This is a recurring event: View all events in the series “Music Research Seminars”
Abstract
This presentation discusses how contemporary artists from the SWANA region use sound and media art to tell alternative versions of history that challenge colonial forms of knowledge production.
With a focus on cultural practitioners from Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraqi Kurdistan, it engages with decolonial, sensory and artist-led approaches to archiving personal memories that push the definition of what constitutes an 'archive'.
Some artists use craft-based forms of storytelling to archive and mediate counterevidence in times of cultural erasure, while others reject these approaches entirely, turning instead to sensory and speculative practices grounded in critical fabulation (Hartman 2008; Hochberg 2021).
Focusing on artists working across Beirut, Sulaymaniyah, Berlin and London, this talk examines how cultural production is shaped by structural and economic pressures, particularly for migrantised musicians navigating the fragile hospitalities of European arts institutions and funding bodies since October 2023.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Lebanon and Germany (2020–2023) and London (2020–ongoing), the talk reflects on how different interpretations of 'care' define what stories can make it to listeners’ ears and forge allyship in institutional settings.
Employing creative and empathy-based strategies to mobilise audiences highlights the emotional and intellectual labour involved in socially engaged cultural work. Examples will show how these approaches can give a voice to migrantised actors and new forms of sonic and visual storytelling that document the lived realities of musicians amidst ongoing displacement.
About the speaker
Dr Rim Irscheid is a curator, multidisciplinary artist and postdoctoral researcher at King's College London, working on experimental music and archival interventions across Middle Eastern contemporary sound and visual arts.
Combining ethnographic research and curatorial practice, her practice-based research is looking at artist-led institution building, emotional aspects of creative labour, and interpretations of care and solidarity in curatorial activism.
She is currently a Research Associate in the field of curation on the ERC/UKRI-funded MUSCON project and runs the project’s Artist-in-Residence Programme. Since 2019, she has organised installations, performances, art exhibitions, craft-based workshops and panel discussions for the annual Planet Ears symposium for contemporary global culture in Mannheim, Germany.
She completed an AHRC-funded PhD in Ethnomusicology & Curatorial Practice at King's College London (2020-2023) and holds a Master’s degree in Musicology from the University of Oxford (2018), and a joint honours BA in Musicology and Psychology from the University of Heidelberg (2017).
The Music Research Seminars are hosted by the Department of Performing Arts at City St George’s, University of London and SPARC research centre (Sound Practice and Research at City St George’s). They bring together world-leading artists, practitioners, and scholars in the broad fields of music and sound.
Seminars are open to the public in person and online. Please register to attend and receive a Zoom link.
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