Sophie Hamacher…Reads the News

…READS THE NEWS is a new SPACE civics exercise where community members publicly read a curated selection of news items, articles, nonfiction passages, reviews, or other material before a live audience, with musical accompaniment.

This episode of …READS THE NEWS is facilitated by writer, filmmaker, and educator Sophie Hamacher. The evening will feature improvisational musical accompaniment by Dodson/Lefebvre/Coleman.

SPACE’s …Reads the News program positions the humanities as essential tools for collective meaning-making in a moment of widespread information overload, political volatility, and reading burnout. At a time when the news is both difficult to engage with and impossible to ignore, this program shifts the practice of media consumption from the private to the public, allowing for critical reading, historical context, ethical reflection, and shared inquiry that help communities slow down, interpret information, and reconnect with ideas beyond the churn of the daily cycle.

Reading lists will be shared and sourced at the event.

Sophie Hamacher is an artist, teacher, and curator whose multidisciplinary work spans film, video, printmaking, and text. She investigates media histories, surveillance, and medical imaging through a range of forms, often drawing on archival material to examine how media shape memory, perception, and both personal and collective histories. Her work moves between independent studio practice and collaborative projects with artists, scientists, and scholars. Her essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in October, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, and Scapegoat. She completed the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in Critical Studies (2005). With Jessica Hankey, she is editor of Supervision: On Motherhood and Surveillance (MIT Press, 2023) a wide-ranging anthology of art and writing exploring how surveillance impacts contemporary motherhood. Currently, she teaches at the Maine College of Art & Design in Portland, Maine and runs a micro-cinema in an old barn under the name Flying Point Projects.

Annie Dodson is an electroacoustic composer, sound artist, and cellist from and living in Portland, Maine. They make music about ecology and the environment, sensitivity and reception, and queerness and intimacy. They love working with the natural world as a creative partner. Their work is often long with an emphasis on slow processes and gradual progression. They like repetition and repetition and repetition and repetition.

At a young age, Western Mass native Hunter Lefebvre fell in love with the guitar through the music of The Beatles and Pink Floyd. He attended the University of Southern Maine, where he received a bachelor’s degree in Music Education, with a concentration in jazz guitar. In addition to teaching at MAMM, he also teaches music and history at the Cocheco Academy of the Arts charter school in Dover, NH.

Hunter Coleman is a recording engineer, musician, and sculptor based in Portland, ME. In the decade he’s been in Portland, he’s cemented himself as a gigging drummer for songwriter Emily Irving and the indie-folk band Oodelally. He has recorded and produced both bands’ 2025 releases and established himself as an independent engineer working at the MECA&D recording studio.

While spreading roots in Portland’s music scene, Hunter has worked as the Sculpture Department Technician at Maine College of Art & Design. His sculptural practice has always been tied to his musicianship, with sculptural instruments and multi-dimensional sound installations as his media.