hernoise

Her Noise was initiated by Lina Džuverović and Anne Hilde Neset in 2001 in the UK with an ambition to investigate music and sound histories in relation to gender, and to create a lasting resource in this area through building up an archive. In 2005 Lina and Anne co-curated Her Noise, an exhibition building on their research, which took place at South London Gallery, Tate Modern and Goethe Institut and gathered international artists who use sound to investigate social relations, inspire action or uncover hidden soundscapes. The exhibition included newly commissioned works by Kim Gordon & Jutta Koether, Emma Hedditch, Christina Kubisch, Kaffe Matthews Hayley Newman and Marina Rosenfeld, as well as a series of talks and performances.

The Her Noise Archive, as it became called, formed the backbone of Her Noise and was developed by the curators, in collaboration with Emma Hedditch and Irene Revell. Made public initially during the exhibition at South London Gallery, the archive contains the collected research materials, interview and performance footage recorded by the curators and a number of guests during the development of the project. The archive includes books, fanzines, records, CDs, catalogues and other ephemera, as well as a growing number of on camera interviews with artists including Pauline Oliveros, Maryanne Amacher, Diamanda Galas, Else Marie Pade, Jutta Koether, Marina Rosenfeld, Thurston Moore, Jim ORourke, Kevin Blechdom, Kembra Pfahler, Kim Gordon, Lydia Lunch, Peaches and others.

After international touring throughout 2006 – 2008, the Her Noise Archive was donated to CRiSAP (Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice), London College of Communication. The archive now finds its permanent home in the University of the Arts, London Archives and Special Collections at London College of Communication, following a period of cataloguing by researcher Holly Ingleton, in collaboration with Cathy Lane (CRiSAP) and Irene Revell (Electra).

Hernoise.org was created with the intention to make elements of the Her Noise Archive more accessible to a wider public. Guest curators were invited to ‘activate’ the archive by selecting artefacts from the archive to highlight, by selecting a book to add to the bibliography, by suggesting a new artist to interview and by suggesting something to add to the archive.

Various events were produced in response to this archive, Her Noise: Feminisms and the Sonic conference in 2012, the Sound::Gender::Feminism::Activism events, Sound Acts Athens, AMOQA and later, the Still Waiting Discussion Group, a student-focused and led research group that emerged through the shared desire to address the lack of diversity experienced on the BA Sound Arts and Design curriculum at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London in 2016.