Episode 4: Freedom is a Constant Struggle
Do art forms like black radical poetry, free jazz and improvisation create a space for the performance of freedom? Did they ever? And can they still do so now?
Arika have been creating events since 2001. The Archive is space to share the documentation of our work, over 600 events from the past 20 years. Browse the archive by event, artists and collections, explore using theme pairs, or use the index for a comprehensive overview.
Do art forms like black radical poetry, free jazz and improvisation create a space for the performance of freedom? Did they ever? And can they still do so now?
A collaborative social justice project that uses art, activism and awareness to combat the systemic oppression facing young, trans, queer & gender nonconforming people of colour.
Durational group-mind drone and clatter: bamboo, electronics, the contents of your local ironmongers bin. A 3-hour set from this legendary Japanese improvisation group.
Long Stringed Instrument performance involving up to 100 wires strung in tension over a 40m arch.
Wordless, reverb drenched voice, ghosted electronics, seething and ferocious electronic damage and Patty Waters style vocal mania.
Disused railway turning circle at east end of Union Terrace Gardens, a historically public space at the centre of a regeneration land-grab for the private gain of a local petro-chemical magnate.
Save the dates for Episode 12.
Wednesday 11 – Sunday 15 November 2026
Investigating the border between the audible and the visible means looking at the margins, the edges of creativity where artists test out new boundaries and define them anew.
Relative patterns of occlusion and exposure occupy two screens. Each exposure fires a stroboscopic flash of colour: yellow for one screen; blue for the other, filling the centre of both screens with colour, haloed with after-images.
Part old-fashioned Renaissance man, part hardcore avant-gardist, the Canadian painter-photographer-filmmaker-musician gives full vent to his genius in the exhilarating perceptual vaudeville, named after the ‘central region’ of tissue that acts as a conduit between the brain’s two hemispheres.
Tormented and drawn-out high-pitched yelps and drones, all interleaved with periods of torpid silence.
This programme takes human subjects as the focus for sound and image construction. And it includes a couple of masterpieces of experimental film: Paul Sharits’ deeply empathetic interpretation of epilepsy and Peter Kubelka’s Webern inspired abstract portrait of Arnulf Rainer.