AIRE ERREA
From May 16th to December 29th 2024
Gernikako Bakearen Museu.
Gernika, BIZKAIA (ES)
Exhibition/Concert/Public event
Organized by Audiolab, as part of the Creative Europe Tramontana IV project.
The inauguration of the exhibition “Aire Errea” took place on May 16th and was met with a large group of enthusiastic attendees. This significant event marked the beginning of a thought-provoking journey through sound and history, drawing considerable interest from the public.
From May 16th to December 29th, the Gernika Peace Museum in Gernika, BIZKAIA (ES), will host the sound installation ‘Aire Errea’ by Lesaka artist Xabier Erkizia. This exhibition is organized by the MHLI (Historical Memory in Iberian Literatures) research group at the UPV/EHU, in collaboration with the Gernika Peace Museum. It is part of the activities for the “Gernika(k) / Guernica(s) International Conference: Re-evocations of a historical trauma,” scheduled for June. The project aims to reflect on the concept of noise in war in relation to our broad and complex imaginary of the warlike in Western society, constructed not only through images but also from auditory stimuli. The curators of the exhibition, Ismael Manterola, Andere Larrinaga, and Mikel Onandia, highlight that despite being aware that war envelops all the senses, there are few approaches to the multiple sounds generated by a war conflict.
‘Aire Errea’ is divided into three sections. The first section is the documentation space; in the second, the artist reflects the sound that war produces based on the testimony provided by a survivor of the bombing of Gernika. Erkizia has adopted the notion of burned air, referring to the fire that followed the bombing, developing his own reflection from the auditory memory that remains in this witness’s account. Finally, in the third room, there is an installation full of devices used to produce siren sounds that alert to danger.
