Nevin Aladag, Fanfare at the Hayward Gallery

Segolene Py
Mar 25, 2020
2 min read

Updated: Jun 22, 2021

I visited the Hayward Gallery few weeks ago and had the chance to come across Nevin Aladag’s works, Traces (2015) and Session (2013). Turkish-born (Van) and German-based (Berlin) artist, Nevin Aladag’s work mainly focuses on sounds. She produces #sculptures, #videos and #performances often making references to her roots through the media she uses and the places she #films. Aladag’s works also refers to #borders and their #politics.

In this show entitled Fanfare, two videos are displayed as a triptych, showing various #instruments played by movements of #random objects in public places. You could see an #accordion stretching down from a lamppost, a #tambourine thrown down some stairs, some small bells dragged in the sand in a desert, a #flute or a #trumpet blown into with a balloon or a violin fastened to a roundabout in a playground.

All shots are taken in very different #landscape such as city centre, parks or street markets. Nevin Aladag actually filmed those two projects in 4 different countries: Germany, Iran, Pakistan and India. The videos capture our attention with 3 different screens but also because the videos switch quite often and with very different kind of landscapes and environments which forces us to understand each time where we are.

The #curator rightly expressed the idea that ‘music is at once culturally specific and a universal language, capable of moving freely across territories and borders’.

Capturing beautifully and sometimes with funny moments of random sounds, Aladag translates times of #freedom and sometimes, I found, satisfying small lapses of time with sounds.