Listening to the Archive

Listening to the Archive explores the colonial sound archive as both a record of extraction and a site of renewed listening. Bringing together two distinct approaches—an imageless film composed entirely from archival recordings and a radiophonic work that critically engages with a museum collection—the program considers how acts of listening can challenge inherited narratives, reveal archival absences, and open new ways of encountering colonial histories.

  • 22 September
  • 17:30
  • Cinema Kijkhuis
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A relistening and reinterpretation of colonial recordings of New Guinea made in 1961 by Michael Rockefeller, heir to the Standard Oil family.

Still from the film Expedition Content by Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati

An album and radiophonic project that critically engages with the colonial history of sound archives, drawing on recordings from the repatriated collections of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren.

Joseph Kamaru
Belgium, Germany 2025 15' Listening to the Archive leff 2026
Still from the film Temporary Stored by Joseph Kamaru