Opening broadcast (extract)

The Museum of Plant Animals (Extract)

The installation Margins for Madness, Undesirable Monuments is part of Hamdy’s ongoing research looking at the ways in which madness and unreason are socially constructed. How is madness embodied and embedded in public space? For the artist, the simultaneous seclusion and exteriority of urban gardens are a metaphor for what we call madness.

On Saturday, November 23rd, at 6.30 pm, the space will be opened with a live radio perforamance. Plant lovers are invited to bring their favourite, beautiful, singular green flatmates and let them be part of the installed garden.

Margins for Madness, Undesirable Monuments — Temporary Garden and Radio Space

Opening Saturday, November 23rd
6.30 pm at Blech. Raum für Kunst Halle / Am Steintor 19
& 7 pm on Radio CORAX 95.9

Radio Performance Sunday, November 24th / 8 pm
at Blech. Raum für Kunst Halle / Am Steintor 19 & on Radio CORAX 95.9

Radio Performance Friday, November 29th / 4 pm
at Blech. Raum für Kunst Halle / Am Steintor 19 & on Radio CORAX 95.9

Finissage / Long Night of Galleries Saturday, November 30th
5 – 10 pm at Blech. Raum für Kunst Halle / Am Steintor 19
& 6 pm on Radio CORAX 95.9

Open for visitors and plant contributions:
until November 22nd, daily 3 pm – 5 pm
from November 23rd – 30th, daily 5 pm – 8 pm

Graphic: Franziska Stübgen
Photo: Cactus, Behman Hospital-Helwan; Credit: Wafaa Samir

I invite you to create an imaginary garden with me
It is a space for plants to talk,
And for us to talk with them.
I once loved a plant with all my heart,
It was a cactus plant.
It was hard every time I was sad, and there was difficulty every time I was happy.
It was torn from my heart, then my heart exploded.

From November 23rd to November 30th, Sara Hamdy, artist in residence at Radio CORAX, turns the gallery Blech, Raum für Kunst Halle, into a garden and radio space.

For this event, plant lovers are invited to contribute their favorite plants to the installation and let it be part of the imaginary garden for the time of the exhibition. All plants will be very well taken care of.

On Saturday, November 23rd, the space will be opened with a live radio performance, for which we invite all plant contributers and participants to wander through the garden.

Bring us your special plant:

We open the doors for your contribution at Blech, Raum für Kunst Halle e.V., Am Steintor 19

from Nov 15th – Nov 22nd, daily from 3 pm–5 pm

& from Nov 24th – Nov 29th, daily from 5 pm–8 pm

Opening: On Saturday, November 23rd, at 6.30 pm:

with a live radio performance, for which we invite all plant contributers and participants to wander through the garden.

The garden and radio installation is part of Sara Hamdy’s long-term project Margins for Madness: Undesirable Monuments, an ongoing research looking at the ways in which madness and unreason are socially constructed. How is madness embodied and embedded in public space? The simultaneous seclusion and exteriority of urban gardens and rural woods are a metaphor for madness.

Photo: Cactus, Behman Hospital-Helwan 2019; Credit: Wafaa Samir

On air: Saturday, November 9, 3 pm on Radio CORAX 95.9
Online: http://sphere-radio.net/en/
On site: Villa Plagwitz, Karl-Heine-Straße 108, Leipzig

Graphic: Mote Studio

For the performance The Complex Songs we want to found a temporary choir. The performance is part of the RadioLab Program of the transdisciplinary music festival Seanaps in Leipzig.

The Complex Songs is a singing/voice performance by visual and sound artist Sara Hamdy. The performance is based on recordings of birdsongs the artist has collected in Halle, Leipzig, Cairo and Alexandria and transformed into scores for vocal interpretation.

For realizing a collective voice performance we invite singers who are curious to play with their voices and keen on experimenting.

You don’t have to be an experienced choir singer, but you should bring a musical ear and sense and be able to use your voice confidently.

In the workshop on November 3, Hamdy will introduce the project and her working process, and the participants will improvise on the scores and develop a collective interpretation for the performance. Following an evening for rehearsing on November 8, the performance will take place on Saturday, November 9, 3pm at Villa Plagwitz and live on air on the RadioLab stream and on Radio Corax 95.9 FM.

Workshop

Sunday, November 3, 12pm-5pm // Leipzig, tba.

Rehearsal

Friday, November 8, 3pm-6pm // Leipzig, tba.

Performance at Seanaps RadioLab

Saturday, November 9, 3pm (30 min.) // Villa Plagwitz & airing on the RadioLab stream as well as on Radio CORAX 95.9 FM in Halle/Saale & radiocorax.de

If you are interested, please send us a mail until Friday, November 1, to: residency@radiocorax.de

Extract from “The Complex Songs” by Sara Hamdy, with Angelina Ivanova and Lorenz Pfützenreuter, 21.10.2019, WUK Theaterquartier and Radio CORAX 95.9

Sara Hamdy from Cairo is the fourth scholar of the Radio Art Residency. Hamdy graduated in fine in arts at the Helwan University in Cairo. Her poetic artistic practice includes visuals and sound as well as text and performance. What leads her works is the hidden and concealed – this what we cannot see nor hear, but only sense:

Obviously I’m fascinated by what we call ›madness‹. In Arabic ›mad‹ means the hidden, in the sense of concealement. There is something of whose existence we know but we don’t see it, like the unspoken history of memory, like the gardens behind the walls or the woods with their hidden seeds in the earth.

Sara Hamdy, Performance, The Complex Songs, 2016.

For the opening of her residency in Halle (Saale), the artist performs her work The Complex Songs, on the 21st of September as part of the Radio CORAX anniversay celebrations.

Sara Hamdy about her art work and ideas for the Radio Art Residency (40 min.)

Picture: Sara Hamdy