Sonica double bill: Queen of Harps // Floris Vanhoof

So unique is Queen of Harps’ music that she’s invented her own genre: hip-hop-harp. A SAMA Best Hip-Hop Artist nominee in 2023, Queen of Harps – aka Scots-Malaysian rapper and harpist Anise Pearson – blends sampled harps and beats with her laconic and instantly recognisable conscious hip-hop flow. Seeing music as a way to reach out to her audience and find those common elements that unite us in all our diversity, Pearson spins tales of overcoming past hardship and building better futures.

Floris Vanhoof’s work introduces elements of chance and unpredictability into stable systems, activating and disrupting them mischievously. In Soap Bubbles, a laser shines across the room to strike light-sensitive diodes on the far wall, a simple process by which light is turned into sound – or it would be, were it not for the mass of foam that interrupts the laser’s path. The steady beam of light is refracted and scattered unpredictably, the soundtrack mutating as the bubbles constantly form, pop, reform.

Supported by The Delegation of Flanders (Embassy of Belgium) to the UK.