Soufrière Si Longtemps - Allan Gilbert Balon
Presented by send+receive with VP Media Arts Centre
Soufrière Si Longtemps is a cinematic essay unfolding on the slopes of La Soufrière (Guadeloupe). At the crossroads of epistemology and biology, the work explores the enigma of self-generating life and the limits of perception, questioning the reflexive loop of living systems.
Presented as an intimate experience as part of the send+receive festival of sound, Balon will also be performing in the festival and will be in attendance t the opening.
About the Artist
Born in Les Abymes, Guadeloupe, composer and multidisciplinary artist Allan Gilbert Balon centers his phonographic and installation practice on the exploration of memorial interiority and liminal perception. Co-founder of xyä édition with Uta Guan Hyë, his work has been exhibited at New York’s MoMA PS1 and released through contemporary and experimental imprints such as Recital Program and Séance Centre.
His debut album, The Magnesia Suite (2024), extends the historical lineage of Erik Satie’s furniture music alongside the asceticism of American minimalism (Charlemagne Palestine, Alvin Curran). Through a contemplative approach to the piano—evoking temporal elongation and harmonic plasticity found in Thelonious Monk and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou—coupled with tape manipulation and radio static, Balon constructs an architecture of muted dissonance that blurs the boundary between subjective interiority and environmental space.
