Echoes of Protest – Conversations in 2050

a series of videoworks, 2025

Echoes of Protest — Conversations in 2050 is a speculative video artwork in which objects that once participated in peaceful demonstrations—where the right to protest was restricted or violated—come to life in a dystopian future. Perhaps stored in a museum or archive, these objects linger, reflect, and reminisce about the protests of the 2020s. They interact as if performing a silent opera: each object has a distinct archetypical personality—the Drone as the Herald, the identity card as the Jester, the severed hand as the Rebel, and the surveillance camera as the Ruler. Through their interactions, they discuss themes such as the right to protest, human rights, disagreement, public order, and ideals worth defending—creating a dialogue that evokes what protests used to be and what has been lost. The work transforms inanimate artifacts into narrators of collective memory, exploring the role of civic engagement, resistance, and the importance of raising one’s voice.

Conversation 1: they were called terrorists, 2025; Conversation 2: human rights, 2025; Conversation 3: peaceful by default, 2025; Conversation 4: not any protest, 2025; Conversation 5: anger gave her wings, I protected her face, 2025

based on the report Under Protected and Over Restricted: The state of the right to protest in 21 European countries by Amnesty International, 2024; the article Penalisation of Kurdish Children under the Turkish Anti-Terror Law: Abandonment, Sovereignty and Lawfare by Hazal Hürman, 2024; the poem ‘This is Why We Dance’ by Palestinian writer, journalist and poet, Mohammed el-Kurd, 2021

soundtrack created using music from Bloom: 10 Worlds by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers and recordings and free sound effects from Pixabay, from freesound.org, including @sounds_from_palestine, @klankbeeld, @yfjesse, @herbertboland, @sid3walk, @parabolix, @sadiquecat, @pauliepaulpaul, @herbertboland, @sid3walk, @parabolix, @sadiquecat, @pauliepaulpaul, @Tomlija, @mboscolo, and protest chant fragments sourced from publicly available recordings of sex workers’ demonstrations in Paris (APR NEWS, YouTube)

many thanks to Charlotte Inghels, Tim Gistelinck, Qatia Golovenko and the seminar Experimental feminist / woman’s poetry organised by Smolny Beyond Borders and led by Galina Rymbu

video, text, sound — Anyuta Wiazemsky Snauwaert