Dec 2019 – Afro-Sonic Mapping

In summing up Afro Sonic Mapping’s 2019 adventures to quote curator Paz Guevara We Rocked It. All our goals were reached and the promises made, were kept. As with all creative research based practices fresh conclusions were reached, friends artists and scholars expanded the theoretical structures that are in the process of being built.

For those of you who were unable to view the exhibition, experience the interviews and performances, or attend the talks, we are offering you the best iteration we possibly can of the Afro Sonic Mapping project which was held at the House of World Cultures Berlin in November 2019. You can get a very good idea of the communal feeling that was present during the guided tours given by Paz Guevara and myself. The jubilation in the audiences at the three performances. The ASM collaborators were all there from Luanda Angola, Salvador Bahia and Lisbon Portugal, and various other locations in the transnational African diaspora.

It was to say the least a great turn out, quite a few surprise visitors attended, old friends were reunited and new friends were made, to sum it up, all the research and ground work that was initiated in 2016 came to fruition in 2019 and has paved the way for other future mappings In summing up Afro Sonic Mapping’s 2019 adventures to quote curator Paz GuevaraWe Rocked It. All our goals were reached and the promises made, were kept. As with all creative research based practices fresh conclusions were reached, friends artists and scholars expanded the theoretical structures that are in the process of being built.

I am looking forward to 2020 being a year of possibly touring the ASM exhibition or at least elements which were presented at the HKW Berlin and embarking on new research in the Francophone and Anglophone Phonogram archives.

ASM’s approach to unpacking archives is in fact quite unique, The un-muting of archives followed by sonic restitutions, liberates and enables incarcerated looted archives to regain presence and live. In other words placing the past into the now with a optimistic vision to the future.

The decibels have been turned up ASM is making big noise and on this particular dare I say last post of 2019 it is my great privilege to have conducted a interview in my Berlin Studio with Louis Chude Sokei. whose book The Sound Of Culture is on my A list of recommended reading. Louis was in Berlin participating in a residency at the DAAD we have had quite a lot of correspondence this year as we are mining similar sonic terrains, We also share musician comraderie. In the interview he speaks of his personal migration from piano to bass, we muse on dub, sub bass frequencies the un-played new publications and other topics. I look forward to interviewing more folk for the blog next year and un-muting the francophone African archives and further sharing all the sonic info with you in 2020.