Radio Earth Hold
Radio Earth Hold is a collective and project by Laure de Selys, Arjuna Neuman, and Rachel Dedman.
Our work explores the potential for planetary forms of solidarity. Using sound and radio as hermeneutics, our work traces echoes between the anti-occupation movement in Palestine and anti-racism movements in the North American context.
Radio Earth Hold takes the form of public events and distributed broadcasts.
Our work explores the potential for planetary forms of solidarity. Using sound and radio as hermeneutics, our work traces echoes between the anti-occupation movement in Palestine and anti-racism movements in the North American context.
Radio Earth Hold takes the form of public events and distributed broadcasts.
REH#1: The Colonial Voice is a broadcast that examines British Mandate radio as a colonial instrument in Palestine; Israeli control of Palestinian telecommunications as an architecture of occupation; and the use of radio as a platform for Palestinian resistance. It connects these to the birth of Mni Wiconi at Standing Rock, radical midwifery practices, and the acousmatics of sound in the womb. The research argues for acousmatic sound—reverb without a cause, or echo without a source—as a manifestation of the colonial voice, a hijacking of the uterine experience in the service of biblical narratives, of the kind that justify settler-colonialism.
Broadening beyond political struggle to the phenomenon of ‘natural radio’, The Colonial Voice addresses how electromagnetic radiation exists all around us, functioning at a bigger-than-planetary scale. How might this reorganise relationships between the individuals and the world? What solidarity is engendered by the recognition of our participation in the transmission of planetary sound?
REH #1: The Colonial Voice was commissioned as part of the collateral program of Qalandiya International IV, the Palestinian Biennial, and supported by the Serpentine Galleries, London.
REH #2: Sedentarized Sonics was commissioned from artist Inas Halabi, and supported by the Serpentine Galleries, London.
REH #3: Pitch Blue is commissioned and supported by Nottingham Contemporary, as part of Sonic Continuum, curated by Sofia Lemos. The broadcast is forthcoming in 2020.
Previous events and broadcasts
2020:
REH#1: The Colonial Voice – Radio Alhara, Palestine
Weather or Not, World or Not – Southland Institute, Los Angeles, USA
Weather or Not – various locations, UK (ongoing)
2019:
REH x Louis Henderson – Tier Space, Berlin, Germany Re-Directing East – Biennale Warszawa and Ujazdowski Castle: Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland REH#2: Sedentarized Sonics – Comet Radio, Deptford, London
2018:
Radio Earth Hold – Serpentine Galleries, UK - A day of collective listening and discussion around ideas of sonic solidarity, bringing together artists, writers and musicians working on sound, radio, activism and the planetary. The day navigated engaged political struggle with theoretical and poetic perspectives from Ultra-red, Daisy Hildyard, Sulaiman Majali, Sophie Dyer, Louis Moreno, Dhanveer Singh and Comet Radio.
Radio Earth Hold – Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah, Palestine
Earth Hold Stage 1 with Julian Henriques – Gasworks, London, UK
Earth Hold – Stone Soup and Fragile, Los Angeles, USA
Entanglements of Race, Sound and the Archive: Coloniality and the Globalised Present, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2017:
Multicultural Dread x Code Noir/Black Code – Mansion, Beirut, Lebanon
Planetary Erotics – Utopiana, Geneva, Switzerland