Opus 8: Manifest Remembering (20min) — Script & Multivoices’ soundtrack

Manifest Remembering by J.A Santschi - Art Installation - at Villa Arson, Nice

Soundscape & Light Installation, 2023 — curated by Mawena Yehouessi, villa arson, nice

A soundscape and a script composed from J.A’s practice of listening, exploring the act of remembering— Honoring the names of living Black, gender-&otherwise expansive & unapologetic individuals whose voices are shaping, uplifting, and connecting people and cultures.

In this room of transition and passages, the installation inviting people to listen to the ongoing sonic-referencing of names at play as they move towards to the second part of the exhibition.

This interplay of light and sound resonances in the room create a shift of opacity and atmosphere—a curated demand for attention and surrender. A call on the audience to lean into curiosity and a slower pace: who is conjured here? Yet, who is absent and why?

The voices recorded in “Manifest Remembering” are layered, projecting names, questions, and fragmented pieces of knowledge. They emanate from three separate speakers, strategically placed in different corners of the room.

Foam benches provide a place to sit or lay-down, encouraging a deeper engagement with the voices as they respond to & overlap one another.

(photographs by ©MY)

Opus 10: Holding Space; A Preparation (21min)

(MA Thesis Soundtrack)

“More Of Us Are Coming Calling
A Prophecy By Day
to Remember Songs
to Release”

“MORE OF US ARE COMING” (2024)

Soundscape, Light & Art-performance, 2024 — self-curated, CCC, HEAD, geneva

From their collection of essays “Transmuting Black Sonic Entities: The Necessary Voices of a Culture in the Making,” J.A. delves into the concept of "holding space for listening"—an exploration of living-archive practices centered on attentiveness & collective resonances.

The installation takes its title, "More Of Us Are Coming," from the poem "Space Child" by the Artist Day Komet. This prophetic quote serves as both an invitation and a vision for what must still be built to fulfill this calling.

A performative listening workshop marks the opening of the installation, in which J.A and the audience collaborate to sculpt "humming-bones" as they follow the sonic instructions. Indeed the twenty minute soundtrack "Holding Space; A Preparing," acts as a guide for unearthing decimated bones and reimagining them in clay. The result is a shared act of creation, where sound and touch merge into a communal work of expression.

In "Holding Space; A Preparing,", J.A. draws from myths such as the story of the phoenix, weaving them into a poetic sonic narrative in which the human voice takes on qualities of wind instruments like flutes and saxophones.

(photographs by ©VB)