The convening Strange Echoes opens with a screening of Frontiers of Silence, a series of three short new films commissioned by Olivia Douglass featuring spoken word by poets Ebun Sodipo, Courtney Conrad and Esther Heller.

This screening is followed by a conversation between exhibiting artist Shenece Oretha, poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley and M. NourbeSe Philip (who joins via Zoom). These artists discuss how Philip’s text Zong! can be understood as a site of commune, the practice and importance of collective reading, and the relevance of the act of listening in Black life.