Taking flight through sound with Nour Sokhon
Bringing her practice as an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and electronic composer into the fold, Nour Sokhon’s debut album “Beirut Birds”, released on aural conduct, is like a poetic documentary. She weaves field recordings and cyclical narratives that tap into a collective relationship with home: what it means to be there, what it means to be away, and what it means to seek it.
We sat down for a conversation that unraveled the ways sound becomes a vessel for presence and belonging. After all, sound has a way of carrying memory as it traverses borders, speaks in absence, and reawakens memories that refuse to fade.
The album taps into the experience of calling multiple places home, which is a deeply resonant theme in itself. Could you tell us about your process, and how that informs “Beirut Birds”?
My attraction to sound started with hoarding objects as a kid. I used to collect a lot of objects and keep them, and see them as memories. This was one way of holding on to memories, especially because I didn’t grow up where I’m from. I grew up in the Emirates, in Dubai. Now, I’m in Berlin. Then I moved back to my country [Lebanon]. But being also far away from home—even though I was born there,—I grew up with this obsession with memory. How can I preserve something?
This is how the fascination with interviews started. After moving to Berlin from my country because of the political situation there, I wanted to archive this state of in-between. I try my best to use my art as a vessel for other people’s stories and voices.
I did this by interviewing people in Lebanon and in Germany. Many Arabs moved from Lebanon to Germany because there were many opportunities for refuge. I say Arabs, because in Lebanon, we have Syrians, Lebanese, and Palestinians. I interviewed people for whom Lebanon is home. I thought, how can I create this bridge for people to communicate, to know the ones that left didn’t forget the ones that couldn’t leave, or chose to stay?
I was interviewing a Palestinian in Leipzig about his experience of getting a German passport. Did that change something for him? He said, “You know you are the same person, but you are a different person.”
This phrase really stuck with me because you know your skin color is not going to change when you move somewhere. You’re always going to carry your narrative wherever you go.
I’m giving this as an example to show what I mean by having the dialogue with the archive, to find a way to keep our history and communication alive despite migration and the political situation.
That’s what I appreciate about sound–the possibilities of accessibility. The idea is to exhaust objects. I awaken the archive that’s found in the object and use it as the instrument. The objects I use for this piece are all related to home for me–like using paper, because it’s associated with documents and migration. It’s personification, giving it a different meaning and making it come alive.
When you perform, you’re accompanied by juxtaposed images of Lebanon and avian migration. How do you gather these images?
I was a bit naive when I first came to Berlin. I thought I would be able to go home often, but due to financial restrictions, when you move somewhere, it takes time to get on your feet. The only way I could make it work was by working with someone in Lebanon. I wrote keywords of things that I wanted to film in the city, from birds to movements. And they would reawaken their archive through this.
Is the cover of Beirut Birds among the images you collected?
Yes, this is a photo that I took.
Where?
This is a view of Beirut from a building that I was in. Beirut has this very magical thing with its windows and the different floors you’re in, because of the way the buildings are close to each other.
What about the windows?
There’s a lot of life. A lot of people hang out on the balcony. There’s always a lady hanging her laundry or someone cooking. You can really hear your neighbors, and feel the presence of other people even from inside your own home or from another building that you don’t feel alone.
The sounds of other people are part of your sound even if you’re home or in another place. There isn’t this sense of separation or isolation. Just feeling the presence of other people through sound.
Performing is different from recording. How did your approach evolve or shift while creating “Beirut Birds”?
I ended up living the album in a very challenging way. I didn’t have a studio because I was moving around a lot. But this work had to come out.
It also gave me a purpose, to work with these stories and feel closer through the recordings. When I listened to different songs from Beirut and also recordings I took in Berlin in different years, somehow, the field recordings allow one to travel. You can never travel in an image like how you travel in sound.
Have people with experiences of migration and displacement shared their thoughts on the record with you?
I got messages from Lebanese or Syrian people that aren’t in their country, and they were saying that this album helped them sleep or feel sane, and that they could connect to it. It means a lot.
Your work on Beirut Birds goes beyond exploring migration, and you’ve been living through it yourself. What else would you like to explore eventually?
I would like to explore how love and affection are expressed on this side of the world for people back in Beirut, as social norms and ways of communicating love differ so much. Using people’s voices, I hope to create something still tied to migration, but lighter, more hopeful in a different way.
We have a saying: if you come for dinner and there are leftovers, I’ll send you home with a Tupperware. For us, it’s second nature to return it with something inside. It’s like a conversation that keeps the dialogue going.
The metaphor exists within different communities. This is what I mean by love and intimacy. It can take many different forms.
All digital album sales are donated to Haven for Artists, a feminist arts initiative from Beirut that is currently helping displaced families in Lebanon.
Pictures by Florian Rosier and Gabriel Haddad & Nour Sokhon.
