May 2, 2022
OTO Sound Museum is a nomadic museum that produces, presents and collects sound works by contemporary artists from different backgrounds, geographies and generations. The museum was born digitally as an iconoclastic environment and a utopian architecture within an online platform. It is also used to travel across different places in the physical realm, transforming its identity along the way.
SOUND TURM program
For the new program SOUND TURM, the collective Zaira Oram decided to wake up the Wasserturm (water tower) in Zurich. Often invisible to most people, the historical tower is a symbolic place that resists the waves of modernization, hiding in the urban fabric of the city center. Three interventions, both performative and installative, will be carried out by the artists Stirnimann-Stojanovic (Switzerland/Serbia), Magda Drozd (Poland) and Gilles Aubry (Switzerland) who will measure themselves to the old construction and the surrounding area. The mission is to make this place reverberate into the city, giving it a voice and providing people with a space for listening.
Among the few places that survived the new Zurich urban plan, the Wasserturm was built in 1724 with the aim of bringing water to the district as a common mission. For nearly 200 years, the water tower fulfilled its function as a life engine. Acquired by the city, it later fell into disuse and today it houses a center for sports activities. Its memory makes this place of significant historiographic, anthropological, social and even artistic interest. Becoming a sound turm, the Wasserturm will be activated to (re)live in the city as a musical instrument that resonates its presence and spreads voices. Sound returns to be the center of a program that also looks at the Zurich avant-garde—leaving the canonical and institutional spaces—to question its social, political and artistic role today. Tip: The works can be listened from the natural stalls by the Old Botanical Garden.
OTO Museum program
In parallel to the live interventions, the digital program continues its travel online, nourishing the nomadic nature of the museum as a home for sound art. The program calls for artists and authors from the Mediterranean area whose practices relate to sound research and experimentation on different levels with a multidisciplinary approach. The works by Abdellah M. Hassak (Morocco), Anna Raimondo (Italy) and Larissa Araz (Turkey) are presented as sound shows on the iconoclastic platform www.oto.museum, one at a time and in a specific time frame. No given images are offered to the eyes. Only sound inhabits the digital exhibition space. The sound works are also collected on OTO’s archive – generating a growing collection of sound pieces.
OTO SOUND MUSEUM was born from the desire to reflect on the recent visual phenomenology and to generate experiences of proximity through what is not visible or distant. The museum intends to continue taking part in the debate started in 2021 in regards to migration and its translation through sound, with its ability to travel, disseminate, protest and overcome borders and the walls of our civilization.
Stirnimann-Stojanovic and mfj rulla / Resist! Persist! Maintain!: May 6, 6pm
Collective listening (audio piece), duration: 30 minutes. Wasserturm, Zurich (address: Badweg 10, CH-8001 Zurich).
Abdellah M. Hassak: May 28–July 31
Sound show. OTO SOUND MUSEUM (oto.museum, left sphere).
Magda Drozd: July 2, 5pm
Performance. Wasserturm, Zurich (address: Badweg 10, CH-8001 Zurich).
Anna Raimondo: September 5–October 27
Sound show. OTO SOUND MUSEUM (oto.museum, left sphere).
Gilles Aubry: October 21–November 27
Sound installation. Wasserturm, Zurich (address: Badweg 10, CH-8001 Zurich).
Larissa Araz: November 7–December 30
Sound show. OTO SOUND MUSEUM (oto.museum, left sphere).
Subscribe to stay in touch! Then select play and give up the screen. OTO SOUND MUSEUM is a project curated by Zaira Oram
Zaira Oram is a curatorial collective focused on experimental displays and interdisciplinary projects. Her practice involves research on visual art, performance and sound art and the creation of networks between different disciplines and areas of studies. Her main research threads are migration, contemporary narrative and border experiences. Zaira Oram has an open identity: she travels and transforms herself along the way. The collective was initiated by Francesca Ceccherini and Eleonora Stassi, and expanded with the participation of Chloé Dall’Olio, Camille Regli and Elisa Bernardoni. @zairaoram.
For press enquiries, please contact: camille [at] oto.museum.
