Jed Spear (1954-2016)

Jed Speare was an artist and arts manager working in a variety of media and settings. Initially trained in music composition, he presented sound, performance, video, installation, conceptual, multimedia and community-based works locally, nationally, and internationally in festivals and locales such as San Francisco, Amsterdam, Canada, Taiwan, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Bulgaria, France, and Italy.

In Boston, Jed was known as a member of the Mobius Artists Group since 1995 and as the Co-Director and Director of Mobius from 1996 through 2004. He was again Director from 2009 - 2013. He was also Director of Studio Soto in Boston from 2006 - 2016.

Jed wrote about sound and performance art in P-Form magazine (1995), Art New England (2001-2003), and Art and Architecture (2009, China) and also worked in collaboration with and as the international coordinator for choreographer/performer Rob List/Company OZU, based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He is the creator of Cable Car Soundscapes on Smithsonian Folkways Records, for which he received an award from the secretary of the Smithsonian as a Folkways artist in 1998. In January of 2008, Family Vineyard Records released a special, archival double-CD of his music, Sound Works, 1982 - 1987. He was featured in the March 2008 issue, #289 of Wire magazine's Cross Platform section, and on that occasion, Wire wrote: “Working field and documentary recordings into socially resonant performance works, this unsung composer is a pioneer of multimedia presentation.”

Mobius Artist Jed Speare was also interviewed by artist Sven Anderson, for EAR ROOM, - Interviews exploring the use of sound in artistic practice. The interview can be found here:

https://earroom.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/guest-edition-3-jed-spearesven-anderson/

Photo credit:  Grizzler at Mobius, March 2009, photo by Bob Raymond