Sounds of Sudan
Sounds of Sudan
As state violence, displacement, and censorship disrupt traditional forms of cultural transmission, sound endures as a resilient and global means of expression. This session brings together musicians, scholars, and cultural practitioners to consider how sonic practices preserve collective memory, sustain resistance movements, and reimagine modes of belonging during crisis.
Speakers:
Alsarah is a singer, songwriter, and bandleader of Alsarah & The Nubatones. She studied at Wesleyan University, writing her ethnomusicology thesis on Sudanese Zar music. In 2009, she moved to New York and formed her band, the Nubatones. The band’s music updates Sudanese traditions with various influences, but never loses the distinctive flavors of Alsarah’s homeland. Between albums, she works with the Sudanese artist collective Refugee Club Productions on a variety of projects including the critically acclaimed documentary Beats of the Antonov.
Amar Jamal is a Sudanese journalist and researcher, and Managing Editor of Atar Magazine, a bilingual (Arabic-English) platform covering war, displacement, and everyday life in Sudan. Trained in social anthropology and with over a decade of media experience across Sudan and beyond, he has contributed research to the Rift Valley Institute and the Small Arms Survey, and was a writing fellow at Africa Is a Country.
Haneen Sidahmed is a Sudanese-American multimedia artist, storyteller, and archivist. Her archival work and artwork are intimately entwined, both seeking to explore the intricacies and contradictions of diasporic experience. She is a nostalgia-junkie interested in how Sudanese communities rectify diasporic ruptures through collective memory and radical imagination. Her current projects include the Sudan Tapes Archive, an audio digitization project that seeks to build an accessible sonic archive of Sudanese cassette tapes. Her archival work has been featured on GQ Middle East, NTS Radio, and The World. She has exhibited artwork in Oakland, Toronto, Rotterdam, and Dubai.
Ahmad Sikainga is a Professor of African History at the Ohio State University. His academic interests embrace the study of Africa, the African diaspora, and the Middle East with a focus on slavery, labor, urban history, and popular culture. The geographical focus of his research is the Sudan, the Nile Valley, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf. His publications include Slaves into Workers: Emancipation and Labor in Colonial Sudan (1996), City of Steel and Fire: A Social History of Atbara, Sudan’s Railway Town, 1906-1984 (2002), and dozens of articles and book chapters. He is also one of the editors of Africa and World War II (Cambridge, 2015), Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Africa (2006), and Civil War in Sudan (1993).
Moderator:
Khalid Albaih is a Sudanese political cartoonist and human rights advocate known for his global platform, Khartoon. The 2025 Artist-in-Residence at Georgetown University in Qatar, his work has been exhibited internationally, and his writings have appeared in major publications. He was featured in The Guardian’s documentary The Story of Civil Rights is Unfinished (2016) and has published two books: Khartoon! and Sudan Retold, an art book documenting Sudan’s history through 31 Sudanese artists. His installations, such as Bahar and The Walls Have Ears (Documenta 15), address themes of displacement and social justice. In 2024, he hosted Alhasil Shino? on AJ+ and serves as editor-in-chief of KhartoonMag.com, a platform for displaced Sudanese cartoonists. He is also the creator of the award-winning @DohaFashionFridays.