NL Premiere

Forensis (Forensic Architecture) is a nonprofit research association which investigates – or counter-investigates – violence and repression committed by state and corporate actors around the world. They collaborate with artist, designer, and musician Bill Kouligas and his adored label PAN on The Drum and the Bird: a multi-sensory performance which takes as its subject Forensis’s ongoing investigation into German colonialism in Namibia. Examining the relationship between lost ecologies and colonial exploitation, The Drum and the Bird combines generative environmental audio, oral testimonies, and spatio-visual modelling to highlight the voices and sounds that have been erased in the wake of rampant coloniality. Looking beyond the human world for answers, the piece pays tribute to the histories and changes witnessed and experienced by the flora, fauna, and geology of the Namibian landscape. What forms of loss do these environmental characters carry within them? This one-of-a-kind immersive audio-visual collaboration seeks to unsettle colonial amnesia by bearing witness to its dormant, overlooked ecologies – asking them to utter their testimonies.

The Drum and The Bird is co-commissioned by Berlin Atonal, Sonar, Rewire, and Terraforma.