Soundwalk Collective con Patti Smith e Philip Glass

In Mummer Love, Soundwalk Collective – comprising Stephan Crasneanscki and Simone Merli – use their practice exploring sound to navigate human experience in relation to its environment to investigate Arthur Rimbaud’s Ethiopian period. The installation interlaces field recordings from the poet’s former house in Harar with Sufi chants recorded by Crasneanscki, along with an illuminating piano rendition by Philip Glass, in an attempt to evoke a composite image of the French poet and his years in Africa. The voice of Patti Smith acts as a juxtaposition to this ethereal soundscape, reading extracts from Arthur Rimbaud’s Illuminations.

Like Rimbaud’s writing, Soundwalk Collective explore ways of perceiving reality to create a personal perspective on the world. The installation acts as a resonance chamber for memory and environments, granting access to the period Rimbaud spent in Harar.

The syncretic soundscape allows for an embodied encounter with the poet’s African years. The Sufi chants, in Crasneanscki’s words, create “connections to other levels of yourself and consciousness. This connection, like poetry, is a universal language. A language of the soul, for the soul.” Mummer Love transcends time: the work becomes an intimate archaeology, exploring the singularities of one life and place. Rimbaud’s synesthetic approach to poetry – condensing disparate sensations into heightened experience – here shapes a mnemonic use of sound and images, where places and memories endure through listening.

Iacopo Prinetti

Mummer Love (2019-2025) enters the Luci d’Artista collection thanks to the support of OGR Torino