ARCHIVE

Trans-Temporal Echoes (Audio)

Jan 01, 2021
Created by AWU Radio (2021). Introduced by Iru Ekpunobi.

In her guidebook, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, queer black feminist love evangelist and self described marine mammal apprentice Alexis pauline gumbs asks: "How can we listen across species, across extinction, across harm? How does echolocation, the practice many marine mammals use to navigate the world through bouncing sounds, change our understandings of 'vision' and visionary action? Is social media already a technology of bounce, of throwing something out there and seeing what comes back?"

Created by AWU Radio, a feminist radio station based in Senegal, Trans-Temporal Echoes is a technology of bounce, in the words of Alexis Pauline Gumbs. It is an ensemble of voices, a deep, dear dialogue between women and whales echoing each other. Telling stories of the deep, deep tones, deep time, deep entanglements, and deep trans-generational transmission.

This piece is a soundscape built upon an oceanscape. With seawater, bubbles, and underwater frequencies woven throughout the piece, the general order of appearances is as follows:

  1. Whalesong blends into
  2. a composition by multi instrumentalist Sona Jobarteh, played on the kora—the 21 string West African instrument.
  3. Curator Fatou Kine Diouf references Parlons Grandmère (Let's talk Grandmother) or, Lets Talk Grandmother, by the late poet, director, and orator Djibril Diop Mambéty,
  4. echoed by artist Binta Diaw and her mother, Adam Diongue as they chant the mourning of Bay Dembaa Waar
  5. and artist Fatou Kiné Ndiaye as she invokes her mother.
  6. Griotte Binel Mboum sings Yela, the rhythmic music of women that resonates with the beat of pounding grain, traditionally used to call people for historical events.
  7. the oceanscape continues to flow with artist Imann Gaye and Akinbode Akinbiyi’s conversation
  8. into the voice of ‘slammer’ Black Yaye Fall as she names genealogies in both Wolof and English
  9. Soul singer Aminata Fall laughing in the 1973 film Touki Bouki
  10. Mamy Victory rapping of self determination
  11. Chiara Figone tracing time and asking questions of water and memory (collapsing the past, present, and future, in linear time. The presence of the dead remains in the oceans, in the whales, in our bodies. The ocean whispers our secrets. tears in time. tear time apart.)
  12. Griot Yandé Codou Sène leading a Serer ritual."
- Introduced by Wave Farm Radio Art Fellow 2023, Iru Ekpunobi