Diving in Afrosonica, vibrant cartography of African sounds and its diasporas | EUROtoday

L“Exhibition” Afrosonica – sound landscapes “is an invitation to travel through the sound and vibrational connections of” Africa “music. An immersive exhibition that explores the role of music and sound in African societies and their diasporas. A total of 224 objects, documents and instruments, 33 audiovisual devices, 7 artistic creations are given to see and listen. The term “Afosonica” merges “Afro”, which refers to African cultural, political and spiritual identities, and “Sonica”, in reference to the technological, experimental and contemporary dimensions of sound.

How to reactivate the memory of the sound documents of ancient colonies and musical objects that sleep in the reserves and make the voices of the past and modern dialogue? This was the initial reflection of the ethnomusicological department of the MEG led by the conservative and exhibition co-commissioner Madeleine Leclerc: “One of the challenges was to revive musical devices which might be a part of the museum’s collections by making them play by different musicians by authentic and unpublished creations, to reactivate the reminiscence of the sound archives and these devices carrying historical past. ». For this, modern African and African, anthropologists, and musicians have been invited to reinterpret them, delay them, awaken them.

Afrosonica: free, sensory and non secular cartography

“With more than 20,000 sound funds, and let’s not forget that Africa represents more than 56 states, we needed a common thread and we chose that of the connection. “Afrosonica” is a sensory exhibition that goes by sound, listening, the senses, a complementary euristic values ​​to an mental and historic method, ”explains Madelaine Leclerc. And so as to add “music produces an instant emotion, it has the power to act, to provoke emotions and meetings, it is the axis taken by the Meg”. Helmets screwed on the ears, physique immersed in sound bubbles, guests suspended from a recording of griot-t-s or an electro composition: “Afrosonica” performs with the senses.

The route is intentionally non -linear. He invitations everybody to comply with his personal connections, to dwell the place a sound, an object, a visible work, or a voice resonates. For this, the exhibition invitations free exploration for a connection to the intimate, transgenerational and historic, to nature, and to spirituality. Like that of the invention of a voodoo track recorded in 1969 in Benin replayed, greater than fifty years later, on the identical website, in entrance of the followers of Sakpata Gnanù. The dialogue between previous and current continues by a collection of lamellophones – metallic touches devices attribute of a number of areas of Africa – from the Meg collections and photographed by Jonathan Watts. Japanese percussionist Midori Takada, then again, manipulated round twenty bells constituted of pure supplies – fruit shells, seeds, shells, crops – from twelve African nations. These idiophones, mute for hundreds of years, are reactivated in an unprecedented sound portrait, directed by the artist in tribute to “Afrosonica”. In darkish rooms, different units prolong the expertise.

The Congolese rumba, set up signed Sammy Baloji and David Nadeau-Bernatchez, questions the site visitors and reformulation accounts of African music in post-colonial area. Further on, the work of the Cameroonian artist Em’Kal Eyongakpa attracts from the sounds of nature to compose post-genocidal sound landscapes. Here, the sound turns into care. Finally, an environmental sonography turns into an ecological reflection with, amongst different issues, the work of Tarek Atoui, which transforms stones into lithophones.

The imbizo: “a space of radical conviviality”

At the center of the exhibition, the Imbizo – from Zoulou Bizu, that means “community assembly” – constitutes a fifth area, thought as a central island, each sensory and mental. A real platform for reflection, it presents itself as a spot of “radical conviviality” to make use of the expression of the South African exhibition co-commissioner Ntshepe Tsekere Bopape. Inspired by the globalisto considered the multidisciplinary artist and South African DJ also called the artist Mo Laudi, this area provides one other means of circulating within the tales: “By placing my globalisto philosophy in the foreground-a way of thinking and interacting with the world highlighting interconnection, cultural fluidity and dynamic hybridization of sound and identity- The depth of complex and multiple strata of “Afrosonica”, he explains.

Designed as a living and collective space, the Imbizo brings together a library, a “decolonial” disco, playlists from the MEG archives selected by young artists and free listening in a jukebox, projections of documentaries, filmed interviews, readings and performance. We come there to learn, unlearn, and think together, in a logic of sharing knowledge: “” Afrosonica “goals to overthrow this narrative perspective, giving African voices the ability to precise themselves from the within, moderately than being represented from an exterior and purely observer standpoint. In the conception of “Afrosonica”, I used to be deeply influenced by this understanding that sound, just like the breath, escapes any type of confinement – crossing borders and resonating in areas of flight and improvisation. The sound, in “Afrosonica”, acts as a vector of reminiscence, id, resistance, pleasure and resilience, particularly within the imbizo area of radical conviviality “, underlines Mo Laudi. A place in which the powerful voices of poets, thinkers, artists of musical currents resonate to name only some – jazz, gospel, Afrobeat, reggae – which allowed, and still allow, to express emotional and psychological wounds, while weaving powerful cultural resistance. Because here, the sound is not decor: it is political. It becomes living memory, an instrument of struggle, and space of reconciliation.

“Bringing down obstacles and codifications”

If the exhibition explores the sounds of the past, it remains resolutely also turned towards the contemporary music of the African continent and its diasporas and traces bridges between practices of ancient origin, such as the dance or the game of certain musical instruments, and others, more contemporary, such as electronic and experimental music with the contributions of composers of electronic music such as Joseph Kamaru and Niamké Désiré (Aho Saan).

Mo Laudi insists: “There is not a single way of defining what African music is. For me, African music is multisensory, it is made up of roots, rhythms, vibrations, it is the alliance of these components that lead to this musical source, this wonderful cocktail. The exhibition aims to share this spirit and fight as the categorizations of African music sometimes seen only as primitive music. She takes care to rehabilitate traditional musical instruments and influences from Africa and its diasporas and which led to modern and electronic musical movements such as Amapiano, GQOM, Afro House and Afro Beat. Bringing down geographic barriers and codifications, such is also the objective. »»

To uncover



The kangaroo of the day

Answer

“Afrosonica – sound landscapes” is way more than an exhibition: it’s an expertise. It provides introspection guided by music, an exploration of identities, a rediscovery of African sound heritage, and a journey between spirituality, dedication, and transmission. By bringing collectively artists, anthropologists, and musicians, the MEG provides a vibrant and modern rereading of the function of sound in our societies. To uncover till January 4, 2026.

Practical information: “Afrosonica”, Megmusée d’Ethhnography de Genève, boulevard Carl-Vogt 651205 Geneva, Switzerland.