Exhibition
Afro-Sonic Mapping
1 Nov 2019 – 17 Nov 2019
Regular hours
- Friday
- 16:00 – 20:00
- Saturday
- 12:00 – 21:00
- Sunday
- 12:00 – 19:00
- Monday
- 16:00 – 21:00
- Wednesday
- 16:00 – 20:00
- Thursday
- 16:00 – 20:00
About
What musical patterns have been preserved in the sounds of the African Diaspora, thus defying time and forced migration? What sonic affinities exist between Dakar and New Orleans or between Lagos, Kingston and New York City? How did post-colonial appropriations and transatlantic transfer processes become inscribed in contemporary rhythms?
The artist and musician Satch Hoyt takes early music recordings from Angola and the Congo documented by European anthropologists between 1890 and 1907 as the starting point for his project. He perceives them as acoustic mappings of history – testimonies of enslavement and expulsion, but also of resistance and empowerment. Hoyt takes those early recordings back to their places of origin and traces the sounds of the African Diaspora as far as Salvador da Bahia, Lisbon and Luanda. Together with local musicians from the post-colonial cities, he searches for musical connections between the historical recordings and present-day urban rhythms, creating new musical compositions. At HKW, Hoyt presents the various collaborations and outcomes of his research travels in talks, concerts and an exhibition of video interviews, soundscapes and paintings that can be read as scores.