The first UK showing of Acoustics of Resistance, a new project by Mikhail Karikis focusing on the climate emergency and exploring listening as a form of climate care, solidarity and activism.

Combining archival visual material, climate modelling, experimental and folk music, the project reflects on our collective responsibility and invites us to rejoice in the transformative power of sound and to tune into the sounds of nature and socio-political change.

The Weather Orchestra, a 3-channel video installation transforms the gallery space into an indoor weather system. Our deep relationship and entanglement with the weather, and our connection to the atmosphere and the earth are revealed through singing and vibration. 

It features musicians performing instruments and analogue noise machines designed to imitate the sounds of natural phenomena. A Baroque wind machine, Latin American ceremonial rain sticks, an ocean drum, a water-phone, a thunder-tube and metal thunder-sheets fill the space with a meteorological music and allude to the forces and magnificence of nature. 

Lower Gallery: the installation: 'Universe of Solutions' features visuals created by 30 pupils from Honiton Community College during workshops with the artist showing their imagined solutions to climate change. Visitors are invited to contribute their ideas and solutions to this collaborative artwork.

Project Space: features visuals of climate date in the form of a curtain. As part of the Acoustics of Resistance project, Karikis tracked and documented heatwaves that break temperature records.

Coordinating Half Term workshop

Mikhail Karikis is a Greek/British artist based in London and Lisbon. His work in moving image, sound, performance and other media is exhibited in leading contemporary art biennials, museums including the TATE and Whitechapel Gallery, and film festivals internationally. Karikis' varied practice encompasses video, installation, performance and sound. Increasingly, the artist has been using film as a way to ‘contain, capture, document and explore’ auditory culture. Of particular interest to Karikis are anarchic nonsense sounds – whistles, shouts, hisses and sighs – that are beyond the rules of ordinary verbal communication. 

Delivered in partnership with the University of Exeter and Honiton Community College

© Mikhail Karikis, The Weather Orchestra, 2022