼs (2009-2012), and is founder/director of Pyramid Club (2013-present), presenting a large range of events including artist-run workshops, performances, talks, screenings, rehearsals, recordings, festivals and more.
Danielʼs music and sound practice explores the sonic possibilities of the things and people he comes into contact with. His art is often unorthodox and playful and many of his instruments are created from found objects, often incorporating recycled and discarded materials. Through his work as a radio sound engineer, Daniel has experimented at length with reel-to-reel tape machines and the tape machine has formed the basis of much of his electronic work. His sound sculptures include the Water Organ (2010), a commission for Wellingtonʼs bird sanctuary Zealandia that plays with ideas of bird song, water and pipe organs. He created sound sculptures including a treetop marimba and water gamelan for Bird Paradise (Singapore). He has exhibited in Beijing, Auckland and Wellington, released more than 30 recordings, completed more than a dozen international tours, and has been artist-in-residence at galleries in Beijing, Chongqing and Auckland.
The Toi Pōneke/NZSM Sonic Artist-in-Residence 2025 is a three-month position that runs from 29 September to 21 December 2025. During this time, Daniel will develop a body of innovative and substantial work in the domain of sound art. His work will include a series of outdoor sound sculptures that harness the energy potential of the environment (water, sunlight, wind) as activators and sonic elements. He will have use of NZSM facilities and recording equipment over the residency. In addition, he will be provided with studio space at Toi Pōneke and his residency will culminate in a 3-week exhibition in April/May 2026 at Toi Pōneke Gallery.
For more information on other Toi Pōneke Residencies click here
