JENDELA SONORAMA


ABOUT

Jendela Sonorama is a communal listening and lecture-performance series developed in 2020 by Ariel Orah and Pedro Oliveira in collaboration with LK_W and Soydivision. In each session we host and present listening as a form of collective sharing and learning. Starting from but not constrained to our own personal record collections and research interests, we unpack affective sonic histories that deal, subtly or not, with the (often violent) devices, legacies, and complexities of colonialism. By understanding record collections as historical documents of a specific snippet of one's own identity, the sessions become improvised collages between existing material – songs and field recordings – and improvised, real-time creation responding to these materials. With that, it also blurs the idea of new music performance and DJ set, rejecting any well-defined point of entry or exit.

Questions that drive Jendela Sonorama are:
Where do we find the sound of border identities, of new modes of existing? How do we find new listenings, and how do we attend to and witness these listenings?

The goal of the sessions is to question the very idea of a “national identity”, establishing a plural and multifaceted South-South dialogue. The series debuted in September 2020 and had six editions so far. We started from the specifics of Portuguese colonialism in Indonesia and Brazil (where we come from) but moved more towards the complexities of diasporic identities, melancholia, activism, and the dream of a “post-migration” world



TAHANGUENTAR



V°L_1 

03.09.2020 @ Sari Sari Space
“Sertantifonas“

For the first round, Pedro Oliveira will present “Sertantifonas” (a term coined by Brazilian musician Elomar Figueira Mello), showcasing a couple of records, artists and songs hailing (mostly) from northeastern Brazil that deal, one way or another, with the legacies of christianity in the process of colonization of the Americas, and the forms of musical expression that challenge, contradict, or convey the complexity of this violent process.

V°L_2 

21.10.2020 @ Sari Sari Space
“Keroncong”

Keroncong developed from the Fado of the Portuguese people who came to Indonesia in search of spices in the 1500s. One story relates to the loss of the Portuguese to the Dutch made them being transported to Batavia as prisoners. There, during their labor-free time, they performed their music (Moresco song). Another story relates the Portuguese sail to the eastern part of Indonesia. Some of them settled in the northeast of Batavia. Their settlement is called Kampung Tugu (village of the Tugu, i.e., the Portuguese). In their settlement, they performed their music in their free time.

Despite their long history, keroncong gained prominence at the beginning of the 20th century, especially through figures that made it famous and popular: Ismail Marzuki, Gesang, and Kelly Puspito, among others. During its development, it absorbed various musical elements, such as Malay music, Javanese music, etc.

In this session, Ariel Orah would like to invite participants to explore the question of :  Is keroncong another example of syncretism?

Syncretism is typical in Java: an absorption/adaptation of foreign elements into one’s own culture/identity. It absorbs not only European elements but also regional elements (Langgam, Gambang Kromong, Malay song, etc.). What is foreign becomes one’s identity.

V°L_3 

24.06.2021 @ WIR WIR Berlin
“#wirbaueneineneuestadt“

Special edition of Jendela Sonorama with an invitation from WIR WIR Exhibition “Wir baauen eine neues stadt”. On this edition Pedro and Ariel did a session in sresponse to exhibition’s title and concentrate on reflection to verious cities that they been living and the story telling that brough surround them. They played also snippets of their own musical responses to these inner migrations, blending songs, memory, and creation.

V°L_4 

17.07.2021 @ Uferstudios Berlin
“How can we imagine a post migration world? What does it sound like?”
Jendela #4 reflected on the bureaucratic processes that condition our existence in Germany, while at the same time critically challenging the identities that are bestowed on us (e.g. "migrant", "worker", "Latin American", "South East Asian", etc.)

V°L_5 

11.06.2022 @ SAVVY Contemporary 

Part of exhibition project GARDEN OF TEN SEASONS,  curated by Cosmin Costinaș, Sheelasha Rajbhandari, and Hit Man Gurung. LINKJendela #5 focused on the melancholia of colonialism, and used songs as the backdrop for musical interventions and re-composing and creation troubling the comfort of melancholia and the need for different routes

V°L_6 

04.08.2022 @ZKU Berlin

“NO MORE MISERABLE IMMIGRATION APPOINTMENTS” 

(Jendela Sonorama #6) - Pedro Oliveira & Ariel Orah In this listening session and live "sound essay" performance, artists Ariel Orah and Pedro Oliveira will dive in and out of a selection of song snippets and musical interludes dealing with the tensions that a desire for "post-migration" futures entail. In attunement with the anger, sadness, and collective joy of Mark Fisher’s original k-punk playlist, Ariel and Pedro will sonically articulate the complexities of border and diasporic identities as they become ways of living and being – here and elsewhere.  

Part of Towards a Shimmer on the Horizon aims to explore steps, practices, thoughts and sounds that could shift consciousness towards post-capitalist desires, that may illuminate new structuring elements of society, that open up wishful imagination, that could give a glimpse of shimmering
possibilities

V°L_7 

18.11.2022 @Cashmere Radio Berlin

Part of Radical Sounds Latin America 2022

V°L_8 

31 March 2023 at AL Berlin Kreuzberg

Hosted by @_ravenative_ and @pjliveira featuring special appearance by @giulianacorsikolling 🪩

From #ketuktilu to #pencaksilat 🥋 From #karawang to #ujungberung 🏔️ Join us to deep dive into the complex frequencies of 👉🏼 #jaipong 🎭 A sound and performing art phenomenon that born in #paharyangan land from a massive cultural censorship in Indonesian history, which aimed to form national identity (?) . "For session #8 we come back to where we started and present a deep listening session, discussion, and performance exploring the de- and reconstruction of a "national identity." We will move between Indonesian Jaipongan and Brazilian Samba, working in and out from rhythm to discourse and back."

Photo by Isabelle Schmidt

V°L_9

27.05.2023 @hopscotchreadingroom Wedding

Featuring 👉🏼 @duma_ma and @petal.sounds ✅✅ hosted by @pjliveira and @_ravenative_ 📣📣
For edition #9, we are delighted to have Kei Watanabe and Gugulethu Duma joining us for a DJ Set and discussion about record collections, diaspora, Heimweh and resistance, focusing on their personal experiences from South/East Asia and South Africa respectively. Expanding the concept of Jendela Sonorama to include multiple Souths, we will dive deep into unexpected connections, solidarity, and practices of listening as anticolonial refusal.

V°L_10

Photo by Isabelle Schmidt

V°L_11

„Now, as of October 2023, we conclude what can be seen as a third chapter of the different mutations this series has already gone through in its short existence so far: with an expansion to a more generous form of conversation that embraces other histories than our own, yet converges back to a choreography of its own archive…..“

V°L_12

sōydivision brings us Jendela Sonorama – a listening and lecture-performance series that presents listening as a form of collective sharing and learning, unpacking affective sonic histories that deal with the (often violent) devices, legacies, and complexities of colonialism.

Where do we find the sound of border identities, of new modes of existing? How do we find new listenings, and how do we attend to and witness these listenings?

The goal of the sessions is to question the very idea of a “national identity”, establishing plural and multifaceted South-South dialogues. Together, we will look closely into the immediate surrounding of the neighborhood of Wedding, to trace histories, memories and movements in the dynamic relationships between its diverse communities. Following their personal threads, Ariel Orah, Pedro Oliveira, Kim Vu and Pisitakun Kuantalaeng invite us to question the transformations that occur throughout and across diaspora: What does it take to harmonize together as a whole, and how we can draw from the potential of the dissonance?

V°L_13