Starting on 27 April 2024, the Akademie der Künste is presenting sound works from South Africa and Germany in the exhibition Oscillations: Cape Town – Berlin. During the opening weekend (26/27 April) the installative works will be supplemented and enlarged upon by performances, DJ sets, artist tours and talks.
Ten artists reveal in their works the cracks in South Africa’s post-apartheid society, offering transformation and healing in various forms and probing the question of who owns sound in a postcolonial transhemispheric context. Sounds taken from environments that are both familiar and unfamiliar are deconstructed and reconstructed, revealing a wealth of meaning to the listener. Indigenous sound practices and spirituality are combined with the latest technologies and contemporary modes of artistic expression. There will be celebrations of two special anniversaries: thirty years of democracy in South Africa and the bicentenary of the creation of Lesotho.
As part of a two-year process, the project partners – the Akademie der Künste, the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape and Deutschlandfunk Kultur – established a space for dialogue, artist residencies, collaborations and the creation of new sound works. Seven sound artists, musicians and instrument makers were selected on the basis of an open call put out in southern Africa; together with the two academy members Christiana Kubisch and Kirsten Reese as well as Neo Muyanga, they constitute the project’s artistic team. Residencies set up in Berlin and Cape Town facilitated research, sound recordings and the development of project-specific technologies for the new works. The research also gave rise to radio productions, which are being broadcast on Deutschlandfunk Kultur.
