Orpheus Instituut welcomes Xenia Benivolski as visiting researcher

Orpheus Instituut is pleased to welcome Xenia Benivolski as a visiting researcher. During her stay, she will further develop her artistic research project The sky’s like a bell — the moon is its tongue: Sounding the material legacies of political landscapes, which forms part of her ongoing PhD.

Her research investigates bells as sonic and sculptural agents of historical and political transformation, with a particular focus on their symbolic and material trajectories across ideological regimes in the Soviet sphere. Through a combination of artistic practice, archival research, and sound-based inquiry, Xenia examines how bells have been melted, recast, silenced, and reactivated, shifting between sacred instruments, political monuments, and instruments of war. These transformations, she argues, inscribe power, memory, and resistance into the very acoustics of public space.

At Orpheus Instituut, Xenia will refine the compositional and organological aspects of her work while engaging with faculty, docARTES researchers, and visiting speakers. Her residency will concentrate on three key areas: sonic theory and the acoustic politics of bells; material history and metallurgical practices connected to post-Soviet regimes; and compositional strategies for performances and installations based on her own cast bells.

By situating her project at the intersection of musicology, sound art, material culture, and curatorial research, Xenia contributes to urgent conversations around sonic temporality, artistic epistemologies, and the afterlives of cultural objects. Her time at Orpheus Instituut also builds on her recent dialogue with Bruno Forment and Jonathan Impett, opening new possibilities for exchange on speculative and compositional methodologies. We warmly welcome Xenia Benivolski to Orpheus Instituut and look forward to the insights her research will bring to our community.