Prem Sahib, Alleus
with Somerset House Studios
Alleus is a new sound performance work by Prem Sahib, presented and co-commissioned by the Roberts Institute of Art and Somerset House Studios. The performance is Sahib’s first featuring live vocals.
The work had its Scottish premiere at the Edinburgh Art Festival on 16 August 2024, across two special performances.
Alleus (Suella spelled backwards) re-orders, re-directs and disrupts an anti-immigration speech by former UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman, raising the question of how we approach the damaging language often echoed through society in hate speech. As alluded to in the work’s title and the reversal of Braverman’s voice in the performance, Sahib plays on the trope of conspiracy theorists searching for meaning in reversed words, but also the act of ‘sending back’ — a repeated phrase used by Braverman in her anti-immigration speeches on the topic of the so-called ‘migrant crisis’.
In the three-act performance, Braverman’s speech is diffused through a polyphony of voices by live singers Woodsy Bransfield, Keziah Joseph and Rebecca Phillips, pre-recorded voices, and a backing track developed in collaboration with artist Woodsy Bransfield. Resisting the speech's individualistic message and the egotistical, empty nature of political rhetoric, Sahib works against the idea of being the voice of or speaking for certain groups, such as refugees or the British people.
The performance premiered during Somerset House Studio’s Assembly in March 2024. In August, the performance travelled to the Edinburgh Art Festival where it was presented in a new setting of a public car park.
"Despite naming the piece after Braverman, Sahib is reluctant to make it all about her. 'Obviously, it starts with her because I found her speech so dehumanising. But with the reversal in the title – ‘Alleus’ sounds like ‘alias’ – I liked how it became capacious. Even after she’s gone, there will be someone else espousing that kind of hate.'” (The Guardian, March 2024)
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