Sasa Ghanem-Chaney (French-Algerian, 1993) is an artist, performer, facilitator and director based in Amsterdam since 2017. They work with sound, worldbuilding, herbalism, interactive installations, and performance. Their practice makes use of lores as frameworks to explore and archive queer narratives and of spatial installations as supports for collectivization. In their work, they question the politics of the making of History. What are the invisible frameworks at play in the decision of archiving? The myths and legends of the past make for a large part of our contemporary imaginaries. But which of these lores survive through time to contemporary perspectives? Through sound, speculative mythmaking, performance, immersive spaces and collective practices, Sasa questions the making of stories and our political role in the archiving of minoritized narratives.
With a background in public space art management, and cultural economics they worked in the cultural field as a public programmer, exhibition producer and fundraiser. In 2017 they moved to Amsterdam to become the assistant of the artist masharu, and developed their own practice. Between 2022 and 2024 they studied at the Sandberg Instituut in the program re:master opera, exploring experimental forms for music-driven theater.
Their current research focuses on collective voicing as a somatic practice for queer folks to create generative healing spaces of belonging. Specifically, they investigate the voice as a place of memory, and collective voicing as a practice of remembrance. This research takes is rooted in lived experiences within queer singing groups, a fascination for the Sonic Meditations and the Deep Listening practice of Pauline Oliveros, as well as a curiosity for quantum perspectives on our relationship to time and sound. The work that sprouts from this research brings together music composition, writing, voice exploration workshops, interactive sound installations, an archive of voices, and reflections on non-linear time.
