Mudassir Sheikh is a Berlin-based musician and interdisciplinary artist of Pakistani origin whose work spans sound, video, performance, and text. In the framework of his Islands of Change residency, Sheikh presents a sonic installation that explores water as both a historical force and a threshold between the seen and unseen. Rooted in Karachi’s mythologies, ecological violence, and sonic traditions like Gwati and Lewa, the work treats sound as a method of remembering and resistance.
Islands of Change confronts the polycrisis – planetary collapse, genocide, war, tech-fascism, and growing authoritarianism – that increasingly leaves us at a loss in the face of the challenges it presents. Co-curated by Julian Rieken with Residenties in Utrecht and Gaudeamus, this long-term initiative asks: How do we reclaim our ‘response-ability’? How do we mobilize our (hyper)local ‘islands’ of artistic action to counteract rigid hierarchies, and in so doing, forge vibrant currents of solidarity? Click here for the full programme of Islands of Change.
This exhibition is part of the Ulysses Platform, co-funded by the European Union.