HOME is thrilled to announce its forthcoming solo exhibition, Songs for the Storm to Come, an immersive sound and multi-screen installation, by award winning, internationally renowned Greek/British artist, Mikhail Karikis. Powerfully evocative and emotive, the work and soundscape composed by Karikis and developed with a local choir, focuses on the way humans relate to, and interact with, the environment and the role communal sound making plays in expressing this relationship.
Continuing his practice of collaborating with communities, Karikis worked with members of Manchester based SHE cooperative choir for women and non-binary people. In Songs for the Storm to Come, the participants observe maps sourced from climate modelling data showing Britain’s transformed geography for 2050, as a result of rising sea water. They reflect on the radical social and political changes required, and call for the power to bring us together and motivate us to form communities in the face of such changes.
Mikhail Karikis: Songs for the Storm to Come is curated by Clarissa Corfe.
A preview of this exhibition will take place on Fri 11 Oct, 18:00 – 21:00.
More information
Exhibition details
Guided by Karikis through the ‘deep listening’ workshop methods of queer composer Pauline Oliveros, as well as drawing on the book ‘ideas to postpone the end of the world’ by the Brazilian, indigenous movement leader and philosopher Ailton Krenak, and reflecting on the text, ‘the universal right to breathe’ by the Cameroonian political thinker Achille Mbembe, the group imagine and articulate possible alternatives. In the process, the participants build a repository of ideas and hopes, evoking a universe of solutions through a captivating groundswell of spoken word, vocal percussion and harmony.
In collaboration with sound researchers from the School of Digital Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University, Karikis has used the participants’ voices to vibrate and sculpt different physical materials through the use of cymatics. In the process, their collective voices conjure new horizons, chanting imagined near-future soundscapes and transforming their voices into meteorological phenomena.
Songs for the Storm to Come engages with the urgency of climate change by embracing science, personal and collective perspectives, emotional resonance, practical and speculative thinking. It proposes listening and communal sound-making as strategies to cultivate empathy, foster climate care, prepare for what’s to come and activate the possible, while rejoicing in the transformative power of sound, it declares that changing the course of global warming is in our hands.
Clarissa Corfe, Creative Producer: Visual Art said “We’re thrilled to be working with Mikhail Karikis on Songs for the Storm to Come. He is known for his exceptional skill in collaborating with people in many places around the world – I first experienced a really powerful artwork of his at Art Sheffield some years ago and we strongly felt his work would resonate with HOME’s audiences. For us, he has collaborated with a local choir and made an entirely new artwork to be experienced on multiple screens addressing the geographic, social and psychological transformation brought about by climate change. Through gentle provocation, dissolving inhibition, conversation, listening, Mikhail and the singers create magic through the power of communal sound, a multi-sensory work impelling resilience, hope and action in the face of one of the most urgent issues of our time.”
About Mikhail Karikis
Karikis exhibits internationally. In his most recent work for the stage, ‘Universe of Solutions’, he was artistic director for UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network inaugural cultural event for which he collaborated with 150 young people. Solo presentations include Sounds of a Revolution, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, PT (2024); Voices, Communities, Ecologies, Cukrarna Centre for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, SO (2024); Because We Are Together (2023), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens GR; Ferocious Love, Tate Liverpool (2020); For Many Voices, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), UK (2019-20); Children of Unquiet, TATE St Ives, UK (2019-20); I Hear You, De la Warr Pavilion, UK (2019-20); Mikhail Karikis, MORI Art Museum, Tokyo, JP (2019); No Ordinary Protest, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2018); Ain’t Got No Fear, Turku Art Museum, FI (2018); The Chalk Factory, Aarhus 2017 European Capital of Culture, DK (2017) and Love Is the Institution of Revolution, Casino Luxembourg Forum d’art Contemporain, LU (2017).
Group exhibitions include 54th Venice Biennale, (2011), IT; Manifesta 9, Ghenk, (2012); 19th Biennale of Sydney, (2014); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, IN, (2016); Media City Seoul, KR (2015); British Art Show 8 (2016-7); 2nd Riga International Biennale of Contemporary Art, LV (2020), 2nd Saitama Triennale (2024), JP and others.
Karikis’s creative endeavours include music performances at Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Barbican Theatre, and musical collaborations with Björk, DJ Spooky and the Belgian record label Sub Rosa.
About SHE Choir Manchester
SHE Choir Manchester is a free, cooperative, non-auditioned community choir for women and non-binary people. Through an inclusive and collaborative ethos, it has sparked an international network of choirs that celebrates music and friendship. Founded in Manchester by Susie, Hannah and Ellie (S.H.E) in 2010. www.SHEchoir.com
Dr Neil Bruce and Matteo Polato are researchers from the Music and Sound department at School of Digital Art at Manchester Metropolitan University, and part of the D∀RK – Dark Arts Research Kollective, a group of academics and artists who explore the creative, communal and boundary-breaking potential of occultural practices.
Gallery
