Type

Events

Format

In the Building

Date 12/14 Sep 2025

Price Free

Booking information:

Friday 12 September, 7-9.30pm, Saturday 13 September & Sunday 14 September 2-5pm.

Organised by Abbas Zahedi and bill daggs.

with Abbas Zahedi & bill daggs

As a precursor to their forthcoming release on independent record label Drowned by Locals (DBL), Abbas Zahedi & bill daggs present Open [mic] Confessions, a new experimental sound installation opening on Friday night with an evening of open-mic performances hosted by Abbas and bill. The project invites shared voices, grounding sonics, and listening as an act of resistance.

At the centre of the installation, a bespoke speaker-stack functions like the screen of a confessional booth, positioned between performer and audience. By shifting focus away from the visual presence of the performer, sound becomes the primary medium for connection and release.

On Friday night, Open [mic] Confessions will take the shape of a live open-mic event, with contributions of 5 to 10 minutes from audience members, whether prepared in advance or improvised in the moment. Sign-up will take place on the night, with limited slots available. Scheduled performances will follow after an interval, and selected open-mic contributions will be considered for inclusion in a future DBL release, extending the dialogue of the event into recorded form.

Across the weekend, from 2.00 to 5.00 pm, Gallery 3 will continue to be filled with the sonic textures that resonated on Friday night, composed by bill daggs. Powered by a bespoke sound system from Less Is More Sound, the space becomes a field of sonic and vocal expression, creating a collaborative environment that brings together speaker, listener and place in continuous exchange.

With special thanks to Less Is More Sound for the loan of the sound system.

Please note that for the comfort and safety of performers and audiences, mobile phones and recording devices are not permitted. We appreciate your support in helping us sustain a considerate and inclusive environment.

The Artists

bill daggs’ multidisciplinary practice employs listening as an act of resistance, memory as an act of defiance, and sound as a conduit for healing. Through sonic investigation, sound system and electronic music culture, daggs explores sound’s effects on communities in densely populated areas, its affects on public spaces, and amplifies these places as seminaries of play, improvisation, and mending.

Abbas Zahedi (b. London, UK) is an artist working at the intersections of sonic and sculptural forms, exploring systems of care, thresholds of experience, and the social architectures of our time. His practice has been described as a form of dissociative realism — moving between intimacy and estrangement, and attuned to forms of meaning that sit beyond the purely material. A former medic with training in psychiatry, Zahedi holds an MA in Contemporary Photography and Philosophy from Central Saint Martins. Recent awards include the Stanley Picker Fellowship (2024), Artangel: Making Time (2023), Frieze Artist Award (2022), Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award (2021), and the Khadijah Saye Memorial Scholarship (2017). He is Associate Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London, and has taught widely in the UK and internationally.