Colomboscope: Rhythm Alliances

Assistant Curator of Edition 9 of Colomboscope, supported Guest Curator Hajra Haider Karrar and Artistic Director Natasha Ginwala

Rhythm Alliances is an exercise of attunement to the varied dispositions of rhythm—energizing, contrasting, haunting, recurring, turbulent, and imagined. Far more than a static exhibition, it is a celebration of energies and experimental forms. Since experiencing rhythm-making is also an invitation for time-travel, the acts in this edition assemble a communal score of creation, resistance, and alliance-building. Involving over 50 artists and collectives, musicians, choreographers, filmmakers and cultural organizers, the festival programme will continue its pluriversal journey across freely accessible venues in Colombo.

The ninth edition of Colomboscope draws on a range of vocabularies embodying rhythms of remembrance, dissent, and renewal. From the noise of a global order where hyperconsumption and war are rife, how may sonic counter-currents transmit the ingredients of struggles today, make paradoxical realities audible, echo in the lifeways of migrant belonging, and resonate shared dreaming? Across live experiences and exhibited works we will also explore the role of listening in producing relationships of reciprocity and engage with the ways in which acoustic leakages and vocal atmospheres compose new public territories that refute borderlines, data harvesting, and oppressive systems.

Worked closely with artists Aboothahir Al Wajahath, Chamindika Abeysinghe, Dinar Sultana, Gayan Hemarathne, Haseeb Ahmed, Jegatheeswaran Keshavan, Kaimurai, Kavan Balasuriya, Mahesha Kariyapperuma, Mekh Limbu, Moe Satt, Nina Mangalanayagam with Marie Louise Dilmaya Bergqvist and the Transnational Adoptee Choir: The Whale, Sabeen Omar, Seher Shah, Tashyana Handy and Sakina Aliakbar, and Tissa de Alwis

Read more about the festival here.