Freeing the Voices

The exhibition Freeing the Voices begins with one voice, the scream of Marina Abramović – that is to say, one human being that grows during the exhibition into a multitude of mainly human voices, and ends with the voice of the midge in the work of Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec. We do not hear the voice of the midge with our ears; its presence is in our radical listening. Listening is not the same as hearing. Its specificity lies in our attention and awareness of ourselves and others, human and non-human beings, and things.

Why is an exhibition about the voice so important today? The world we live in has become completely untuned. The multiplicity of crises and genocidal wars, together with the loss of the common space of bodies resonating with each other, have created a sense of suffocation and panic. On top of all this, a culture of silence has taken hold around us, the space for free speech is shrinking, and there are growing calls for a culture of cancellation. But this silencing, this censorship, is not the only means of control. We are subjected to a noise of information that overwhelms us even more. A noise in which the sense that would bind us together as a social body is silenced. In the face of all this, it is no longer enough to simply conclude that we are not speaking with our own voice, that there is always the voice of the master behind it. It is time for action, even if it is as inarticulate as shouting or murmuring.

Although there is no such thing as our own authentic voice, the liberation of our individual and collective voice is the horizon of the works exhibited. Liberating our voices does not mean finding a selfhood with which our voice corresponds perfectly. What we really liberate with the voice is our relationship to the world. The artworks in this exhibition attempt to decolonise the different voices of particular traditions, nations and their communities and landscapes, the voices of women, people of colour, people from the edges of Europe, and the voices of our individual bodies. In our case, liberating voices means breathing, shouting, poetising, singing, speaking and murmuring.

The works exhibited also raise awareness of the crisis of modernity and its rational constructs. Their language transcends universal concepts and embodies particular experiences and knowledge. A voice is always a particular voice. And there is no voice that cannot be heard, so the liberated voices are only the voices that are heard. And listening has the power to heal, to connect, and to resist.

With works by Marina Abramović, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Noor Abed, Babi Badalov, Selma Banić, VALIE EXPORT, Farhad Farzaliyev, Essa Grayeb, Ida Hiršenfelder, Saodat Ismailova, Anna Jermolaewa, Mikhail Karikis, Anton Kats, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, Brandon LaBelle & Octavio Camargo, Katalin Ladik, Lucia Nimcova, Sergej Goran Pristaš & Nikolina Pristaš, Lala Raščič, Antoni Rayzhekov, Gerhard Rühm, Selma Selman, ŠKART, Mladen Stilinović, Irena Tomažin, Nora Turato, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec.