ARTISTTurner Williams Jr.

Turner Williams Jr. plays the shahi baaja, an electrified chordophone in the zither family whose strings are retuned with typewriter keys. Invented in Japan, developed in India, and sold secondhand in Alabama, the instrument brings together Asian, European, and American roots with modern mechanical interventions.

Turner Williams Jr.’s practice tangles these roots through a raw, embodied approach that entwines improvisation with physical and narrative dimensions. His work explores hybridity through an intuitive, unrestrained practice that is tactile and cybernetic, as well as hectic and syncretic.