Taking its name from a poem in Etel Adnan’s powerful book The Arab Apocalypse (1989), the biennial exhibition gestures toward the passing of time, but also carries traces of Bhagavad Gita, referenced by Robert Oppenheimer after witnessing the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: ‘If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendour of the mighty one. I am become Death, The Shatterer of Worlds.’ Drawing upon this sublime, all-subsuming vision, one sun after another attends to slow, accumulative violence as it makes its imprint on futures yet to come. Touching on deep, real, geological time, the programme embraces nonlinearity, fluctuation and porousness, making space for leaks. Permeable to hope, the figure of the ever-dawning sun glows without burning, permeating warmth, fueling imagination and propagating life.

Contemplating multiple incarnations of time, one sun after another listens to an immersive aerial choir of bees, follows a microbe embedded within lithium traveling from a Chilean mine to a digital device, and plunges into deep time through lead-encased nuclear coconuts from the Bikini Atoll. Artistic research traces the lineages of exhaust produced by oil and other extractive economies, while in other places it speculates over Greenland’s mineral deposits, now made accessible by melting ice. In the Canadian Arctic, visual narratives on monumental ice walls come and go with tidal movements, soundtracked by a cacophony of environmental field recordings. Against the din, visitors are welcome to a joyful meditation about presence, sensing and bending time, before drifting downstream, where the exhibition stretches time even further. Diving under, performative and installative artworks explore toxic cycles of water and stretch inner time with hybrid instruments and sub-aquatic amplification.

PUBLIC PROGRAMME

The exhibition is complimented by a public programme of a variety of events, emanating across W139 and Zone2Source in Amsterdam. Join us for tasting sessions with Leanne Wijnsma, scented interventions by Cesar Majorana, live performances by Loma Doom and G, soundwalks led by Tomoko Sauvage and Enrico Malatesta, a meditative gathering with MELT, guided tours with Sonic Acts curators, listening sessions with Félix Blume, panel discussions and publication launches, and much more throughout Sonic Acts Biennial 2022.