Zonoff is a Geneva-based non-profit organisation that is committed to independent music and art, and invested in free community radio and alternative publications. Their long-term international project, “The International Institute for Research on Radio and Magic” (IIRRM) is an experimental laboratory that produces ethereal art exhibitions based on the art of transmission. The art of transmission encompasses works in which the act of transmitting or receiving is not only significant, but central to the artist’s intention.

IIRRM aims to become a hub for the transmission and exchange of knowledge and culture. The project is concerned with finding imaginary solutions on the border between technology and magic. It is particularly interested in exceptions, since it is the anomaly that drives ideas forward. With an approach that is both rigorous and open, free from any pre-existing doctrine or model, IIRRM aims to re-establish an ecology of meaning through alternative thinking and study to the dominant cultural movements. One of the intentions of IIRRM is to create an equitable international network for research on sound and radio art by collaborating with radio stations, institutions and artists from all over the world.

For 2022, IIRRM is developing a project with local partners and collaborators in Senegal. In May this year, the IIRRM team spent time in Saint-Louis collecting stories about the living myth of Mame Coumba Bang, the shapeshifting and volatile river goddess that presides over the mouth of the Senegal River where it meets the Atlantic sea.

Working with Fatima Fall (Director of the Centre de Recherches et de Documentation du Sénégal), Said Ba (theatre Teacher at the AMETH FALL School in St Louis), Index from the group Nuul Kukk (a rapper doing social work with young people), Fifi Diange from Radio Teranga (a radio partner) and many others, IIRRM is creating a radio docu-fiction of the legend of Mame Coumba Bang, which will be broadcast by the IIRRM’s radio partners in Europe and in Senegal.

In November IIRRM will return to Senegal to develop a live show of the docu-fiction in collaboration with the local musicians and storytellers. They will present this live performance in a public space for the inhabitants of Saint-Louis.

ABOUT

Zonoff is a non-profit organisation based in Geneva that promotes different art forms through radio shows, publications and events. Zonoff develop multidisciplinary projects by collaborating with institutions, off-spaces and cultural actors at national and international level. Their mission is to create physical and mental states of being that offer alternative meeting places to the dominant cultural movements. A place where people meet, learn and transform. A suspended space where wild plans are forged and new alliances are created.