Callie Rose Petal is an award-winning trans* activist and patron-funded recording artist, releasing material under the moniker ‘lonely carp’. In her music, her visual art and her performance pieces, she proudly centres her artistic voice as a trans* woman with a disability. She draws light on how this intersection of experience has prevented a medical transition, using it as a springboard for criticising transmedicalist ideology and dismantling the patriarchal norms that perpetuate transphobia.

Callie’s Resident Entrepreneur project will focus on the research and development of a listening platform that provides a novel modality of absorbing music as a listener, creating music as an artist, and supporting artists’ work as a listener.

Beginning as a single full-stack project containing Callie’s own music/sound design and animations from collaborator Nisan Yetkin, this data-driven experience will be an innovative take on a visual album that she hopes to make scalable for the market, to allow artists to produce their own musical work in the same way.

Talking about her RE project, Callie said: “Many are aware of the economic inequality that befalls the trans* community. Even with a strong academic record, trans* people are often overlooked. So having my application accepted was incredibly meaningful to me at such a pivotal time in my professional life. It certainly meant a vote of confidence in my idea. But more importantly, as the team has already assured me, it’s an investment in who I am as a creative practitioner. There isn’t really anything more valuable or empowering to hear than that as an artist, particularly as a trans* artist.”