Choice
The installation Sounding Conflict created by Pedro Rebelo with Matilde Meireles focuses on a filmed 30 minute performance directed by Patrick J O’Reilly with performers Joe Loane e Keith Singleton. The work aims to aggregate various elements collated during fieldwork in the context of the project “Sounding Conflict” across the Middle East, Northern Ireland and Brazil ( https://www.qub.ac.uk/research-centres/SoundingConflict ).
The installation projects two characters who cyclically insist in gestures and actions that suggest states of destruction and reconstruction of a house, a wall, a city…
Structured in five acts and a coda, the filmed performance reflects acts of resistance, resilience and reconciliation in the way the two characters navigate a world made of bricks. The film asks questions about what a wall does to community. Is it protection or is it a border? Who builds a wall and for whom is it built? Framed around resistance, resilience and reconciliation, the film is a performative enquiry into relationships of power, spatial politics and identity. The capacity of sound to create spaces and materialise action is explored in a sound environment which constantly shifts between the concreteness of construction and destruction, the soundscape and references to Hip Hop from Síria, Brazil and Northern Ireland. The sound work includes field recordings from these sites as well as archival BBC materials from the 1970’s during the conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. The global conventions of Hip Hop in combination with its notable local variations present a sonic palette questioning the role of music created in a conflict situation.
The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council.
BIO
Pedro Rebelo (Viseu 1972) is a composer, sound artist and researcher. In 2002, he was awarded a PhD by the University of Edinburgh where he conducted research in music and architecture. Pedro has recently led participatory projects involving communities in Belfast, favelas in Maré, Rio de Janeiro, travelling communities in Portugal and a slum town in Mozambique. This work has resulted in sound art exhibitions at venues such as the Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast, Centro Cultural Português Maputo, Espaço Ecco in Brasilia and Parque Lage and Museu da Maré in Rio, Museu Nacional Grão Vasco, Golden Thread Gallery, Whitworth Gallery Manchester, Convento de São Francisco Coimbra and MAC Nitéroi. His music has been presented in venues such as the Melbourne Recital Hall, National Concert Hall Dublin, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Ars Electronica, Casa da Música, and in events such as Weimarer Frühjahrstage fur zeitgenössische Musik, Wien Modern Festival, Cynetart and Música Viva.
Pedro has been Visiting Professor at Stanford University (2007), senior visiting professor at UFRJ, Brazil (2014) and Collaborating Researcher at INEM-md Universidade Nova, Lisboa (2016). At Queen’s University Belfast, he has held posts as Director of Education, Director of Research and Head of School. In 2012 he was appointed Professor of Sonic Arts at Queen’s and awarded the Northern Bank’s “Building Tomorrow’s Belfast” prize. He has recently been awarded two major grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council including the interdisciplinary project “Sounding Conflict”, investigating relationships between sound, music and conflict situations. Pedro has been appointed Director of the Sonic Arts Research Centre in 2021 and is an associate fellow of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice.
https://pedrorebelo.org/
Matilde Meireles is a sound artist and researcher who makes use of field recordings to compose site-oriented projects. Her work has a multi-sensorial and multi-perspective critical
approach to site, where Matilde investigates the potential of listening across spectrums as ways to encounter and articulate a plural experience of the world — human and otherwise.
Matilde has a PhD from the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast and her work is presented regularly in the form of concerts, installations, releases, and community-
based projects.
https://matildemeireles.com/
