Urok Shirhan is a visual artist whose work explores the politics of sound, image and speech in relation to power and affect. Working at the intersection of performance, visual arts and critical theory, her projects are often informed by her family’s history of political migrations. Entangling found materials and current narratives, her latest body of research considers the role of sound (and the voice in particular) in relation to forms of collectivity, dissidence and belonging. Shirhan is currently a Research Fellow at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht. She has been in residence at the Delfina Foundation in London and held fellowships at the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in Amsterdam; Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht and Ashkal Alwan in Beirut, Lebanon. She hosts ‘Sound Without Image’: a monthly live show on Radio Alhara, broadcasting from Bethlehem, Palestine.
In this textual score and sonic work, artist Urok Shirhan reflects on the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic to public speech and collective voicing.