Built By Sound
No Ghost and Dialled In, in collaboration with Bradford 2025
Artwork Description:
Sound is the architecture here. BBS treats music as a load-bearing structure -- music holds the memory, lineage and place together when official archives fall short. Much of this era wasn't recorded; the movement lived in secrecy, in nights South Asians attended without their parents' knowledge. South Asian music history in Britain has always moved through bodies and rooms before it reached records, so we built a place that does the same. The 30x15 place space, spatial audio, and the group experience function as a single instrument, tuned to the rhythm of collective memory. Each player's path writes a slightly different version of the story, mirroring how diaspora memory itself works: collective, partial, alive in the body before it ever reaches the page. Audiences don't watch the story; they walk through it together, leaving having physically participated in an act of cultural preservation. At it's core we were challenged to respectfully deliver a narrative that had to stay authentic to the community and the political struggles that were faced, meanwhile ensuring that audiences were left with a range of emotions they could walk away with: joy, community and a sense of resistance against both invisible and visible forces.
Project Collaborators:
BFI Doc Society Creative Director: Shehani Fernando Script Writer: Nikesh Shukla Narrator: Anita Rani Composer: Provhat Rahman Archive & Engagement Producer: Hafsah Nibe Concept Artist: Jota Sadoval Lighting & Audio Effects Design & Consultancy: Neuron Audio Visual Prop Supervisor: Kash Odedra Spatial Sound Design: Oliver Kadel Video Editor: Prince Yiadom Tech Artists: Michal Firkowski, Elliott Kajdan Consulting Producers: Moss Sheikh, Mick Chandsoor Tim Smith Leonard Bertoia.
