installation: felt, acrylic, steel, aluminium, carabiner hooks
700 x 160 cm each; 2018
This work was conceived for the Dakar Biennale as part of Canine Wisdom for the Barking Dog – The Dog Done Gone Deaf. Curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, it is a research and retrospective exhibition project focusing on Halim El-Dabh’s work – as a composer, electronic music pioneer, ethnomusicologist, researcher, educator and Panafricanist.
Opening Ambience is a series of light, movable wall surfaces installed in the exhibition space with the intent to soften, break apart and engage with the room’s state of the sonic and the visual. Creating a scenography for an exhibition where sound is both the content and concept, the claddings are somewhere in between an angled awning for an exterior, and an interior blind. The fabric adds to the acoustic richness of the space and affects how sounds are experienced in creating a hospitable, yet very specific environment to see, hear and engage with the legacy of El-Dabh. The presence of large planes of colour is also refers to synasthesia – and El-Dabh’s well-known ability to see and connect colours and tones. The panels hold the possibility to be moved, collapsed and rolled up, but are shown only in their expanded state.
www.savvy-contemporary.com/projects/the-dog-done-gone-deaf/
https://savvy-contemporary.com/en/projects/2021/here-history-began/
