In Rhythmic Affinity (Most Favoured Nation)

In Rhythmic Affinity was originally conceived for Jasmina Cibic’s solo exhibition at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, where three female singers occupied a series of suspended hammocks during the exhibition opening, performing a live vocal composition that later remained in the space as a sound installation. Developed in collaboration with composer and vocalist Barbara Kinga Majewska, the work examines the role of culture, music, and diplomacy in the construction of political imaginaries and international consensus.

The composition draws on fragments of Allgemeiner Völkerversöhnungs-Marsch op. 11 by Franz Brabes, a musical score Cibic discovered while researching in the archives of the United Nations Library & Archives Geneva, housed within the Palace of Nations—the former headquarters of the League of Nations. Submitted during the Second World War as a symbolic gift and gesture of hope while the palace itself stood closed, Brabes’s composition became the starting point for a contemporary reworking of political idealism through sound.

For the performance, Cibic assembled a libretto from fragments of political speeches, diplomatic declarations, and World Trade Organization agreements structured around the “most-favored-nation” principle. Among the texts quoted is a 1957 speech by German diplomat Albrecht von Kessel delivered at the opening of German Art of the 20th Century at the Museum of Modern Art, in which art is proposed as a mediator capable of succeeding where diplomacy, politics, and economics might fail.

Positioned between lullaby, political anthem, and elegy, In Rhythmic Affinity reflects on the instrumentalisation of culture as a form of soft power and diplomatic choreography. Following the live activation, the absent voices of the performers remained as a disembodied sonic presence throughout the exhibition, transforming the installation into an acoustic space haunted by those excluded from political authorship. Through this deliberate absence, the work foregrounds the historical erasure of women from the major political negotiations and ideological constructions of the twentieth century, while simultaneously reclaiming the female voice as a carrier of collective memory and speculative futures.