We are pleased to present a performance Exaqua: Ayesha Hameed in collaboration with Bojan Gagić and Adam Semijalac

The motifs of water, borders, and displacement, recurrent in Ayesha Hameed’s recent work, offer a reflection on migration stories and materialities, and, more broadly, on the relationships between human beings and what they imagine as nature. This performance, created in collaboration with Bojan Gagić and Adam Semijalac, invites the audience to share in what Bint Mbareh calls ‘aggressive listening’ during an improvised exploration of ‘exaqua’ – a term coined by M. NourbeSe Philip in Zong! to describe a watery equivalent of exhumation, the act of reclaiming from the earth. This reclamation uses poetry and sound to fragment itself in the process of witnessing destruction, ranging from the scale of genocide to that of personal grief and loss.

Ayesha Hameed (London, Helsinki) makes videos, sound works, textiles, and performances. She is also a creative writer, critical essayist, and poet. She has appeared on the BBC on several occasions as an artist and thinker. Hameed’s work explores the legacies of indentureship and slavery through the figures of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Bojan Gagić (Zagreb, Vienna) works across a range of theatre projects, participating in the production and creation of multimedia content, as well as lighting and sound design. He is the author of numerous exhibitions, installations, and performances in Croatia and internationally. His practice consistently engages with diverse forms of sound art.

Adam Semijalac (Zagreb) is a composer, sound artist, music producer, and performer from Zagreb. He is best known for his music project Bebè Na Volè. He is a versatile researcher of traditional Delta blues and the music heritage of his Slavonian and Dalmatian roots.

WHW’s program Remember Freedom, realised through various formats, takes its title from a speech given by science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin at the National Book Award reception in 2014. Le Guin urged that, in the difficult times that are coming – and which are already here – we must not forget the freedom held by poets and artists. She reminds us that resistance and change often start with artists, “the realists of a larger reality”. Thematically and methodologically, the program addresses questions that appear to be in opposition, such as poetry and borders, particularly in relation to the stifling of the freedom of speech within liberal democracies. 

Performance by Ayesha Hameed is realized in collaboration with the New Spaces of Culture. Performance is part of the discursive program: Poetry and Borders.

Special thanks to the: New Spaces of Culture, Zagreb; The Multimedia Institute MaMa, Zagreb

The program is supported by:
Office for Culture and Civil Society of the City of Zagreb
Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia
Kultura Nova Foundation
Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC)