Period Music

Period Music is a research process involving Susanna Gonzo, Merma Suelo, Tuce Alba, Elizabeth Gallon Droste, Agnese Menguzzato, and Farah Hazim. The six artists aim to attune to the different temporalities experienced through our bodies, drawing from multiple meanings of period – from the menstrual cycle to musical repetitions and astronomical revolutions."r'tu - A central meaning of the Sanskrit word for ritual, r'tu, is menstruation, the original ritual. The root of r'tu is in arithmetic and rhythm." *Period Music has been staying with essential matters on how we listen to time and rhythms in our bodies and in the world. Questioning the tempo of everyday life in an accelerated system like that of modern society, the group has opened up co-creation spaces to listen to embodied memories. Through dialogue, improvisation and jam sessions, the six artists attuned to each other’s processes, composing music, word scores and drawings – ultimately sounding together.This work embodies other notions of community through archetypes, embracing the impermanence that reveals the countless rhythms of life. Period Music speaks of friendship and connection, and invites you to take on a journey of interconnectedness between ourrhythms and the broader social structures influencing our lives.The project emerges from conversations that began in Berlin in the fall of 2023, including a one-week residency at Atelier Josepha in Ahrenshoop by the Baltic Sea in April 2024. The first physical iteration of this project will consist of a book and a vinyl. The album features looping improvisational compositions encoded with messages about multiple temporalities. The accompanying book gathers poetic memories, letters, photographs, symbols, and drawings that emerged during the process.*Judy Grahn, Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 45.