A Proposal for Radical Hospitality

Please note that this installation is no longer running.

A new sound installation by composer Peter Adjaye comes to the Queen’s Presence Chamber in the Queen’s House Art Gallery.

Created in response to The Armada Portrait, the work traces the painting’s legacies of empire and the roots of the transatlantic slave trade.

Listen to compositions made in the Queen’s House Art Gallery with artists including:

Bird la Bird
Meera Chauda
Natasha Lohan
Randolph Matthews
Brenda Montague
Demba Sow

and others transmitted into the space via Zoom from Luzmira Zerpa, the London Lucumi Choir and the Voices in Motion Collective.

This immersive installation encourages a new way to re-imagine hidden histories and re-consider contemporary legacies of the Armada Portrait.

These voices represent the power and potential of Britain’s diverse culture, reaching across time and oceans to inform the future.

Opening information

Please note that this installation is no longer running, but you can still see the Armada Portrait on display.

Peter Adjaye

Peter Adjaye aka AJ Kwame is a sound artist and composer specialising in experimental soundscape design for installations and cross-disciplinary collaborations.

He is a musicologist, DJ-producer, musician and has a PhD in Mathematics.

His unique set of skills and vast experience have enabled him to work closely with his brother, the award winning architect, David Adjaye OBE, for over 10 years.

For me this is a sonic transhistorical rendering, using a musical form known as 'Call and Response', which appears in many different cultures all over the world and originated from West Africa. I wanted to amplify the voices of the 'outsider' using a democratic musical form. The Queen's house was treated as a 'transmitter' utilising the unique acoustic reverberations generated by the perfect cube of the Great Hall.

Peter Adjaye