A research and retrospective exhibition project, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and Kamila Metwaly focusing on Halim El-Dabh’s work and being as a composer, electronic music pioneer, ethnomusicologist, researcher, educator and Panafricanist. The intention being for young Africans to assume the responsibility of writing their own art histories, by (re)positioning or (re)introducing Halim El- Dabh’s oeuvre in/and on the Afri- can continent and the world at large.
The exhibition brought together El-Dabh’s scores, notes, compositions, paintings, theories, and music as well as ten artists from across the African continent, invited to relate, tribute, get inspired by, reflect on El-Dabh’s artistic practice, musical philosophies and life. The exhibition will reflect on sound art in Africa today, and
transdisciplinarity between the visual, performative, installative and sonic arts, which El-Dabh’s practice always embodied. This exhibition took place at the IFAN museum and El-Dabh’s recordings and improvisations which he did at the marketplace in Dakar 1967 was installed back to the same spot. Some sound works were presented in the courtyard of the museum and in city buses. The exhibition in Dakar should be a prelude to a more extensive retrospective of El-Dabh’s work in Berlin and Vienna in the near future.
„The Gathering“, 25 min live performance and installation
Elsa M'Bala 