A collaboration between two significant figures in contemporary global moving image, Kivu Ruhorahoza and Christian Nyampeta, Whispers was commissioned by The 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale with École du soir.
The work emerged from time spent by the two filmmakers in Senegal after the postponement of Dak’Art Biennial in 2024. Taking inspiration from the celebrated poem “Spirits” by Birago Diop, which asserts that “the dead are not really dead,” the work presents scenes from the daily life of the Senegalese capital and invites us to “listen more often to things than beings.”
In so doing, it develops the question posed by the poem: at what point in history and from what level of political, artistic, or spiritual impact does an ancestor escape their descendants to become the ancestor of all? Whispers offers reflections on the bonds that extend beyond a single lifetime into a distant future.
