The Van Abbemuseum Choir invites...

From July 2020 to January 2022, Victor Sonna's exhibition 1525 was on display in the tower of the new museum building. Victor Sonna was born in Yaoundé, Cameroon. He migrated to the Netherlands at a young age. While traveling in America in 2015, he bought the chains of an enslaved person in New Orleans. Inside the cuffs he discovered the number 152, engraved in the metal. That purchase became the start of a personal journey of discovery through Ghana and Suriname, among others. The result: a series of one hundred and fifty-two unique, two-sided works of art, six films and fifty-two prints, which together formed the exhibition in the tower and in which he addresses the theme of slavery in his own unique way. The exhibition title was a play on the number 152, the added 5 made it 1525: the year in which one of the first transports of enslaved people in the transatlantic slave trade took place.

During previous exhibitions in the tower, the choir has always been able to tie in with the theme of the exhibition. At Whose Street Is It? (2016-2019) by inviting other choirs and musicians within the walls of the museum.  And when Supertoll! (2019-2020) was on display, we invited the audience to join us. We would also have liked to have done something in 1525. But... corona.

Due to the national corona measures, the museum was closed several times during this exhibition and when it was open, everyone had to keep their distance from each other. It was impossible to give concerts in the tower. We decided to perform in the exhibition once anyway. We sang songs of enslaved people and songs about racism. For the rehearsals we asked Petra Limon for help, a young conductor who had experience with remote and online rehearsals and who subsequently also wanted to lead the concert. Ron Eijkman from the Van Abbemuseum was our only audience, he recorded our performance for interested parties.

_{Recording: Ron Eijkman, Van Abbemuseum}