Sound Clash

Sound Clash explores how East London’s post-industrial landscape has been equipped for sonic expression amidst rapidly changing urban landscapes. 

Between vertical routes to amplification via the high-rise of Pirate Radio, to strategies of reconnecting with lost land through field recording, discover more about the intersecting sonic ecologies surrounding V&A East. 

Throughout Jamaica’s fight for independence, sounds from speakers placed high in treetops signalled neighbouring parties. People travelled from one town to the next, crossing boundaries, following the sound. Drawing its name from the Jamaican battle for sonic dominance between rival sound systems, Sound Clash invites you to explore East London’s interlocking sonic ecologies across the Park.

From rebel mixes oscillating through Walthamstow’s pirate radio waves and raves shaking abandoned Hackney Wick warehouses, to sound systems constructed from found material echoing the colonial trades linking the River Lea to the Caribbean Sea, Sound Clash draws on this nostalgia, inviting you on a journey tracing the reverberations between sound, space and place.  

Experience free live performances, dip into sound system trails and immerse yourselves in hands-on workshops from Dubmorphology, Joe Namy, Joshua Terelle Reid (Space Afrika) and Ross Alexander Payne, MI-EL, Ashley Holmes and Jamal Sterrett, Rendezvous Projects, Floods in Fires (Bill Daggs and Shepherd Manyika), Ben Swaby Selig, Pedro Resendez and Sweet Thang Zine.

We welcome walk ups to this event.

Sound Clash is brought to you in collaboration with Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Canal and River Trust and Hackney Bridge, as part of V&A East’s back2back programme. 

Supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.