Erika Tsuchiya is a Japanese media artist and producer born in the UK and raised in the USA. Now, based in Doha, she works with immersive media, full-dome experiences, and electronic music. Before joining VCUarts Qatar, she led community media projects in Philadelphia prisons, including “Hidden Lives Illuminated”, a public projection of 20 animated films by incarcerated artists, and “P.O. Box 34”, a mail art program for incarcerated writers and artists during the pandemic. Currently, she is researching bio-materials as sustainable alternatives to vinyl records, showcasing Gulf artists and musicians. Her work blends materiality, technology, and social activism to connect diverse cultures through media-driven social change. This project explores the ephemerality of sounds in the Gulf region through bio-materials and raise awareness of environmental implications of plastic pollution as well as an overly digitalized world. Seeking the ephemerality of sounds and it’s physical longevity, the project tackles how some art is not meant to last, and how that may change the meaning and value of it. Intertwining the fragility of life and human creation expressed through alternative forms of home-made vinyl records.