Soro Soke Workshop Session #1

Introduction

Open Call

Zacky:

Zacky, who grew up in Lagos, sent two soundbites of himself reenacting an encounter with police men attempting to extort and abuse a young person at a traffic stop in Lagos. The police reveal their plans for the money they’re stealing and boast the authority that will protect them from accountability. I was surprised by Zacky’s willingness to voice act, sound design, and play with narrative, as the clips are from different perspectives, but you can hear one clip in the background of the other. Zacky also performs in Nigerian pidgin (Mufwene, 2025), situating the samples within the experiences of a specific audience.     

Malindi:

Malindi sent in two samples: one featuring a speech from Kenyan Politician and women’s rights activist, Millie Odhiambo (kenyanmagazine, 2024). The second is a remixed version of the speech, where Malindi records herself speaking reassuring and affirming messages to the listener after Odhiambo’s speech. My initial response to these recordings is that they would be perfect to use for the Dreadlock Sampler (nevertobeconfirmed, 2025), which produces a choppy, rhythmic effect with vocal samples. I also appreciate Malindi’s interpretation of remixing by following a powerful, emboldening call to action with a warm, compassionate message.

Rhett:

Rhett submitted some samples from their personal archive. The first was a drumming sound, which I initially thought was a wooden door being smashed open. The other was a recording of Rhett singing. When I asked Rhett about the first sample, they explained that it was them drumming on a plastic container, which they had found on the street, and thought would produce an interesting sound. The filenames for Rhett’s submissions included the dates they were created, and they were both a few years old; I was excited that Rhett had dove a few years back into their own personal archive to retrieve their contributions to the open call.  

Alara:

Alara, a designer whose practice focuses on material studies, submitted a snippet from a video of sculptor Pinuccio Sciola playing one of his “sound stones” (Bauman, 2016, no pagination), sculpted rocks that produce sound when touched. I thought it was interesting that her response to the open call reflected her personal interests and professional background.

Zero:

Zero submitted two samples that she composed herself. Both feature ambient soundscapes including traffic sounds and multilingual voices; the compositions are heavily filtered, giving them a spacy, dream-like quality to evoke the feeling of recollecting a memory.

Numi:

Numi sent a video of herself performing a song “Resignation” composed by Florence B Price, who, in 1927, was the first African American woman to be recognised as a symphonic composer (International Florence Price Festival, 2025). Numi’s contribution is a beautiful performance, and I appreciate that by sharing this sample in the workshop, we are communicating a piece of Black music history.

Justin:

Justin sent a few drum and bass samples, featuring breakbeats, which cultural theorist Kodwo Eshun explores as futuring tools in his work More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (1998). This work is a major inspiration for the 9jafuturhythmachine project (Tarka, 2024a), so I’m excited to include samples that connect the workshop practice to the larger Afrofuturist sonic legacy explored by Eshun.

The Session

• Presentation
• Instrument Demo
• Choose narrative/theme/memory to remix
• Choose the roles for performance
• Choose sounds from collection
• “PERFORMANCE”
• Discussion and feedback

Feedback and discussion

Kieran

Kieran, being the most experienced with the project (Tarka, 2024b), helped other participants with wearing and testing the instruments, as well as supporting the workshop generally. When designing the Dreadlock Sampler, it was much easier trying on the tool with Kieran there to help, and I’m happy this supportive spirit was consistent in the workshop.

JK

I met JK when presenting the 9jafuturhythmachine installation (Tarka, 2024c) at Fela to the Future (2025) earlier in October, and I was excited that she brought her own copy of the Two Histories textbook (Tarka, 2024d) that she had gotten from the previous event to the workshop. She also brought me a gift, Capitalists Must Starve by Park Seolyeon (2025), as she felt its themes resonated with my work. JK was very brave throughout the session, using all the instruments in unexpected ways. She also used the textbook as a reference to explain the work to a participant who arrived later in the session. As a hairdresser, she speculated the potential to use other conductive materials to mimic other Black hairstyles beyond dreadlocks. This is an idea I’ve considered, and I would love to elaborate on this further through a collaboration with JK.

Alara

I was very excited to have Alara present in the workshop because I wanted feedback from a materials design perspective. When passing around the copper tape used to make the Dreadlock Sampler, Alara was very curious about the sensors used in the instruments, questioning if I had used a flex sensor. I was grateful for the opportunity to explain more about the processes and material choices that influenced the design of the instruments, and I am considering including more of these details in the workshop presentation.  

