Sound piece by Gilles Aubry and Nathalie Anguezomo M’ba Bikoro commissioned by Sonic Topologies Festival 2022
In recent years, Switzerland has reached agreements with Georgia, Peru, Senegal and Ghana to support the implementation of ‘low-hanging fruit’ climate change mitigation. In return, the countries will transfer the mitigation outcomes to Switzerland to help it meet its national target under the Paris Agreement. These agreements send no signal for decarbonisation in Switzerland and make it more difficult for the host countries to meet their own climate target. Aubry and Mba Bikoro examined connections between contemporary forms of CO(2)lonialism, airplane traffic in Zurich, as well as archival records from the ethnographic museum documenting music from Switzerland’s carbon trading partners’ entanglement in translocal power structures.
Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro is a conceptual artist from the region of Woleu-Ntem in North Gabon and is presently based in Berlin. Her artistic practices move between performance, archaeology, video & sound, politically and socially engaged international/local collaborations. With projects frequently community-based, Mba Bikoro addresses collective narratives on identity, memory, collective histories, and intersectional justice. Through her experience of inter- and trans-continental migration, Bikoro has developed a sensibility for cross-border interculturalism and the plurality of languages. She deconstructs these subjects in order to newly construct past and present mythologies by taking up multiple forms of media production and interventions in public space. www.anguezomo-bikoro.com
Gilles Aubry is a Swiss artist, musician and researcher based in Berlin. His work engages with sound, technology and environmental voices in relation to power and coloniality in various contexts. His installations, films, and performances have been presented at numerous international art venues and festivals. He teaches at UdK Berlin.