DARFUR, Fri-Art, Fribourg, Switzerland
Darfur
2006
Sound sculpture
“Darfur” is a twelve-channel sound work composed of 200 different dogs barking and yelping. The recordings were made in a compound of abandoned dogs in the Italian city of Cagliari, the location where the piece was first shown.
The title refers to a commonplace proverb used in Darfur: ‘The camel marches and the dog keeps on barking.’ It alludes to the deaf ears taken to block out the sound of the suffering of others who loudly articulate their own plight.
In “Darfur” the sounds are presented with the phrase ‘The dog barks, but it makes no difference to the camel. We are the dogs. The world is the camel.’ In some presentations these words have been inscribed onto the museum walls, in others they are on a billboard with an image of the marching camel and barking dog.
Presented at:
Audio festival Helicotrema, MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art Rome, Italy (2013)
Performa 09, White Box, New York, USA (2009)
Madrid Abierto, Madrid, Spain (2007)
Second Moscow Biennale, Moscow (2007)
Fri-Art, Fribourg, Switzerland (2007)
Urp!, Cagliari, Italy (2006)