Rhett

Rhett has an extensive knowledge of music, often discussing and sharing music via their blog iamlisteningto (2025). They had previously shared sound artist KMRU’s Temporary Stored project (2025), “an evocative narrative about colonialism and collective memory forged from original material and field recordings taken from the Archive” (ibid., no pagination), which aligns with

my goals to engage archives as essential sites of resistance, challenging the process of exclusion that shapes the historical canon (Assmann, A., 2008). During the session, we had worked with the vocal sample Rhett submitted, and they had asked questions about the musicality of the instruments, making suggestions for how to better link their gestural controls to their function outside of changing pitch. After the workshop, we also had a discussion about the importance of re-engaging indigenous cultures as a decolonising process, whilst reflecting on Rhett’s experience in school where they weren’t taught about native cultures indigenous to the UK. We discussed the sense of loss and melancholia experienced from not having access to these knowledges, questioning how to respectfully and carefully approach indigenous practices from cultures outside of your own as a form of healing.

Ahmed

I had met Ahmed earlier in the week when visiting the venue, and I had briefly explained the project to him. As he’s Nigerian, he recognised the Eyo masquerade (Olumide Lucus, 1942; Oluwasegun and Oyenike, 2013; Olusola and Babatope, 2017) and understood the context of the work. He joined the workshop towards the end, where we had an open discussion where I demonstrated the instruments again, and explained how the work connects to political movements in Nigeria, such as #EndSARS (Amnesty International, 2023; Amnesty International, 2024; Udenze, Telo and Pires, 2024; Tarka, 2024d). When I explained my goals to expand the installation to a full room exhibition, possibly featuring multiple wooden school desks (Tarka, 2024c), Ahmed informed me that his friend had used similar desks in a project. These desks were made from Iroko, a tree indigenous to Nigeria (Britannica Editors, 2025). This is a fantastic discovery, and I was incredibly surprised to learn that desks found in the UK were made from wood sourced from Nigeria. Inspired by practitioners Nifemi Marcus-Bello (2024), Sokari Douglas Camp (2024a, 2024b; BBC, 2020) and El Anatsui (Buck, 2023), I aimed to use materials that would be conceptually linked to the themes in the project (Tarka, 2024a). By sourcing desks made from specific materials, such as Iroko, I can better connect these objects to the continued exploitation of resources in Nigeria, which I discuss in the project log (Tarka, 2024a), performance video (Tarka, 2024b), and textbook (Tarka, 2024d).

Roshad

Roshad had attended the workshop presentation, but had to leave before the demonstration; however, we were able to discuss the session on the second day of BAKÍ ÁJĀ. He had gifted a copy of the textbook to a Nigerian friend, who wasn’t familiar with the histories included in the text, so they were excited to receive the information. I am incredibly grateful that Roshad took two copies of the book, expanding its reach to my intended audience, which was my intention by making the book free and including several copies in the installation (Tarka, 2024c). Roshad appreciated that although the project has an academic focus, it still takes practical action by connecting lived experience to the themes explored through the workshop. I greatly appreciate this feedback because prior to the workshop, I was worried that the installation as a static object limited the dynamic engagement and embodied memory-making that the project promised, and I am glad the workshop had its intended impact.

Aaron

Aaron learned about the workshop through KONTEKST Collective (2025), a visual anthropology collective we’re both a part of. He had joined the session towards the end during the open discussion, and was very curious about how we were archiving Nigerian protest and resistance if we weren’t currently at a protest in Nigeria. I had been anticipating this question, and I explained that my goal is to expand the possibilities of protest and resistance beyond street protest, particularly by challenging institutional, normative, Western-centric knowledge formation and dissemination through more embodied practices, such as sonic fiction (Eshun, 1998; Vieira de Oliveira, 2016) and rhythming (Van Drie and Maier, 2022) to archive perspectives that may be excluded from the historical canon (Assmann, A., 2008). We had a long discussion about the difficulties with politically organising under institutions, and how we were grateful for the opportunity to have this discussion in a space like BAKÍ ÁJĀ.

Aaron and I met at another event later in the week where he had introduced my project to his friend Zero, who referred to my work as a form of archiving protest field recordings based on Aaron’s description. I was very excited to have someone describe my work that way, as I often feel the sound design focus is lost when displaying the work as the installation. When developing the project, I learned that everyday, embodied, communicative memory becomes institutional, cultural memory through a process of cultural formation, where a memory becomes formalised and crystallised, and thus transmittable to a wider audience (Assman, J. and Czaplicka, 1995). Through the BAKÍ ÁJĀ weekend I was reminded of this process and although my goal isn’t to create a form of institutional or cultural memory-making, I am grateful that the work has been impactful enough for people to share with others.

Reflection, Next Steps and Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix