A new temporary exhibition entitled Listen. – A Musical Journey Around the World (Listen. – Zenei utazás a világ körül) opens at House of Music Hungary in February 2025. The exhibition introduces visitors to a variety of musical traditions.
From Georgia via Belize to Crete, from Patagonia via Iceland to Hungary and far beyond, this special exhibition roams the world. Yet the situations brought to life on this musical journey, which engages every sense, are familiar to everyone.
“Listen, the third temporary exhibition at House of Music Hungary, is a celebration of our musical and cultural differences and our shared roots. We are delighted because we can see that, like our previous exhibitions – the audience favourite They Wrote the Song for Us! (Nekünk írták a dalt!) and the record-breaking Divas and Icons (Dívák és Ikonok) – once again an exhibition full of experiences, excitement and new knowledge is being created,” said Batta András, managing director of House of Music Hungary.
The material of “Listen.” is drawn from the musical documentaries of American film director Garry Bassin and Japanese actor, producer and writer Tomoko Yamaguchi. Over ten years, the pair filmed in more than thirty countries with around a hundred performers; their films present the Earth and its musical culture from a unique perspective. Rarely seen traditional music-making and musical traditions, heard at intimate close quarters, show that people, wherever they live in the world, express the defining events of their lives and their emotions through music.
The exhibition brings to life situations and moments familiar to us all, while letting us experience how varied the instruments and sounds of the music linked to these scenes of life and celebrations are in different parts of the world. The exhibition also highlights that listening to one another and communication are key to the development of humanity, and that music, as a kind of means of communication, is present in every aspect of our lives.
“We are designing the exhibition together with the filmmakers, and it is exciting not only in its theme but also unique in its execution. There are not many examples in the world of how a film or film series can be turned into an interesting exhibition, so we can say that Listen is an exciting experiment in transforming film into an exhibition. Alongside the projected images, great emphasis is placed on audiovisual, object-based and spatial design tools and installations that support a multisensory experience. This is not a scientific exhibition but a spectacular musical journey through the diverse musical traditions of our planet,” said Horn Márton, institutional director of House of Music Hungary.
Through atmospheric sounds, special installations and large-scale projections, visitors can learn how musical traditions take shape and live on in every corner of the world. In themed rooms of different moods, they can discover the harmony between nature and humankind; Georgian churches and Icelandic caves evoke the transcendent dimensions of existence, while Portuguese fado and Greek melodies reveal the melancholy and the love of life in human existence.
Alongside many other excellent artists, the exhibition features the Garifuna Collective, Carminho, Ivan Duran, Marjan Vahdat, Boban and Marko Markovic and, from Hungary, Sebestyén Márta, Lajkó Félix, Parno Graszt, and Roby Lakatos and Lakatos Miklós.
House of Music Hungary is preparing a number of concerts, talks and other programmes linked to the exhibition. Cinematographer Csoboth Attila and photographer Rákossy Péter also contributed to Garry Bassin’s documentary series, The Listen Project. The exhibition was created by the professional team of House of Music Hungary based on the architectural designs of BAHCS Architects, led by Báger András; the installations were designed by Bodóczky Antal.
Source: MTI