Mshika—Shika: Black market sound and guerrilla poetics
The PhD in Practice and Depot Kunst und Diskussion would like to invite you to the Fantastic Wednesday / PhD in Context event with Masimba Hwati , in conversation with a guest— Eleftherios Krysalis .
A description of the tension and beauty of a struggle. The piece is a radio composition consisting of field recordings from the black market and flea market in Harare Zimbabwe, also included are snippets of wartime radio broadcasts from the 2nd Chimurenga (Zimbabwe War of Independence, 1964—1979). Two personal stories are punctuating the piece, one from Masimba’s father and another from his Mother both are centered on their experiences around war time radio. Interwoven within also, are moments from an Improvised live sound performance “Bread Scores” from Masimba Hwati and some friends in Weimar. “Bread Scores” was inspired by how small wireless radios, spare batteries, newspaper cuttings and secret messages were smuggled in loaves of bread to the Liberation fighters who were imprisoned during the war of Independence in Zimbabwe. The Blackmarket is a zone for economic and political negotiation and resistance where a people under duress, economic and political pressure alchemically improvise.
Masimba Hwati was bom in 1982, two years after the Zimbabwe's political independence from Colonial Britain, This is the year Ju/uka released 'Scatterlings of Africa' a hit sang appeasing Colonial fantasies by celebrating Enigmatic Africa and ethnic equa/ity in the backdrop of a brutal Apartheid system in South Africa Later that year going into 1983, The new Zimbabwean Government (lndigenous, postcolonial) unleashed 'Gukurahundi' The ethnic cleansing genocide on the southern part of the country. This is also the year Michael Jackson released the sang Human nature. Masimba's work is preoccupied with sound, micro-politics , sculpture and performance. He's created projects in Harare, Detroit, Johannesburg, Capetown, South Carolina and Nova Scotia
Eeftherios Krysalis ( born in Athens) is a radiolsound artist and freelancer researcher. He is the Curator and project coordinator of the Radio Art Residency Weimar. The focus of his artistic work is on experimental radio formats together with electroacoustic musical elements. Since 2019 his research work is focusing on soundscapes through the politics of listening. The first part of his work was conducted for his master thesis on the soundscapes of Ramallah. Palestine. He completed his bachelor"s degree in Art history and Theory at the Athens School of Fine Arts and his M. FA in Media Arts and Design at the Bauhaus University Weimar in the chairs of Experimental Radio and Electroacoustic Music. From 2018 until 2020 he was a OAAO scholarship holder and from 2020 until 2021 a guest professor at the Bauhaus University Weimar.
*Required Covid-19 related measures will be applied for attendance!