Spellbound arrives in Turin, a festival dedicated to listening experiences and sound practices

On June 27-28 and September 26-27, the second edition of Spellbound will take place, a festival devoted to collective listening experiences and sound practices developed mainly within the context of contemporary art, this year focusing on soundscape as a source of memories in which past and present overlap. Curated by the artistic collective ALMARE — this year a partner of Jazz Is Dead! — Spellbound has been conceived as a widespread, accessible event featuring works produced specifically for particular locations in the city: venues dedicated to the exploration of art and science, such as PAV Parco Arte Vivente — founded by new media art pioneer Piero Gilardi — and the Orto Botanico, as well as spaces devoted to grassroots performance and cultural activities, such as Magazzino sul Po, run by ARCI, and Imbarchino del Valentino.

Among the many events scheduled over the two days in June, worth noting on Saturday 27 at PAV is The Vestibule by Rosso Polare, Giada Pignotti, HMOT and Dania, a collective durational performance for multichannel sound system, and the sleeping concert commissioned from Congolese-Belgian sound artist Nkisi through a collaboration with the Ugandan label Nyege Nyege, in which the audience is invited to sleep in the space during a performance conceived around sleep cycles, while Egyptian author and political exile in Germany Haytham El Wardany will read selected passages from his Libro del sonno (Timeo 2026). For the curators, sleep is a “creative moment that resists contemporary productive regimes”, and this attitude is reflected in the programme, which fills the night with activities designed specifically for its spaces and its audience. Sunday, June 28 offers a varied programme: at the Orto Botanico, a panel devoted to sound practices as research methodologies — featuring a conversation with Nkisi, a listening session by Luigi Monteanni of Artetetra Records and Babau, sound artist and researcher at SOAS-School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and a performance-lecture by Stas Shärifullá, sound artist and researcher at the University of Basel — and at Imbarchino del Valentino with a closing DJ set by Artetetra.

June 27-28, 2026 (PAV PARCO ARTE VIVENTE, ORTO BOTANICO and IMBARCHINO DEL VALENTINO) and September 26-27 (ORTO BOTANICO and MAGAZZINO SUL PO) with Nkisi, Dania, HMOT, Rosso Polare, Giada Pignotti, Haytham el-Wardany, Altalena, Luigi Monteanni, Artetetra, KMRU, Sealionwoman, Takkak Takkak, Pho Bho and others.

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