The exhibition “Tuning in – Acoustic of emotion” explores the audio archives of the ICRC and reveals emotions in the voice as well as the impact of sounds in crisis. It is to be discovered at the International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva until August 24.
From music that comforts the testimonies of victims, the exhibition “Tuning in-acoustic of emotion”, to discover at the International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva, highlights the importance of sound in humanitarian action and understanding of conflicts. You can discover artistic facilities and even humanitarian songs.
What voice do we keep and why? Who speaks? Who has the right to be heard? When you think of archives, the link between sound and humanitarian action is not necessarily obvious. “In our archives (…) kept in Geneva, there are a lot of audio and the purpose of this exhibition is to discover or rediscover all these materials”, explains in the show Vertigo of April 10 the curator of the Elisa Rusca exhibition.
Crisis situations to the management of everyday life
The sounds of the humanitarian sound archives cover a broad spectrum, ranging from the very local to the crisis situation. “These are voices, official speeches, but also reports from delegates, briefings after missions. These are direct sockets during situations, crises, but also emergency messages or health radio broadcasts created by national companies,” said the curator in the CQFD show on March 13.
The exhibition shows and hear soundtracks and vintage recordings, posters, photographs and prisoners and prisoners objects, such as makeshift musical instruments, witnesses to the daily life of prison life. “These objects are often donations received by the delegates [du CICR] from the people they visit. They reach us from all over the world and date from very different temporalities “.
->> Listen, the CQFD show dedicated to the program “Tuning in – Acoustique de l’Emotion”:
A vinyl sculpture
The exhibition also offers historical works of art and new productions of ten contemporary artists, like the immense sculpture that welcomes visitors and materializes sound. It forms a large wall made up of black modules made from stacked and tight vinyls, some of which are disks of songs stamped Red Cross. They come from national companies from countries at risk of all kinds, infectious diseases or natural disasters. These discs enabled health or protection principles accessible to everyone.
“Since the very beginning of the radio, the Red Cross has used music and the dissemination of songs to make people understand what to do in the event of a disaster, crisis, etc. in a fun and very pop, we pass humanitarian messages,” concludes Elisa Rusca.
Radio subject: Florence Grivel
Adaptation Web: Melissa Härtel
Exhibition “Tuning in-Acoustic of emotion”, International Museum of Red Cross and Crescent-Red, Geneva, until August 24, 2025.
