For her upcoming solo exhibition at Portikus, Hajra Waheed realises an indoor site specific iteration of Hum (2020).
Hum (2020) is a large scale multi-channel musical composition and sound installation that employs the ubiquitous yet overlooked medium of humming as a means to explore radical forms of collective and sonic agency. The work’s title, which translates to “We” in Urdu, reflects on international solidarity movements that emerged in the second half of the 20th century during processes of decolonization in the Global South. Driven by the need to critically engage these histories and reflect on their implications for our time, the composition features eight hummed songs of resistance from South, Central, West Asia and Africa. Shared across each of these hummed verses are stories of struggle against state oppression, the rise of authoritarianism and the plight and hope of working people, the marginalized and dispossessed. All of these songs are being resurrected in social movements today.
Hum was initially created upon invitation for Lahore Biennial 02 and shown within Lahore Fort’s historic Diwaan-i-Aam. Built by Shah Jahan in 1628 and styled after Isfahan’s Chehel Sotoun, a forty-pillar audience hall, Diwaan-i-Aam was initially conceived as a space for the public to air their grievances. Humming as a medium, meditation, phenomena and language of resistance, cuts across a crisis of hardened differences, challenging border constructions and for a moment, transforming divisions around ethnic, religious, linguistic and national affiliations into a larger call for solidarity.
Read more
Today
Ongoing
Application: Master of Arts Program in CURATORIAL AND CRITICAL STUDIES
Information, 25 March – 31 May 2024
Phillip Zaiser (1969–2024)
Obituary, 6 April – 6 May 2024
Camille Norment: Cultural Psychoacoustics
Lecture, 23 April 2024, 19:00
R.H. Quaytman: Book
Lecture, 30 April 2024, 19:00
Water Cooler Talks 2024
Event, 10 February 2024, 10:00–18:00
Rundgang 2024
Exhibition, 9 – 11 February 2024, 10:00–20:00
Nora Turato: Lecture
Lecture, 6 February 2024, 19:00
Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé: Unmasking Series–Towards Public Co-creation
Lecture, 30 January 2024, 19:00
Unextractable? Sammy Baloji and Bénédicte Savoy in Conversation
Lecture, 25 January 2024, 19:00
Manon de Boer: Three Films
Lecture & Screening, 22 – 23 January 2024, 19:00
Ann Demeester: The Museum as Transhistorical ‘Garden of Consciousness’?
Lecture, 16 January 2024, 19:00
Moritz Fehr: Evocation, Installation, Simulation
Lecture, 9 January 2024, 19:00
Hajra Waheed "HUM" at Portikus
Exhibition 11 July – 6 September 2020 Portikus, Alte Brücke 2 / Maininsel, 60594 Frankfurt am Main