Image and visual design by egg.agency. Website design by Lori. E Allen.
Reverberations: A Response to the Her Noise Archive is an exhibition investigating radicality within noise and sound art, in the digital age. It takes place online, on-air and at Chelsea Space. Curated by MA Curating and Collections (MACC) students at Chelsea College of Arts, UAL. Reverberations features work from a range of black, Asian, global-majority-heritage (BAGMH) and gender-queer practitioners to cultivate an intersectional legacy of feminism within sound arts. Including Turner Prize nominees, Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.), poet Anaïs Duplan and interdisciplinary artist Himali Singh Soin, to the next generation of underground practitioners from Europe, Asia and North America.
Reverberations is presented in relation to Her Noise — a 2005 exhibition at the South London Gallery that gathered artists who use sound to investigate social relations, inspire action or uncover hidden soundscapes. A parallel ambition of the project investigated music and sound histories in relation to gender, with the curators, Lina Džuverović and Anne Hilde Neset creating a lasting resource through the archive that is now housed at UAL University Archives and Special Collections Centre. The Her Noise Archive includes video interviews, audio, texts and fanzines that celebrate the empowering effect of ‘doing it yourself’ in resistance to the mainstream.
Reverberations takes place across three platforms: a series of digitally curated emails containing artworks, texts and moving image pieces, live performances and film screenings at Chelsea Space and an online radio broadcast via Reverberations FM.
Subscribe to the curated emails via http://eepurl.com/hHQ_Rv
The first week (13-16 September), Chelsea Space will be transformed into a recording studio, hosting four days of live performances. Visitors will be able to view this process externally onsite via the window of the gallery. Booking is not required. The radio performances will be broadcast daily via Reverberations FM.
In the second week (20-24 September), the gallery will also screen films from the LUX archive, showcasing works by queer, BAGMH and disabled artists involved in art, sound and activism.
Book your gallery visit via Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reverberations-a-response-to-the-her-noise-archive-screenings-tickets-170432728880?aff=ebdssbeac
Across these platforms, Reverberations has four conceptual strands: The Self and Sound, Sound Swallows Space, Mapping Intersectionality as Infrastructure, and Soundcheck.
The Self and Sound resists conventional identity through language. The newsletter features work by Anaïs Duplan and the Shanghai-based DJ collective NVSHU(女术). Performances by Rebecca Lennon and Sumita/Indoor Goblin will be broadcast via Reverberations FM. Sumita/Indoor Goblin will respond to Marina Rosenfeld’s participatory piece Emotional Orchestra (2005), featured within the Her Noise Archive. As part of the film programme, Chelsea Space will screen Jenny Brady’s Receiver (2019).
Sound Swallows Space queers sound and noise. The newsletter features Pink Suits Band, Himali Singh Soin, Libby Deaux and Wei Zhou, to explore the idea of queer legacy passed down over generations through storytelling and radical space making. In connection, Dr Phoebe Patey-Ferguson and artist Nicol Parkinson have been invited to Reverberations FM to discuss the histories of queer punk feminist performance. Chelsea Space will screen George Barber & George Snow’s Art of Noise: Legs (1987).
Mapping Intersectionality as Infrastructure explores networks of care enacted through listening. The newsletter features LI YILEI’s H.A.T.C.H. (Hatching from the wondrous trance I lay) (2021), an inquiry into tropes of phenomena, existence, power dynamics, and the politics of sound and listening. The work will be discussed further on the radio show, alongside a segment with academic and activist Janine Francois discussing intersectionality, sound, and the institution with one of the show’s student curators. Chelsea Space will screen Evan Ifekoya’s Okun Song (2016).
Sound Check takes inspiration from zines featured within the Her Noise Archive to investigate the future of DIY culture within sound systems. For the radio show, Nzinga Soundz will perform an hour-long set of reggae, soul and dub inspired by their music’s DIY spirit. Its companion newsletter is presented as a digital zine featuring excerpts from curator Cairo Clarke’s project Presentism and Sonic Territories (2020), illustrations by DJ Anu Ambasna, an interview with Nzinga Soundz and a conversation between Shalikah Walters and Ora Ataguba of Sable Radio to collectively question ‘Is DIY dead?’ Chelsea Space will screen Black Obsidian Sound System’s film Collective Hum (2019).
Thanks to Irene Revell, Lina Džuverović and Anne Hilde Neset, Hana Noorali and Lynton Talbot, Georgina Orgill, Hannah Grout and the University Archives and Special Collections Centre, all the participating artists, musicians, curators, specialists, egg.agency, Lori. E Allen, the Chelsea Space team and LUX for their support.
For more information, Reverberations FM and participant biographies please go to: www.ualmacc.com/reverberations
Reverberations: A Response to the Her Noise Archive is part of our end-of-year celebrations for this year’s graduating students from Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon. You can see more of their work and discover the next generation of creatives from University of the Arts London at the UAL MA Graduate Showcase which launched on 1 September 2021.
Visit graduateshowcase.arts.ac.uk
#ChelseaClassof2021
#UALShowcase
