Kirsten Reese Rediviva intermixta

Rediviva intermixta 8-Kanal-Sound- und Mixed-Media-Installation. 2024
27.4. - 19.5.2024 Oscillations Cape Town - Berlin, Klangkunst-Ausstellung Akademie der Künste Berlin

Rediviva intermixta (a solitary bee species endemic to South Africa) is a sound work on contexts of listening in places in Cape Town and the Northern Cape that I visited during my stay in 2023. Following on from my own earlier work on ecoacoustic research in Europe, I was particularly interested in the connection between ecology and sound. The Cape Floral Region is one of approximately 30 recognized biodiversity hotspots on earth, per square kilometer this region is the most biologically diverse in the world. Beyond being merely an issue for the tourism industry, nature conservation is closely linked to the question of land use and land rights, environmental and social justice. Out of my research and experiences and from the sound recordings at the places visited, further themes emerged that are intertwined - geophonic voices (wind and sea waves, and objects that are made to sound by these, may resonate the history of a place), energy (wind and water as 'natural forces', contrasting the dark but generator-driven hours of load shedding); political struggle (a haunted presence of political history in places is present everywhere and adequate forms of remembering inform political activism today). Next to my research and field studies, the encounters with artists and academics from the Center for Humanities Research/UWC in conversations, lectures, concerts and other joint activities, their political engagement in the past and present, coupled with rigorous intellectual questioning and aesthetic practice, shaped my experience, for which I am very grateful. For the sound work Rediviva intermixta, the sound recordings from the trip were subjected to a process of condensation, translation and transformation. Reflection on listening in the position of an outside ear was constantly present. In the installation room, together with the repercussions of the sound work, themes distilled from the stay in South Africa are exhibited as assemblages of maps, photos, researched information, excerpts from books read, etc.