Performance whya (a listening exercise) convened by Nolan Oswald Dennis

whya (a listening exercise) invites listeners to be guided through an auditory journey into the digital artwork ‘whya’ by Nolan Oswald Dennis. The session features a guest selector who, using a set of listening protocols provided by the artist, will lead an exploration of ‘whya’. The selector will determine what to listen to, when to pause, and what to repeat, allowing the audience to experience the artwork’s fluid nature and interpretive possibilities in real-time.

‘whya’ is a digital memory server that reimagines fragments of oral history from the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO), a revolutionary school in Mazimbu, Tanzania, established for freedom fighters in the armed struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. Through an ongoing project of interviews with former students, teachers, and residents of SOMAFCO, Dennis has created a speculative choreography of remembering.

This hybrid event is an opportunity to engage with ‘whya’ as it unfolds, embracing an ethical approach to memory that avoids clear-cut histories or private recollections. Instead, ‘whya’ offers an open-ended exploration of memory as an interactive process where sound and image fragments are rearranged and collaged to evoke new meanings. In this collective listening exercise, memory is not merely recalled but actively reconstructed.

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Free, booking required. This is a hybrid event.

TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE

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If you have any accessibility requirements, please contact Beatriz Lobo, Curator – beatriz@iniva.org

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About the artist

Nolan Oswald Dennis is a para-disciplinary artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their practice explores ‘a black consciousness of space’ – the material and metaphysical conditions of decolonization – questioning histories of space and time through system-specific interventions.

They hold a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits 2012) and a Science Master’s degree in Art, Culture and Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT 2018).

They work within and against a grammar of world-making: using indexical, analytic and educational devices (drawings, diagrams, maps, models, etc) as ambiguous tools for rehearsing possible meanings rather than forms of instruction. Their practice recombines social, technical, political and spiritual systems grounded in a planetary condition of landlessness and guided by the overlapping theories and practices of black, indigenous and queer liberation.

Their work has been featured in exhibitions at the Goodman Gallery (Johannesburg, Cape Town, London), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Van Abbemuseum, the Seoul Mediacity Biennial, Young Congo Biennale (Kinshasa), FRONT triennial (Columbus), Shanghai Biennial, Videobrasil, Liverpool Biennial and the Lagos Biennial among others.

They are a founding member of artist group NTU, a research associate at the VIAD research centre at the University of Johannesburg, and a member of the Index Literacy Program.