No Time Like the Present

For their two-year research project “No Time Like the Present”, the organisers of the “IMPULS Festival for New Music” have invited local and international artists, researchers and activists to Halle, Dessau and Leipzig to jointly examine the role of art against the backdrop of social crises. In cooperation with partners in Utrecht, Brussels and Siena, the project focuses on artistic positions that address issues like welfare, ecology and decolonialisation. The results will serve as the starting point for developing new strategies in which art is produced not merely for its own sake, but rather with political and activistic intent. The focus lies specifically in the area of New Music, supplemented by perspectives from the fields of research and activism. The aim is to amplify the sociopolitical impact of New Music as a generator of new ideas – as has already been established in other artistic fields.

The festival will present the creative output of the research projects. Performances, sound installations and interventions in public space aim to make environmental, social and political crises aesthetically tangible to the visitors. For example, ceramic flutes submerged in water will enable listeners to audibly experience rising sea levels. The Amazonian aquatic plant “Victoria amazonica”, which is able to change its sex and colour, encourages reflection on identity and indigeneity. The Iranian collective Only Sound Remains draws attention to marginalised perspectives in Syria, Iran and Algeria by exploring sound as a political practice.

A symposium with international guests will invite festival goers to participate in discussions on art and resistance. The exchange will be recorded acoustically and in written form and posted online following the festival.

Artistic director: Julian Rieken
Curators: Hanna Grześkiewicz, Qanat Collective, SONIC TOMORROW Collective
Artists: Andrius Arutiunian, Rana Eid, Cenk Ergün, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Ale Hop, Ranjit Kandalgaonkar, Siostry Rzeki (River Sisters), Ragnhild May, Otucha Collective and Martyna Poznańska and others

Project selection: “Listening Forward”: Symposium on Art, Research and Activism

In cooperation with SONIC TOMORROW, IMPULS, Sound Art Lab, Struer Tracks, Art Music Denmark 24 – 25 August 2023, as part of Struer Tracks – Biennial for Sound and Listening, Struer Denmark 13 – 14 Oct. 2023, as part of the IMPULS Festival 2023, Niemeyer Sphere Leipzig

“Pouring Water on Time”: Exhibition 6 – 15 Oct. 2023, as part of the IMPULS Festival 2023, Halle (Saale) and Leipzig

“Waterways – Politics and Poetics of Water”: Artistic research project

First performances: September 2024: Gaudeaumus Muziekweek, Utrecht, Netherlands

Oct. 2024: IMPULS Festival, Halle/Leipzig/Dessau, Germany