Sometimes you just have to give it your attention

How can our perception of sound shape our understanding of history? How can we use sound to expand and shift perspectives on history? Jan St. Werner, an artist, musician and instructor at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg, invited the American sound culture expert Louis Chude-Sokei to develop an acoustic experiment on the former Nazi rally grounds in Nuremberg. For his part, Sokei chose non-European and collective pieces by such artists as composer and sound artist Yara Mekawei, the Nigerian-American artist duo Mendi & Keith Obadike, the Kurdish singer and songwriter Hani Mojtahedy, the Institut für Raumexperimente headed by Christina Werner and founded by Olafur Eliasson, and the artist group DAF (Dynamische Akustische Forschung) affiliated with the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg to acoustically study and artistically reflect on the historically tainted and visually iconic site during one-week residencies.

The grounds which span eleven square kilometres were used by the National Socialist Party between 1933 and 1938 for political rallies. Today, the Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds carries out important educational work and activities there. However, numerous large-scale events are also held at the venue, few of which make any reference to the historical context of the grounds. This residency programme aims to present new artistic perspectives which draw attention to this fact with performances of perception, sound installations and texts. The purpose of inviting such internationally renowned artists is to provide new impulses for exploring and addressing Nuremberg’s Nazi past. An independently organised event series, coordinated in cooperation with the Neues Museum Nürnberg, will accompany the direct exchange with the viewers and listeners.

Artistic director and curator: Louis Chude-Sokei

Artists: Hani Mojtahedy, Mendi & Keith Obadike, Emeka Ogboh, DAF (Dynamische Akustische Forschung), Olafur Eliasson, Christina Werner, Institut für Raumexperimente

In cooperation with: Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds, Neues Museum Nürnberg, Bewerbungsbüro Nürnberg N2025, Kunsthalle Nürnberg

22 October 2020, 12:00 PM EDT – Online Discussion "Listening to History: Sound, Space and remembrance" with Louis Chude-Sokei and Emeka Ogboh, organised by Goethe-Institut Boston.