Yasmina Reggad - We Dreamt Of Utopia And We Woke Up Screaming

Against the backdrop of the Cold War’s bi-polar tensions during the 1960s and 1970s, militants from all the continents convened in Algiers and witnessed a forging of a ‘third way’, other possible futures. The Algerian capital hosted everyone from national liberation movements, political exiles, rebels and disillusioned Westerners. Drawing on the liberation movements’ broadcasts aired by the Algerian National Broadcasting Company (RTA), Yasmina Reggad develops polyglot and polyphonic sonic productions that echo her journey through the worlds of ideas and ideals of a time when Algiers was dubbed the ‘Mecca of Revolution’. Initiated in 2016, the long-term research we dreamt of utopia and we woke up screaming spans across several continents and several languages. A diverse corpus of both audio-visual and documentary archive elements and contemporary documents intertwines with testimonies by key actors and militant voices of the 1960s and 1970s and the present.

Listening Session is an invitation extended to historian Malika Rahal (Paris, France) and the collective Chimurenga (Cape Town, South Africa) to dive together into Yasmina Reggad’s sound archive and engage with the wealth of alternative archive produced by the Pan African Space Station’s broadcast.

80 minutes

in English

+ Archival audio & video material in English, Arabic, Algerian Darija, Spanish, French, Portuguese & German