Lydia Ourahmane, The Third Choir (2014), installazione
Sezione: Out of Control Room
On view at Palazzo Ajutamicristo, The Third Choir is a sound installation composed of twenty empty Naftal oil barrels exported from Algeria in 2014. Inside each barrel there is a mobile phone tuned to the same frequency emitted by an FM radio transmitter, enabling all devices to simultaneously play the sound piece, amplified inside the barrels. These objects convey a sense of the politics of immigration by embodying the bureaucratic process of movement, geographically mimicking the same journey to Europe. They raise questions regarding their significance for social and political structures within Algeria, the coalitions of desire and unrest that lead to the phenomenon of illegal immigration.
The Third Choir became the first artwork to be legally exported from Algeria after the implementations of restrictions on the movement of art in 1962, after Algeria’s liberation from France.