Composer and musician Christina Wheeler presents the world premiere of “From the Quarter to the (W)hole: What Lies at the Center of Infinity in the Oceans of the Universe?” at Radialsystem. The multimedia sound and video performance is a polyphonic tone-poem that interweaves experiences of forced displacement, the African diaspora, grief and community.

Boats recur throughout Afrodiasporic history as vessels of enslavement, escape and heavenly transport. Inspired by multi-perspective narratives, this composition tells the story of four refugees, the survivors of a missing ghost ship, drifting in a dinghy to unknown lands. Their voices and fates are brought to life by the sounds of the glass armonica, mbira, kora, balafon, a string quintet, percussion and other West African instruments.

The concert evening “From the Quarter to the (W)hole” is a poetic, mysterious tale about refugees, spanning a broad spectrum of acoustic, analogue and digital sounds. Acoustic instruments and electronics, as well as spoken and sung text, interweave in a partly composed, partly improvised score. Where are the fugitives in time and space, and where can they finally be found in the moment when the ghost boat disappears without a trace? At that moment, when all voices sound together, the narrative condenses into an Afrofuturistic vision that goes beyond current representations of flight and migration.