Upcoming Projects
Sounds of Oppression
Sounds of Oppression is a digital collection that I co-developed as part of an undergraduate research project. With a focus on the written word and questioning who has access to it, this exhibition features twelve objects that each provide a unique insight into the way that song has historically been used both to oppress and resist oppression.
The exhibition approaches its objects on two levels. First, it attends to their materiality: before any words are read, audiences are invited to consider these songbooks as physical things, their weight, their texture, the sounds they make when handled. Audio pieces capture objects being turned over in a pair of hands, making audible the noises and silences that written records often leave out. Second, it traces the ideological contents of the pieces, situating them within the broader power structures, colonialism, nationalism, patriarchy, that shaped their creation and use.
Throughout, the exhibition asks audiences to reflect on their own positionality. What does it mean to have sung a national anthem without questioning it? Or to have inherited a repertoire of songs whose politics you never chose? Sounds of Oppression is less interested in providing answers than in making the familiar feel strange — and in doing so, opening space for more honest conversations about whose voices have historically shaped our shared sonic culture.
