This exhibition is part of the project I/E, ongoing since 2015, in which Tarek Atoui captures the sounds of port cities — Athens, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Beirut or Porto — by recording their harbours’ industrial, human, and ecological activities. Together with artist/recordist Eric La Casa, they listen to sound below the surface of the sea or within materials such as metal, stone, and wood.

On Waters’ Witness, the audio recordings of the sea ports are played through materials chosen in every location — marble stones from Athens, steal beams from Abu Dhabi, and wooden structures housing compost, worms and organic material specifically produced for the Serralves presentation. The work with organic decomposing matter takes Waters’ Witness in a new direction: an acoustic ecology that receives and perpetuates residual sounds through the audible frontiers of a world in flux.

Along with collaborative and educational workshops, performances are organized throughout the entire period of the exhibition. It gives artists the opportunity to engage with a diversity of sounds inhabiting the exhibition at different stages, progressing from the winter awakening up to its midsummer demise. Within this context, a sound performance by Tarek Atoui, Alan Affichard and Diana Combo is part of the exhibition’s opening on February 24 at 10pm.

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