Souls’ Landscapes

overview

Souls’ Landscapes is a three-part performance conceived and performed by Uriel Barthélémi in collaboration with Entissar Al Hamdany, Joel Lokossou, Rigo 23 and Fabrice Taraud. A sonic composition reflecting on Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961), the work incorporates music, movement, shadow and text and is spatialised in three distinct public venues, corresponding to each of its chapters.

The triptych structure of Barthélémi’s piece explores different sides of the performers’ perceptions of Fanon’s thought and allows for an abstract progression between each part. All three chapters explore distinct, thematically related rhythmical continuums or iterative ‘sound colours’ creating resonance between them while developing a nonlinear, subterranean structure. Solo electronic components are used in the first and second parts, while the third employs direct, radical switches between fragments of language, revealing consciousness through apparent chaos.

Related to the sea and the port, critical aspects of Sharjah’s history, the performance sites address how these have evolved over time and what it means to perform in proximity to them. The performances will take place in Sharjah Art Foundation’s Mirage City Cinema on 5 March, a warehouse near Port Khalid on 7 March, and a public beach in Sharjah in May.

This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 12