Marking over a decade of collaboration with Sharjah Art Foundation and the surrounding community, Tarek Atoui: Cycles in 11 centres around experimental and innovative musical forms and offers audiences opportunities to learn about and explore instrument-making, compositional structure and musical collaboration.

Marking over a decade of collaboration with Sharjah Art Foundation and the surrounding community, Tarek Atoui: Cycles in 11 centres around experimental and innovative musical forms and offers audiences opportunities to learn about and explore instrument-making, compositional structure and musical collaboration.

Developed over the last 11 years, the exhibition represents the culmination of the artist’s ongoing exploration of different methods of listening, composition and performance. The instruments Atoui has created are the product of extensive research into music history and tradition as well as collaborations with different experts. Challenging established ways of listening through innovative approaches to sound, the instruments also build on the artist’s collective project WITHIN, which grew out of years of work with Deaf culture. This collective originating in Sharjah investigates how deafness can influence the way sound performance, space and instrumentation are understood.

For three months, the exhibition will be activated through live performances by Atoui and a series of guest collaborators. Also central to the exhibition is a residency in which musicians, composers and artists will be invited to experiment and interact with different audiences in Sharjah in order to develop or produce new work. Lastly, a temporary sound lab in Sharjah’s east coast city of Kalba will serve as a space for education and experimentation.

The full schedule of performances will be available in early 2020.