The new temporary exhibition at the International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (MICR) in Geneva, entitled Tuning in – Acoustique de l’émotion weaves together sound, voice, heritage and humanitarian action. It brings together archivists, researchers and artists.

For her exhibition project, curator Elisa Rusca put the archivist in charge of the ICRC sound archives in touch with researchers and teachers from the University of Geneva’s Swiss Center for Affective Sciences (CISA), the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Ecole de design et haute école d’art du Valais (EDHEA), all of whom were interested in making sound an object of study for research and innovation.

Three CISA students have conducted research into the links between voice and emotion, using audio material available on the ICRC audiovisual archive portal. The results of their study are presented in the exhibition, where visitors also have the opportunity to participate in the experience by listening to testimonies recorded in wartime contexts and through the emotions they evoke.

“at least one day … will pass before the patient is brought to a hospital, and for these old people it means very often that they are just going to die, just like that”

Excerpt from the testimony of a Danish Red Cross doctor on mission for the ICRC in Cyprus. 1974. CICR. V-S-10056-A-12

Ms. Rusca also asked artist Dana Whabira to create a work inspired by the ICRC archives. The result is an immersive work entitled O records room I, which questions the meaning of love in archives, the museum and society.

The ICRC archives have benefited in two ways from taking part in this project: on the one hand, it brings its sound archives to a wider public; on the other, it reveals that archival documents are not only useful and necessary to historians, but can also be very interesting material for other academic disciplines and inspire artists.

Listen to the ICRC sound archives on the ICRC audiovisual archives portal.

Find out more about the exhibition Tuning in – Acoustique de l’émotion