Readings & Performance

Chisenhale Gallery presents the final event in a three-part live programme curated by writer, researcher, and DJ Nihal El Aasar, developed in conjunction with Arash Nassiri’s exhibition A Bug’s Life. Across sound, conversation, and performance, the series explores listening as a shared practice, asking how sound operates not as an object but as environment, document, and method across geographies, languages, and temporalities.  

For this closing evening, El Aasar brings together artists, curators, and theorists for an evening of readings, performances, and live sound. Contributions from El Aasar, Sara El Adl, Zein Majali, Bint Mbareh, Alex Quicho, and Abbas Zahedi move between critical writing, poetic reflection, embodied performance, and live experimental sound.

The evening unfolds through reflections on spatiality in the Sinai Peninsula; a live work tracing the dissolution of borders through the movement of sound waves and the waters of Palestine; and meditations on digital fragmentation along migratory routes. Across these varied contributions, listening is positioned as a method of tracing movement across physical, temporal, and socio-economic borders, and of thinking how identity and belonging are shaped in motion. Having first immersed audiences in deep listening and then explored sound as a document, this culminating event expands outward, gathering practitioners for whom sound, language, and recorded material are fluid and unstable forms.

Biography

Nihal El Aasar is an Egyptian independent writer, researcher, political analyst, radio host and DJ. She has written about politics, political economy, culture, literature and music in several publications including Verso, Jacobin, Parapraxis, Art Review, Mundial, The Wire, Protean, Novara Media, Africa is a Country, GQ and others, as well as authoring a book chapter about Egyptian political economy and consulting on related issues. She has also been interviewed about her writing and analysis on several platforms. Since 2022, she has been a regular host at NTS radio based in London, where she hosts her monthly show Nile to Bank, highlighting alternative and left-field music from the Arab region as well as hosting music practitioners from the region to highlight the natural overlap and crossovers of musical influences in the Middle East.

Access

This event will be taking place at Chisenhale Gallery. Chisenhale Gallery has flat access with an all-genders, fully accessible toilet. This event will be seated. Earplugs and ear guards are available for visitors to use. This event will be documented for marketing and archival purposes.

We are committed to ensuring our events are accessible for all. Please contact mail@chisenhale.org.uk to discuss your access needs. We will endeavour to meet all requests where possible. Please be advised that requests should be made two weeks in advance of the event.

Arash Nassiri, A Bug’s Life, 2025. Still. Co-commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, London; Fluentum, Berlin; and Fondation Pernod Ricard, Paris. Produced by Chisenhale Gallery. Courtesy of the artist.