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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An imageless film, sounds from a repatriated colonial archive are interrogated to construct an emancipatory relistening to sounds collected through colonial violence.

Joseph Kamaru
Belgium, Germany 2025 50' Listening to the Archive leff 2026
Shot from movie Temporary Stored by Joseph Kamaru

A relistening and reinterpretation of colonial recordings of New Guinea made in 1961 by Michael Rockefeller, heir to the Standard Oil family.

Shot from movie Expedition Content by Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati