S12 Ep8: Shenece Oretha: Listening Wholes | Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy

Somerset House Studios

Shenece Oretha takes an experimental approach to the podcast format for Somerset House Studios’ Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy series.

The multidisciplinary artist choreographs a DJ lecture mix that explores the theme of the body, using sonic forms that range from instruments and speech, to musicians, conductors, and listeners.

Oretha journeys through improvisational musical practices, audience culture, Black literature and emotional responses, layering music, speech and sound.

Listen as Oretha composes this sonic terrain, and bear witness to sound’s ability to move us emotionally, physically and socially, connecting us even when we are apart.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Shenece Oretha is a London based artist who interrogates the emotional, physical and relational sonic material of Blackness. In sharp contrast to the stark technological hardware often present in her installations, her work builds on the mobilising effects of Black oral traditions, celebrating the exchange and participation of intimate action, testimonials and emotional responses to generate expressions of collective imagination.

She has exhibited and performed her work both nationally and internationally. Recently her work ‘ Called to Respond’ was shown at Cell project space in 2020. Her first solo exhibition, TESTING GROUNDS, curated by Taylor Le Melle, was presented with Not/Nowhere at Cafe Oto, London (2019). Group exhibitions include 'Cinders, Sinuous and Supple', curated by Deborah Joyce Holman, Lausanne Les Urbaines, Switzerland (2019); 'PRAISE N PAY IT/ PULL UP, COME INTO THE RISE', South London Gallery, London; and 'BBZBLKBK: Alternative Grad Show', Copeland (both 2018). Presentations of performance work include 'Towards a black testimony', Stroom Den Haag curated by Languid Hands (2019); Wysing Polyphonic Festival, Wysing Art Centre, Cambridge (2018);'Congregation', ICA, London, (2017).