An interactive Photography exhibition spanning three continents.
This project culminated from what had started as a visit to Malawi, Africa, to see the country.
The first iteration started between February – April 2019, when we traveled through Malawi, using only public transport, meeting new people and experiencing the country first-hand.
On August 24th, 18:00 – 23:00 we exhibited @ The Bright Rooms, in Peckham Levels, Peckham, South-East London. This part of the project is a recollection of these travels, encapsulating in it our own unique perspective of the country, through our own eyes and experiences.
The exhibition explored notions of space and place through a multi-disciplinary medium, trying to create the context for the images with audio-visual sentiments, chronicling our travels through Malawi.
Our travels were informed by people and places, emotional and physical, art and life.
As you walked through the exhibition, you were reliving our journey in Malawi, our experiences and adventures.
The exhibition consisted of 3 sections;
+ The interactive photographs: 10 photographs of the unique people we’ve met during the journey, with environmental sound interaction, adding discrete layers of meaning while looking and engaging with the hung images and the space in front of them.
+ Esime; Pieces: Interactive soundscape installation. Esime was the mother of the house and one of our most beloved and memorable hosts during our trip. The installation tries to create a displacement in the way the original image was shot. The sound interaction used only one recorded sample, of Esime pounding cassava flour. The sound interaction mainly used granular synthesis, in order to complement and extend the visual interplay. The image had one “perfect point-of-view”, which was calculated and hung accordingly. When standing in the “perfect spot”, the sound simply played through.
+ Our Malawi Slideshow: a recollection mimicking a slideshow projector living room environment, where the viewers are invited to sit in “our collected memories’ living room” and watch our journey. The slides were custom fitted with slideshow projector sound samples, in order to increase the feeling of old memories, and the reliving of our experiences in Malawi.
The second iteration was in Tel-Aviv, Israel @ the Teder in Beit Romano. This iteration focused more on the men we have met along the way, and what they represented to us; From Mr. Thomas to the cleaners in the bus station to random coal mine employees; from family life to rural life, and to the city centers.
Following the first two exhibitions, we decided to take Our Malawi and showcase it in Malawi, Africa.
This idea soon posed us with some initial challenges; How do you book art exhibitions in such a place?
We traveled back to Malawi in February 2020, eventually showing in universities, schools, Non-Profit organizations and even in villages we had visited the prior year in rural areas. During the experience, we met and collaborated with amazing activists, artists, musicians, photographers, analogue fanatics and digital lovers. We’ve started an ongoing project with a local poet and activist, Chris Msosa, extending the disciplines which this project touches on, adding poems to relate to the photographs.
What really tied it all in for us was a sense of motion and exaltation, stemming from the deep bond we felt we have made with the country and the people we’ve met, who has been like family for us.
It seemed to us that re-examining the gallery space conception has forged an ongoing conversation and interest in augmented techniques for multidisciplinary work, but also in the way we see the world and the way we predispose and preconceive our own art.
The photographs were all taken with a Hasselblad CM-500 and Canon AE-1.
All the photographs were shot, developed and printed by Noam Friedman.
The sounds were all recorded with a Zoom H-6 and Soundman Binaural microphone, edited and mixed by Guy Fleisher.
Special thanks to Amit Segall for his generosity and kind assistance in the project.
Super special thanks to; Zilanie Gondwe (the condiment queen of Malawi), Chris Msosa, Helen Todd, Benjame Defrancois-abi, the staff and employees at Art & Global helath centre, Eva Chikabadwa, Dr. Robert Chanunkha, the staff at Malawi University of Science and Technology, Mathews Mfune, Matilda Salima, Anton Scheit, Martha “Mama Malawi” Chinyanja, Karima Grant and the House of Bessaiah staff, Gomezgani Saka
…and to all the amazing people who came out to see the exhibition and supported us along the way…