Masimba Hwati & Paul Nataraj - Soil Leaf Root - CAS

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In this project, Paul and Masimba capture almost five years of conversation as they stood upon different soils in different geographies and time zones. Their work considers the complex entanglements of migrant stories, memory, identity, otherness, and sonic and musical materiality in each of their practices.

The basis of this piece is a modified record, which has been covered with calico, dyed with mud collected from a contentious location in Harare where the New Zimbabwe flag was hoisted in 1980. Alongside this ‘earth-dipped record’ we hear field recordings of family prayers, onomatopoeic vocalisations, and experimental turntable practices using mediated records.

The work remembers stories of myth, music, mantras and math, all rooted in our collective interest in factive, mnesonic practices of resistance and sonic action(s). May you — repeat 108 times. Masimba re-members how, in Chidzimbahwe folklore, the soil hums ultra sound songs to the offspring of mice below the surface — subtle vibrational songs that humans cannot hear; songs of healing and comfort. This is part of a terra-ancestral ontology, nomadically sounding material memories through leaf soil and root.