Read The Room (RTR) is a series that engages with art practitioners, musicians and sound artists who work with a listening practice. The title of this series is a play on the words ‘raum’ and ‘realm’. In German the word ‘raum’ translates to both room and realm. In English, the word ‘room’ can describe a physical enclosed space or more abstractly, the amount, capacity or opportunity of space available. To enter any room, one must gather their surroundings (internal and external), and have an awareness of others (visible and invisible) around them. RTR is a way to translate what you hear, observe and feel in that room or realm, into a shared listening experience.
For our upcoming programme, we will invite artists to engage with our space over a three day period (two days working and one day to present/exchange) and the city of Zurich by pairing them with a fitting Zurich based artist, whose practice speaks to your practice. The format can take many forms and is open to the artists to decide what feels resonant to their practice and the sonic moment they would like to create.
To kick off the series in 2026, we will have Gugulethu Duma (aka Dumama), a musician / composer / sonic poet / creative producer from the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Her practice plays with the deconstruction and critique of archaic modes of representation in Southern African/African sonic and performance culture, while also composing music for herself and others. As a storyteller and lyricist she weaves together childhood songs, stories and personal memories with electronic hues and gestures, experimenting with the divide between traditional oral culture and futuristic, globally oriented poetics in her embodiment of an African technological consciousness.
Learn more: dumamamusic.com
Gugu will also be joined by Foncé.
FONCÉ is a multidimensional poet and cultural worker based in Zurich. At the core of their practices are poetic storytelling and re/dis_membering through expansive listening. FONCÉ's creative expressions mirror their processes of un_becoming by weaving together different artistic mediums such as writing, sound production, DJing and curating. They are curious about collectively re_writing and re_assembling embodied narratives, while drawing knowledge from lived experiences. Since 2020, FONCÉ has been a member of OKRA, a collective of multidisciplinary afro-descendant creatives and in 2024 they joined MigrArt, an initiative of people who seek refuge and other BIPoC artists in Zurich. Furthermore, they hold BA in Process Design from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland.
We look forward to listening and being with you soon!
Read the Room is supported by Stadt and Kanton Zurich
