Madelyn Byrd (they/them, b. 1992, USA) is a socially-engaged interdisciplinary artist, musician, and educator based in Berlin, DE. Using sound, writing, somatics, and digital mediums, they explore themes of connection, hydrofeminism, queer ecology, biophilia, grief and the adjascent possible. Fostering a deeply collaborative spirit, they skew dominant hierarchies, flirt with failure, and give voice to emergent patterns of interconnection. Their research-intensive approach to practice balances play with scholarship, positioning them at the fringe of DIY communities and academia.
Madelyn holds a Masters in Neuroaesthetics from Goldsmiths, University of London, where they researched the impact of collaborative imagination on measures of connection and hope in social praxis art. Their project ‘Chimera’, with collaborator Lou Croff Blake, embarks on projects that queer the boundaries around what it means to be a citizen of Earth, merging artistic embodied experiments with science and fantasy. In 2025, the duo’s speculative worlding manifests in projects at AADK's Cruce program (funded by The Goethe Institute’s Culture Moves Europe grant) and School of Commons’ peer learning program (located at Zürich University of the Arts).
Madelyn co-runs Gravity Pleasure, a record label and event series that highlights the intersection of hydrofeminism and queer ecology with music and workshops by women, trans, and non-binary artists. Additionally, they teach sonic worldbuilding theory + production courses online with Soundial and at Kwia in Berlin.
Slowfoam, their genre-defying music moniker, amalgamates im/material sources - electroacoustics, found drones, spoken word, field recording, and sound design - into speculative relics from the aqueous deep. They have performed and toured extensively, recently at Subbacultcha (NL), Cafe Oto (London), The Lab (San Francisco), Morse (Tokyo), and Morphine Raum (Berlin). Their discography has been published with Somewhere Press, Mappa, Lillerne Tapes, and Jungle Gym Records, and has yielded features on Bandcamp, Electronic Sound Mag, DJ Mag, First Impressions, Pitchfork, Boomkat, The Wire Magazine, and Futurism Restated. Slowfoam is one of Musicboard Berlin’s 2025 scholarship recipients for their forthcoming album, Rig.
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Madelyn Byrd (they/them, b. 1992, USA) is a socially-engaged interdisciplinary artist, musician, and educator based in Berlin, DE. Using sound, writing, somatics, and digital mediums, they explore themes of connection, hydrofeminism, queer ecology, biophilia, grief and the adjascent possible. Fostering a deeply collaborative spirit, they skew dominant hierarchies, flirt with failure, and give voice to emergent patterns of interconnection. Their research-intensive approach to practice balances play with scholarship, positioning them at the fringe of DIY communities and academia.
Madelyn holds a Masters in Neuroaesthetics from Goldsmiths, University of London, where they researched the impact of collaborative imagination on measures of connection and hope in social praxis art. Their project ‘Chimera’, with collaborator Lou Croff Blake, embarks on projects that queer the boundaries around what it means to be a citizen of Earth, merging artistic embodied experiments with science and fantasy. In 2025, the duo’s speculative worlding manifests in projects at AADK's Cruce program (funded by The Goethe Institute’s Culture Moves Europe grant) and School of Commons’ peer learning program (located at Zürich University of the Arts).
Madelyn co-runs Gravity Pleasure, a record label and event series that highlights the intersection of hydrofeminism and queer ecology with music and workshops by women, trans, and non-binary artists. Additionally, they teach sonic worldbuilding theory + production courses online with Soundial and at Kwia in Berlin.
Slowfoam, their genre-defying music moniker, amalgamates im/material sources - electroacoustics, found drones, spoken word, field recording, and sound design - into speculative relics from the aqueous deep. They have performed and toured extensively, recently at Subbacultcha (NL), Cafe Oto (London), The Lab (San Francisco), Morse (Tokyo), and Morphine Raum (Berlin). Their discography has been published with Somewhere Press, Mappa, Lillerne Tapes, and Jungle Gym Records, and has yielded features on Bandcamp, Electronic Sound Mag, DJ Mag, First Impressions, Pitchfork, Boomkat, The Wire Magazine, and Futurism Restated. Slowfoam is one of Musicboard Berlin’s 2025 scholarship recipients for their forthcoming album, Rig.
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Madelyn holds a Masters in Neuroaesthetics from Goldsmiths, University of London, where they researched the impact of collaborative imagination on measures of connection and hope in social praxis art. Their project ‘Chimera’, with collaborator Lou Croff Blake, embarks on projects that queer the boundaries around what it means to be a citizen of Earth, merging artistic embodied experiments with science and fantasy. In 2025, the duo’s speculative worlding manifests in projects at AADK's Cruce program (funded by The Goethe Institute’s Culture Moves Europe grant) and School of Commons’ peer learning program (located at Zürich University of the Arts).
Madelyn co-runs Gravity Pleasure, a record label and event series that highlights the intersection of hydrofeminism and queer ecology with music and workshops by women, trans, and non-binary artists. Additionally, they teach sonic worldbuilding theory + production courses online with Soundial and at Kwia in Berlin.
Slowfoam, their genre-defying music moniker, amalgamates im/material sources - electroacoustics, found drones, spoken word, field recording, and sound design - into speculative relics from the aqueous deep. They have performed and toured extensively, recently at Subbacultcha (NL), Cafe Oto (London), The Lab (San Francisco), Morse (Tokyo), and Morphine Raum (Berlin). Their discography has been published with Somewhere Press, Mappa, Lillerne Tapes, and Jungle Gym Records, and has yielded features on Bandcamp, Electronic Sound Mag, DJ Mag, First Impressions, Pitchfork, Boomkat, The Wire Magazine, and Futurism Restated. Slowfoam is one of Musicboard Berlin’s 2025 scholarship recipients for their forthcoming album, Rig.
