The Sounding Conflict installation created by Pedro Rebelo with Matilde Meireles is focused on a 30 minute performance film directed by Patrick J O’Reilly with performers Joe Loane and Keith Singleton. The work aims to bring together various strands of field work from the Sounding Conflict project across regions such as the Middle East, Northern Ireland and Brazil. 

The film element of the installation depicts two young men incessantly cycling through state of destruction and rebuilding, a house, a wall, a city…  Structured over five acts and a coda, the filmed performance reflects acts of resistance, reconciliation and resilience as the two men struggle to control a world made of bricks in an ever hopeful set of actions.

The ability for sound to create space and materialise action is explored through the creation of a sonic world which constantly shifts between the concreteness of building and destruction, to surrounding soundscapes and references to Syrian, Brazilian and Northern Irish Hip Hop. The global conventions of Hip Hop combined with its very notable regional variations presents a sonic palette to question the role of music created under conflict situations. 

Screenings/Performances

Queen’s Film Theatre, Belfast 15 January 2022 (Screening)

Museu da Maré, Rio de Janeiro, 16 July – 16 August 2022, performance with Geandra Nobre and Matheus Frazão

Museu Nacional Grão Vasco, Viseu Portugal, 10-16 July 2022, performance with Gustavo Ivan Romero and Patrick Figueiredo

The work was created in the context of the research project “Sounding Conflict: From Resistance to Reconciliation” funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council.