Residency #1: HARDI KURDA + ARCHIVE KHANAH ئەرشیف خانه at Cafe Oto

What is the role of citizens and local communities in preserving the sound of their region? Who decided what music and sounds are ‘worth’ being archived? And how should we engage with archives as sites of both remembering and forgetting? As part of the ERC’s Beyond 1932 Research Project at King’s College London, sound artist and composer Hardi Kurda will launch his new project, Archive Khanah. The event is part of Space21 Festival based across Slemani (Kurdistan) and its artist networks in Lebanon, Cyprus and the UK. The evening will introduce the sound archive’s interactive and community-based approach to recording and archiving forgotten and excluded voices from the 1920s – 1970s in Kurdistan and Iraq by using computer game technology to capture and perform the sounds of the region.