What Lies Unspoken : Sounding the Colonial Archive

• What Lies Unspoken is a participatory sound intervention developed by Dr Temi Odumosu from the Living Archives Research Project, Malmö University, Sweden, in collaboration with the Royal Library and National Gallery of Denmark. It is funded by The Agency for Culture and Palaces and the Nordea Foundation, and is part of the Historier om Danmark project. This intervention is a response to the silences and discomfort surrounding colonial history in museums and public debate. It has used artefacts currently housed in both collections to facilitate dialogue about colonialism and its cultural legacies. The process began with a series of intimate workshops with artists, activists, scholars, curators and high school students. Here, we recorded conversations in front of a selection of artefacts. All the voices gathered have been edited into soundtracks that provide alternative perspectives on colonial imagery, and also express how this history still affects people emotionally. The sound installation includes different people reacting to artefacts in exhibitions at both institutions. The project considers their perspectives an important source of knowledge that adds sensitivity and depth to traditional institutional data. The primary aim of this work has been to share interpretive power, allowing new ways of engaging the past to emerge.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Konst (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Archives

colonial

sound

artworks

black presence

voices

power

museums

public engagement

2017

Denmark

Centennial

Transfer day

US Virgin Islands

photography

painting

prints

maps

drawings

intervention

Publication and Content Type

kfu (subject category)