Brooklyn-based Zah, also known under the creative guise Nightspace is the young artist proving there is no such thing as having too many strings to one’s bow
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When 23-year-old multidisciplinary artist Zah chose to debut their inaugural fashion collection by transforming MoMA PS1 into a one-night-only queer dance party during last year’s New York Fashion Week, it was one way of telling the world that a new wave of queer culture had arrived in the colourful, gender-fluid image of Zah themself. Hailing from Seattle, the now Brooklyn-based non-binary artist – known under the musical moniker Nightspace – is proving to be a new-age master in the art of interdisciplinary expression.
“I always knew I wanted to be an artist but I'd never expect it'd manifest like this. I've become my art, it carries my spirit,” they note. As well as currently working on the release of their debut album, the artist’s latest fashion designs under ZAH launched this September on a rooftop in New York’s Lower East Side and was a daring celebration of diversity infused by the artist’s penchant for subversive otherworldly aesthetics. Despite having only just returned from a three month nationwide Nightspace tour, when asked what to expect next from the young artist, more fearless artistic evolution was the answer: “Indra (@tigermomdragonlady) and I just started a punk band called Sacred Spiral. There was a mosh pit at our first show a few days ago. Are you ready?”
What is it you do now and why do you do it?
I've been performing as Nightspace since high school, I'm 23 now. I co-founded UN (@un.network), a New York-based art collective hosting parties and global networking of queer and trans artists of colour. My fashion label Zah is incubating.
How do you want to change the world?
Literally make it more bearable for QTPOC and help get as close to equality in this lifetime as possible.
If not your body then, is there anything you would want to leave behind? An artwork you haven't done yet, a book, a bloodline? Why?
Everything I've ever created.
It's the year 2080 and the two sexes have become obsolete in favour of one single type of human. Describe your perfect evening in.
Making art with colours we can't yet comprehend, making music on instruments that haven't been invented, all my closest friends and family on our utopian island, boba and all our favourite Asian food.
You have to replace your body with that of an animal or a mythological creature. What do you go for and why?
A kitsune, the shapeshifting nine-tailed fox spirit. For fun.
You encounter a hostile alien race with an inability to see colour, while sound is their only mechanism for communication. What would you play to them to inspire them to spare you and the rest of the human race?
Meditation music.
It is the sixth day and you are creating humans. They can look however you want them to. What do they look like and why?
The size of insects or smaller so our planet would last longer, she's dying rapidly.