Rethreading Weaves & 50 Hertz

Suitable for anyone who would like to relax, watch and listen, and have their eardrums massaged.

No Access during other events at Walcheturm.

INFORMATION ON ACCESSIBILITY
Wheelchair accessible

Details about the accessibility of SONIC MATTER Festival events here.

Video Lounge «Rethreading Weaves»

Raz Kamaran: «My Roots in Her Echoes» (2024)
Sarina Panahideh: «on my way» (2024)
Niga Salam: «Threading, Weaves & Re-» (2025)

Niga Salam – Curation

Meet the Artist 01.02.25 13:30

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In the video lounge, curator Niga Salam is bringing together the voices of women from Kurdish regions who artistically explore the evolution of female identity. A search between the poles of modern society, conflicts and the preservation of a cultural heritage, which is constantly under threat. It's about one's own voice. About the ways it manages to assert itself and about the echo of past generations in which it resounds.

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Installation «50 Hertz»

Salômé Guillemin-Poeuf: «50 Hertz» (installative version, 2023), sound installation for neon lights and ceramics

Meet the Artist
01.02.25 15:00

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«50 Hertz» consists of an ensemble of dark ceramics and amplified neon tubes whose sounds can be moulded by touch. The installation beckons you to immerse yourself in clouds of low-frequency sound, to feel them with your whole body and to listen to their vibrations spreading into every corner of the room.

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TICKETS

single ticket
FRI 31.01.2025 free admission
SAT 01.02.2025 15–20 / 10 CHF
SUN 02.02.2025 15–20 / 10 CHF

day pass
FR 31.01.2025 90-110 / 70 CHF
SA 01.02.2025 55–75 / 35 CHF
SO 02.02.2025 85–115 / 55 CHF

festival pass
220-300 / 140 CHF

Tickets for «Rethreading Weaves & 50 Hertz» are also valid for «Recyclinghof für gefundene Klänge».

CURATOR’S NOTE ON THE VIDEO LOUNGE «RETHREADING WEAVES»

In «Rethreading Weaves», the artworks have a thematic use of threads. This is highlighted because it speaks of my own experience with threads, strings, and crafting. The threads represent a line that connects me to my mother and my mother to her mother. Threads and strings have long been used by women to fix and amend things. Things that are overlooked. I occasionally feel women in art and their artworks that revolve around womanhood are perceived as the same role of the threads, «things that one must address». In my culture, reusing materials was an awareness practised by women. My grandmother never had waste, it was always reused into daily things. This connection emerged intuitively with these artworks. They use threads as different gestures and this relates to my connection with womanhood.
Choosing Kurdish women is speaking of my intent to create exposure to art I consider great that feels overlooked. I want to bring audiences to new dimensions, to create arguments and discussions regarding art from different backgrounds that can formulate into new ideas, to represent a new dialog. This exchange is further highlighted by SONIC MATTER’s vision of presenting me with a guest curator role. I believe it is significant to seize the opportunity for the sake of perspective.
These artworks are mainly focused on sound, but come from different art mediums of animation, dance and performance. This is significant because I experimented with collecting them in a way that fuses different mediums of artworks in one space, to create grounds that makes setting mediums apart difficult, which leads to experiencing art as it is and to exploring new depth that lays beyond the presumptions that are included with the understanding of mediums.
Artists from different understandings are connected in using sound as an element of their artworks. They all reuse; Raz reuses her records, Niga is tuning in for a canceled artwork in themes of remaking against obliteration and Sarina reuses scarves from women to help create the settings of her challenging dance. They all defy the narrative that is assigned to them as women and redefine it in new ways. This doesn’t particularly speak to narratives set by men or authority – but rather narratives as human beings. That sets the personal layer of the artworks. Because they are intimate expressions from each artists’ interactions of defiance.

Niga Salam

ABOUT THE ARTWORKS OF THE VIDEO LOUNGE «RETHREADING WEAVES»

«Rethreading Weaves» brings together three audiovisual artworks by Kurdish women artists, each exploring the intersections of identity, memory, struggle in parallel to the theme of remaking. This exhibition dives into the ways women’s experiences and histories can be presented through materials that are deeply personal, whether through sound, everyday objects, scarves or the very fabric of cultural tradition.

The three artists in this show reuse and repurpose materials that carry specific cultural and gendered significance. In doing so, they re-thread personal and collective memories, weaving together themes of heritage, struggle, and self-expression.

In Raz Karaman’s «My Roots in Her Echoes», the artist offers an intimate exploration of her identity through an animation loop, accompanied by a layered soundscape of recorded diary tapes. The diaries, containing echoes of past experiences, become a bridge between the artist’s past and present, tracing the roots of her identity in the vibrations of memory. The animated imagery and overlapping sounds create a space where time and selfhood intertwine, reflecting on the ways in which personal histories shape oneself today.

«Threading, weaves & re-» is an artwork by Niga Salam – the curator of the video lounge. It presents an audio of ropes, strings, and threads snapping. With a contrast visual of said material being tied back together. This artwork directly explores ties of womanhood and stands as replacement of another artwork made by another Kurdish woman artist who had to cancel participating in this exhibition last minute for personal matters. This process of facing hardships and uncertainty is one of many factors creating challenges for Kurdish women artists. Here the artist is filling in for another, showing the process of what it means to strive and work as a woman artist. Constantly remaking ties that are cut against one’s knowledge in an attempt to reach out to each other, connect, and explore womanhood.

The third artwork, «On My Way» by Sarina Panahideh, presents a performance that spans four frames, showing the artist and another woman engaged in an intense, ritualistic act of covering the artist’s head with ropes and scarves. The artist’s struggle to breathe, combined with the gradual process of undressing and untying, speaks to the tension between personal agency and external constraints. As the artist moves into dance, shedding the restrictive layers, the work becomes a liberating act of reclaiming both the body and one’s identity. The sound of her breath underscores the visceral experience of resistance and freedom.

Together, these works challenge the viewer to consider the ways in which women’s identities are shaped by history, culture, and personal experience. They also highlight the resilience of women who, through art, reclaim and reframe the materials of their lives, transforming them into powerful expressions of self and resistance.

Niga Salam