Shop
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Day One Thursday
October 22 |
Day Two Friday
October 23 |
Day Three Saturday
October 24 |
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7:30 – 9:30pm
Listening Session
What the Sea Carries: On Shared Sonic HistoriesFrequency Room, First Floor Online & in-person
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5 – 6:30pm
Artists Salon
Language of the Unseen: On Sonic & Virtual DisplacementAbeer Sultan, Rund Alarabi, & Miriam Hillawi Abraham Project Space Online & in-person 8:30 – 10pm
Records Roundtable
From Cassettes to Cultural Capital: The Future of Red Sea MusicFrequency Room, Bohemia Records, KNZ Records & Ostinato Records Frequency Room, First Floor Online & in-person |
8:30 – 9:30pm
Artist Talk
Ungrounding: On Relational ListeningKMRU, Huda Tayob & Miriam Hillawi Abraham Project Space Online & in-person 9:30-10:30pm
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Participating Artists & Contributors
Ahmad Hikmat
A Sudanese radio producer, DJ and cultural facilitator whose practice connects sound, memory and storytelling. Raised across Sudan, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, he brings a distinctly Afro-Arab perspective to the musical cultures and movements linking the Red Sea and the wider region. Currently, he is based in Nairobi, where he founded Maryud Media and Maryud 103 FM, one of Sudan’s leading independent radio stations and where he can be found curating an eclectic selection of sounds, under DJ Afrodiziac, across places and generations.
Vik Sohonie
A two-time Grammy-nominated producer and founder of Ostinato Records, an independent label bringing overlooked and underrepresented musical histories into global circulation. Through familial and communal archives, connections and research, he supports artists at the grassroots, amplifying their voices to reach global audiences. His current focus is building intellectual property infrastructure across the Global South, including rights administration, royalty collection, songwriter registration and licensing that protect as much as preserve musical traditions and rhythms shaping contemporary music.
Abeer Sultan
A multidisciplinary Saudi artist based in Riyadh, working across moving image and sound to explore memory, identity and storytelling. Drawing from literature, experimental music, surrealism and mythology, her practice creates nostalgic and meditative atmospheres. She has participated in several artist residencies, including in Riyadh, Paris and Berlin, and over the years, has had her work exhibited across the MENA region and internationally.
Rund Alarabi
A Sudanese multidisciplinary artist and translator whose practice explores traces of human presence and the relationship between people and space. Through different mediums, she examines connections across existing and alternative realities, while considering how personal archives shape, preserve and reframe collective histories. She is also a co-founder of Locale, an art collective and platform supporting Sudanese contemporary art, heritage and history.
Miriam Hillawi Abraham
A multi-disciplinary designer from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. With a background in Architecture, she works with digital media and spatial design to interrogate themes of equitable futurism and intersectionality. Her research interests are concerned with the politics of space as well as technocultures rooted in the African continent. Most recently, her work has been featured internationally, including at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Sharjah Architecture Triennial and Shanghai Biennale.
Sara Alabdali
A Jeddah-based Saudi artist and writer exploring Arab culture, Islamic philosophy and the material heritage of the Hijaz through painting and traditional crafts. Her practice considers identity, belonging and overlooked histories, drawing attention to cultural memory and the poetics of place. Her work has been exhibited regionally and internationally, including at the British Museum.
KMRU
A sound artist and producer whose methods include field recording, improvisation noise, machine learning, radio art and drones. He has gained international recognition through releases, collaborations and performances, and also manages re-issues of music by his late grandfather, the celebrated activist and Benga musician Joseph Kamaru (whom he was named after). Currently, he splits his time between Nairobi and Berlin, and holds a Master’s in Sound Studies and Sonic Arts from Berlin University of the Arts.
Huda Tayob
A South African architectural historian, theorist and academic at the Royal College of Art in London, United Kingdom. Her research focuses on minor, migrant and subaltern architectures focused on the African continent, with an interest in archival silences and absences. She was lead curator of the digital pan-African platform (2020 – 2021) Archive of Forgetfulness and previously a participant in the 18th International Architecture exhibition in Venice (2023) with a project titled Index of Edges, which traces watery archives along east African coasts Cape Town to Port Said.
Frequency Room
A Jeddah-based creative enterprise and the newest Hayy Resident, known for using sound, art and immersive experiences as tools for cultural development. The space centres around a record store, listening zones, creative collaborations and music education all under one roof, offering an alternative way to experience sound, support artists and build sustainable creative economies and artistic exchange between Saudi Arabia and globally.
KNZ Records
A Riyadh-based music-driven creative house, founded by Abdullah Jmaan, and dedicated to discovering and developing contemporary sound culture in the region. It supports artists, releases forward-thinking music and curates immersive events that bring people together through sound and creative expression, while contributing to the growth of Saudi Arabia’s independent music ecosystem.
Bohemia Records & Cafe
A hybrid vinyl store, specialty cafe and grassroots live music venue for local independent artists. Co-founded by Fawaz Alsulaim and Mansour Alhmaid in Al Khobar in 2018, the space has since established a permanent base in JAX District in Riyadh, where it continues to support local music culture through vinyl, live events, artistic collaborations and community-driven programming.
Ostinato Records
A two-time Grammy-nominated independent record label dedicated to recovering, restoring and releasing overlooked musical histories from Africa, Haiti and the Caribbean. Founded by Vik Sohonie, the label connects archival research, curation and production with contemporary music, bringing historic recordings, traditions and stories to new audiences while offering new perspectives on musical heritage.
