Hannah Catherine Jones is a London-based artist, musician, researcher, radio presenter, composer and conductor, and founder of Peckham Chamber Orchestra. Jones creates works that juxtapose ancient musical modalities (Mixolydian, Phrygian) with sci-fi timbres to produce what she has termed ‘sonic antagonisms’, sounds that help the artist think through the painful legacies of colonialism and its continuing affects and effects, while also embracing the conceptual possibilities of Afrofuturism. Her performances often incorporate Zulu, resonating with the artist’s Afro-Caribbean heritage and desire to produce sonic “forms of self-reparation – re-educating myself through decolonization.”

In this special lecture-performance Hannah Catherine Jones critically reflects on her long-term project Afrofuturism & Gesamtkunstwerk in which she set out to speculatively explore the relationship between Sun Ra and Wagner, two cultural giants, seemingly irreconcilable in many ways, but whom Jones brought together as part of her doctoral research at University of Oxford. In deconstructing her own argument, and the terms Afrofuturism & Gesamtkunstwerk themselves, Jones will draw from contemporary examples including Beyonce’s ‘Homecoming’ and Kanye West’s ‘Sunday Service’.

The presentation will be multi-faceted and open-ended, incorporating DJ-set, experimental improvisation on synth, theremin, drum machine, and voice, a screening of the artists film Owed to Bussa 2.0, and a lecture, over approximately two hours.

Jones will be joined on the night by Salvadorian Australian artist, DJ and writer Lucreccia Quintanilla, and South Sudanese Australian artist and writer Atong Atem.