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Strange Echoes
Institute of Contemporary Arts
22 – 27 February 2022


Called to Respond, Shenece Oretha, Cell Project Space, London. Courtesy the artist


The frontier, however, despite its historical links with colonial discourse, suggests to me a place where anything was possible. A place where one could, because one was far away from the usual systems of control, experiment and try out different ways of being, identities even, including writing as a different way of being in the world.
– M. NourbeSe Philip, Jammin’ Still

Strange Echoes is a six-day convening celebrating the life, work and influence of poet and writer M. NourbeSe Philip. Curated by poet Olivia Douglass, Strange Echoes positions Philip’s work as a call to which artists respond in creative forms spanning poetry to installation, film and music. Collectivity, language, belonging, and the poetics of the fragment, are themes and concerns that persist throughout the programme. New and existing Philip readers are invited to engage deeply with her work and observe her influence on Black experimental writing in Britain today. 

M. NourbeSe Philip’s writing is marked by a striking distrust and re-dubbing of the English language as a colonial tool, its design reducing the experience of African people to abstraction and commodity. In her seminal texts She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks and Zong! language is ruptured and exploded to reveal the violence and absurdity it imposes on Black people. Words are fragmented into straying syllables, vowels and consonants drifting in negative space. Philip’s works of poetry, fiction and plays are not concerned with coherence; her writing blurs the boundaries between articulate speech and impulsive sound, howling out from the Atlantic, disrupting the ruling order of history and law. Her profound deconstruction of colonial language and logic urges readers to consider how the brutality and infrastructure of the transatlantic slave trade still reverberates into the realities of the world today.  

As Black writers in Britain grapple with the country's history, racism, politics and culture, they find resonance with Philip’s poetic exploration of exile and the ache of belonging. Philip’s work becomes a blueprint for articulating the complexity and beauty of Black life, and emboldens experimental, fugitive writing. With this guidance, new generations of writers across the African diaspora continue to map routes towards alternative visions of liberation and being.  

Inspired by the ‘song, moan, shout, oath, ululation, curse, chant’ that composes Zong!, Strange Echoes gathers poets, artists, writers, and audiences, and seeks to catalyse collective dialogue, contributing Black British voices to M. NourbeSe Philip’s unfolding chorus of dissent. 

Participants include: Joan Anim-Addo, K Bailey Obazee, Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Courtney Conrad, Olivia Douglass, Esther Heller, Latekid, Abondance Matanda, Shenece Oretha, Kareem Parkins-Brown, M. NourbeSe Philip and Ebun Sodipo.

If you have accessibility requirements, please contact us in advance of your visit for more information at access@ica.art

Full venue accessibility information can be found here 
Download an accessibility map of the venue here
 
Programme



Tuesday 22 February – Sunday 27 February
Artist Shenece Oretha presents a new installation that gathers multiple sound and voice recordings in response to M. NourbeSe Philip’s acclaimed book-length poem Zong!



Tuesday 22 February, 6:45pm
A screening of short films of spoken word followed by a conversation between Shenece Oretha, Victoria Adukwei Bulley and M. NoubeSe Philip.



Tuesday 22 February
A series of short films featuring readings by poets Ebun Sodipo, Courtney Conrad and Esther Heller. Each writer reads newly commissioned poems that respond to ‘Silence(s)’ as a reoccurring concern throughout the work of writer M. NourbeSe Philip.



Wednesday 23 February, 6:45pm
A writing workshop led by writer and professor Joan Anim-Addo. Designed to lead participants to an encounter with poetry by M. NourbeSe Philip.




Thursday 24 February, 7:30pm
A night of poetry readings accompanied by a jazz band, featuring four writers at the forefront of expansive Black British poetry.




From 27 September
Watch all poetry readings and performances again on Cinema 3.



Saturday 26 February, 2pm
A youth-focused reading group led by K Bailey Obazee of PRIM.




Saturday 26 February, 4pm
M. NourbeSe Philip reads and performs her written work live over zoom.