Open Call for Nocturnal Walkthroughs of the exhibition 'Listening All Night To The Rain' by John Akomfrah

The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza and TBA21–Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary present Listening All Night To The Rain, an exhibition by John Akomfrah. The British artist of Ghanaian origin reimagines his most ambitious and experimental work to date, originally commissioned for the British Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale.

Nocturnal Walkthroughs are a constellation of talks, readings, and interventions that place John Akomfrah’s work in dialogue with urgent contemporary issues. 

We invite artists, poets, performers, scientists, activists, thinkers, and cultural workers to propose original activities—ranging from performances and readings to lectures, sound pieces, dance works, or collective rituals—for this series of public activities accompanying Listening All Night to the Rain.

Rather than traditional tours, Nocturnal Walkthroughs open the exhibition to new perspectives, encouraging collective reflection on the intersecting crises of our time. 

Climate colonialism is a central thread in Akomfrah’s work, which explores how environmental breakdown is deeply linked to histories of colonial extraction and displacement. This public program builds on these ideas, using listening and shared experience as tools for understanding and responding to these legacies.

Proposals should activate the exhibition space and create opportunities for dialogue, reflection, and collective engagement—whether through lecture-performances, sound or music interventions, live poetry, guided meditations, storytelling, or unexpected forms yet to be imagined.

Through these after-hours sessions, we hope to explore how Akomfrah’s work resonates with the crises and possibilities shaping our present—and to do so in ways that are intimate, participatory, and transformative.

These sessions will take place at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid on alternating Saturday evenings, at 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., each lasting approximately 45 minutes. The activities are free of charge and open to the general public. 

Discover more about the exhibition here.

Selected Proposals for “Nocturnal Walkthroughs” – John Akomfrah: Listening All Night to the Rain

TBA21–Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza are delighted to announce the selected proposals for the Nocturnal Walkthroughs accompanying John Akomfrah’s exhibition “Listening All Night to the Rain”.

We warmly congratulate the selected participants whose projects stood out for their originality, depth of engagement, and resonance with the exhibition’s themes. Their proposals explore listening, memory, and ecological and colonial entanglements through performance, sound, poetry, and collective action.

Winners of the Open Call:

• Inés Sybille and Malvin Montero

Inés Sybille is a dancer, cultural researcher, and teacher. Born in Barcelona to a Catalan mother and a Haitian father, she lives between Barcelona and Lisbon. Through her choreographic practice—drawing from Angola’s Kuduro, Ivory Coast’s Coupé Décalé, and Jamaica’s Dancehall—she creates inquiries that seek to attune with the deities of Haitian Vodou.

Born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (Los Mina), Malvin Montero is a choreographer, dancer, and educator. He began his career in 2003 at the Alina Abreu Dance Conservatory and later trained at Rey Juan Carlos University (ISDAI) in Madrid. He directs the platform Zebra Prieta, through which he expands his poetic work and diasporic imagination.

• Hannah Kemp-Welch is a sound artist with a social practice. Her projects develop collaboratively with communities, considering how listening might lead to social action. She likes to work with analogue tools like radio transmitters and wind-up cameras, valuing their ingenuity and openness to collective experimentation. Recent projects include All Under One Magnetosphere (2025), a BBC Radio 4 feature produced with Oliver Sanders, tuning into the Earth’s natural static, and Nomadic Listening (2024), a community project and sound installation for Manifesta 15 in Barcelona. Hannah is a member of Shortwave Collective, an international feminist radio art group.

• Vir Andres Hera (MX–FR) works across expanded cinema, installation, and critical writing. Their practice explores diasporic consciousness, gender identity, and memory through audiovisual montages that weave together personal and collective archives, destabilizing colonial narratives. A graduate of Le Fresnoy, Mo.Co., and UQAM, they have exhibited at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Gaîté Lyrique, Mimosa House, and Luma Foundation, among others. In 2025, they will undertake residencies at CIAPV and Fundación Carasso, and are currently developing Incwadi, their forthcoming installation. They are part of the teaching faculty at Villa Arson and a member of the editorial board of Qalqalah قلقلة.

We thank all applicants for their inspiring contributions. The selected Nocturnal Walkthroughs will take place on alternating Saturday evenings from November 2025 to February 2026 at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.

Join us for this series of nocturnal encounters that open new pathways into Akomfrah’s work—intimate, participatory, and transformative explorations of art, sound, and shared experience.