RESONANCE: Research in a Sonic Register

Wits Anthropology Museum and the Anthropology Department presents Resonance: Research in a Sonic Register, curated by Dr. Nosipho Mngomezulu

This interactive exhibition challenges conventional academic frameworks. It positions sound as an epistemological model, a vital aesthetic practice, and a path toward expanding access to research.

Visitor Information

The exhibition is open to the public daily outside of the scheduled event programming. You do not need to attend a specific event to experience the gallery; visitors are welcome to explore the installations at their own pace during standard museum hours.

Weekdays: 10:00 – 16:00

Saturdays: 11:00 – 14:00

The 9 Exhibition Nodes

Resonance invites the public to step inside the museum and engage with nine distinct auditory and physical nodes:

1. The Field Library: A space for re-encountering text and the field as primary anthropological entry points.
2. The Chalk Board: An interactive lexicon wall where visitors collaboratively co-create a sonic vocabulary.
3. That’isgbubu Lounge: An interactive sonic space welcoming visitors to play drums.
4. Haraway Hall: A welcome station where visitors can access exhibition catalogues.
5. Listening Station: Immersive listening booths featuring episodes from The Academic Citizen (TAC) & record players.
6. Record Lounge: Visitors can listen to records on the couches (players generously loaned to us by The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember. The lounge area also features the TAC episode Ancestors, alongside an Audio Gram phone booth to leave recorded voice messages. 
7. The Twala Project: A four-part installation showcasing a seminar poster, a photographic triptych, a short film shot in eSwatini, and a first listen to Episode 3 (The exception as the rule) of a special TAC season on Regina Gelana Twala's surviving manuscript, All This Information of the Nation.

9. Listening Station 2 & Nolwazi Ncube’s Installation: Immersive listening booths with TAC episodes alongside iMvelaphi—a mixed-media installation by multidisciplinary artist Nolwazi Ncube exploring intimacy, voice, oral history, and photography.

Public Programme and Special Events

1. Exhibition Opening & Seminar: Uyangizwa? Knowing Through Sound Date & Time: Thursday, 8 October | 17:00 – 20:00

Speakers: Lebohang Masango, Dr. Thabang Manyike, Tumi Mogorosi, and Palesa Shongwe

Synopsis: This opening seminar brings together scholar-practitioners to think aloud across political theory, film studies, music, and anthropology. Taking anticolonial praxis seriously, the panel enacts a call-and-response drawing from the longue durée of Black futurity to imagine listening otherwise within and outside the academy.

2. Exhibition Walkabout & Intsomi Workshop Date & Time: Saturday, 10 October | 11:00 – 14:00

Facilitators: Naledi Chai and Ntlahla Sikwana

Synopsis: A collective sensory journey. Moving from a guided walkabout of the 9 nodes, the session transitions into an interactive workshop rooted in intsomi (storytelling) and amagwijo (indigenous song). This session investigates how memory, fortification, and embodied knowledge are remade through sound across generations.

3. Exhibition Closing: Here. Hear. Her. A Sonic Lecture Date & Time: Friday, 16 October | 17:00 – 20:00

Performers: T A N Z, ILZE, and HUE MAQ

Synopsis: Led by three women scholar-practitioners, the closing event shifts the exhibition into a somatic practice of conviviality. Supplementing conventional academic address with live programming, spatial inquiry, and political activism, this finale asks what happens when knowledge is encountered through rhythm, code, archive, and the body.

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