Beat the Silence: Sonic Chronicles – Group Show

M.Bassy e.V. is curating for spring 2025 the interdisciplinary exhibition project Beat The Silence: Sonic Chronicles presenting video and sound installations by visual artists Arthur Jafa, Christelle Oyitri, Julianknxx, Theaster Gates & Elom 20ce in whose artistic oeuvres music plays a central role being understood as a tool creating resonance between the individual self and its social and spatial environment and thereby having the power to change the world and unite people.

The 3-month group exhibition aims to explore the deep connection between Black visual art and music on an aesthetic, sensual and socio-political level to explore the following questions: What is the historical and contemporary role of music as an artistic medium in challenging a hegemonic and Western worldview and in promoting inclusive and socially engaged critical thinking? What is the significance of music for Black communities as an instrument of connection and resistance? What transformative power does music hold as a means of imagining alternative visions of the future?

Throughout recent history, music has been one of the first sources for Black people to learn how to think critically. Through music, we learn that the education system does not provide us with the knowledge of resistance that we need to survive. (Minna Salami Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone, 2021)

The exhibition will be accompanied by an artist residency by Elom 20ce from Togo and a workshop series #1 -4, which will give the young audience a multi-perspective approach to music as an artistic practice and as a tool for self-empowerment and collective experience. These participatory event formats will be led by renowned Hamburg and Berlin cultural actors.

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