Episode 18 of Whitechapel Gallery’s Hear, Now podcast series delves deeper into the themes that underpin the exhibition Tracing Absence. Students graduating from the MA Curating Art and Public Programmes course, run by Whitechapel Gallery and London South Bank University, had the opportunity to curate this exhibition as part of their course, which confronts the different ways in which absence manifests in the world.

Tracing Absence features new sound art pieces by Joseph Sergi and Yiskāh (alias Jessica Beechy) and works from the Christen Sveaas Art Foundation. Student Cathy O ‘Sullivan presents and introduces fellow student Ada Egg Koskilouma who talks with Sunil Shah and Lou Mensah, to explore what absence means to them.

Sunil Shah is an artist and curator based in Oxford, UK. He is interested in the politics of photographic representation and conceptual post-documentary practices with relation to history, memory and identity.

Lou Mensah is a London based writer, photographer and the founder of Shade Podcast, a platform which hosts conversations with creative and radical thinkers on the politics of race and representation within the arts.

Please follow this link to view the publication that accompanies the exhibition and listen to the sound art works by Joseph Sergi and Yiskāh: https://linktr.ee/tracingabsence

For more information: https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/tracing-absence/

Transcript: https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Tracing-absence_Transcript.pdf