School for Sonic Memory

The School for Sonic Memory public assembly embodies the journey of fifteen international artists, urbanists, and practitioners to three Mediterranean cities: Athens, Alexandria, and Marseille. In collaboration with Onassis Stegi and Theatrum Mundi, six nomadic and nine local residents explore the ways in which these cities across the Mediterranean resonate with one another. In the context of this exhibition, ‘resonance’ is understood both literally and metaphorically, identifying trans-Mediterranean sonic practices that reveal the role each city’s sounds play in the dreams, nostalgias, and hopes of another. It also brings to the fore the elements of a connected and conflictual past audible within them.

Spanning across a variety of mediums and disciplines, the pieces are informed by the individual experiences and collective exchanges that took place during the week-long visits to Athens, Alexandria, and Marseille.

Through a multisensorial exploration comprising scores, images, texts, smells, choreography, music, and recorded sounds, the authors respond to some of the wider themes emerging from the residency: the circulation of knowledge, migration, water, heritage, mythology, memory, and the notion of citizenship.

You are invited to embark on a journey across the Mediterranean basin offering alternative narratives of what it means, or might mean, to belong to a sea rather than a country.

The mapping workshop with Omar Nagati is intended to introduce participants in the School of Sonic Memory in Alexandria, and potentially wider audience, to a number of critical methods and mapping tools based on CLUSTER’s work, as well as larger urban questions facing Egyptian cities. The workshop may also introduce a short exercise to hypothetically map and engage stakeholders within the current context and urban politics of Alexandria.

CLUSTER is an independent urban research and design platform based in Cairo with a wide range of programs, publications, and online platforms. CLUSTER has an extensive experience of mapping tangible and intangible urban heritage in cities in the MENA region and Africa.