What is the Sound of Emancipation? is a commissioned critical text written on the occasion of Sonsbeek 20-24, the historical Dutch biennial held in Arnhem under the title Force Times Distance: On Labour and its Sonic Ecologies, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and team.
Taking as its starting point Wendelien van Oldenborgh's video installation Hier (2021), in which Nigerian poet Pelumi Adejumo asks what is the sound of emancipation?, the text moves through the exhibition weaving together close readings of selected works with reflections on sound, memory, and coloniality. It traces the silenced Black histories embedded in the landscape of Arnhem, follows the echoes of an enslaved woman named Anna whose presence haunts multiple works, and engages with the biennial's use of sound as a political and epistemological lens for approaching themes of labour, diaspora, resistance, and healing. The text was published in Zweikommasieben issue #24.
Taking as its starting point Wendelien van Oldenborgh's video installation Hier (2021), in which Nigerian poet Pelumi Adejumo asks what is the sound of emancipation?, the text moves through the exhibition weaving together close readings of selected works with reflections on sound, memory, and coloniality. It traces the silenced Black histories embedded in the landscape of Arnhem, follows the echoes of an enslaved woman named Anna whose presence haunts multiple works, and engages with the biennial's use of sound as a political and epistemological lens for approaching themes of labour, diaspora, resistance, and healing. The text was published in Zweikommasieben issue #24.
