Come back after years

For this creative project, my starting point was an archival recording of a Yoruba chant from Nigeria, recorded around 1911. I chose to work with this sound because, living in West Africa, these sonorities immediately resonated in me. They echo my daily environment, my personal history, and my fieldwork, which lies at the intersection of culture, music, and museum practice.

In my creative process, I deliberately chose to work with electronic instruments. This choice may appear paradoxical, as I am myself a kora player and am surrounded by traditional artists and musicians. However, this approach was central to my intention: to bring the past and the present into dialogue, to confront archival material with contemporary creation, and to explore the relationship between sonic memory and current technologies.

It was essential for me not to alter the sound quality of the original recording, in order to respect its materiality, its texture, and its historical character. The electronic work therefore positions itself around the sound, creating a space of dialogue without ever dominating the recorded voice.

This artistic choice is part of a broader reflection on colonial sound archives, their circulation today (repatriation?), and the possibility of giving them a living, sensitive, and contemporary presence without freezing or betraying them. The aim is not to reinterpret the past, but to create an bridge between different temporalities, allowing the archival sound to continue speaking for itself.

Igbo vocal group with leader and percussion reimagined by Jerome Evanno.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds