"When Gathering Ruins Through Ceremony, Objects Become Songs"/ Sonorous Bodies, Part II

Video art and sound installation

Presentation of results of the 3-day programme (performative activation) conceived by Pungwe (Memory Biwa & Robert​ Machiri​)​, in collaboration with Nikola Hartl and ifa Gallery Stuttgart. In resonance with 15th Triennale Small Sculpture Fellbach.

What does it mean when we see "objects" as "sonorous bodies" that connect us with the past, tell stories, and have their own vitality? In resonance with the 15th Fellbach Small Sculpture Triennial, an ephemeral space opens up in the ifa Gallery that re-focuses restitution on despoiled "sonorous bodies" in relation to memorial and artistic practices. In museums these bodies are classified as "objects" and silenced inside glass showcases, while here they regain their vitality thanks to embodiments and links concerning their meanings, presence, and usage across the generations. "Objects" become "sonorous bodies."

The specific point of reference for this video-sound installation that will be created in the ifa Gallery, and will be enacted as a performance over three days, is the return of twenty-three "sonorous bodies" from the Ethnological Museum Berlin to the National Museum in Windhoek (Namibia). Shortly before the opening of the Fellbach Triennial, these "sonorous bodies" were prepared and packed for travel, a process that the artists Memory Biwa and Robert Machiri documented with a reflective artistic approach. Only a few days later Memory Biwa, co-curator of the Fellbach Triennial, installed works there by five artists from Namibia and South Africa: Thania Petersen, Vitjitua Ndjiharine, Philisa Zibi, Stephané Conradie, and Elisia Nghidishange. The confluence of these two processes activates catastrophic histories, relentless resistance, and memory-making in diverse ways.

Through video, sound, and performance, this project explores aural regimes and various forms of knowledge that enable a new experience and reflection of historical events and the relevant people and geographies, while also sounding out forms of togetherness.