Andrea Zarza Canova

Thesis title:

Sound as Cultural Artefact (CDA)

I am a curator, sound archivist, and AHRC-funded PhD researcher. For 20 years I’ve worked with sound, curating spaces to listen to sound archives in relation with their political, social, and cultural contexts. I share my research through sound and text, across formats such as radio broadcasts, records, academic and curatorial writing, archive catalogues, exhibitions, listening sessions, and lectures.

My practice-based PhD in Critical Theory and Cultural Studies is a Collaborative Doctoral Award between the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Contemporary. In the PhD I develop my curatorial practice into a research method, taking my 14 years of curatorial work at the British Library’s sound archive as a point of departure. More concretely, my doctoral thesis develops the exhibition and live programme I curated, Your Ears Later Will Know to Listen (Nottingham Contemporary, 2025), to argue how the artworks included in this exhibition introduce new paradigms for preserving and transmitting historical sound.

Through case studies of new commissions for the exhibition, including Satch Hoyt’s ‘un-muting’ of African instruments held at the British Museum and Dylan Robinson’s musical composition as a form of repatriation, I examine how artists creatively engage with recordings shaped by colonial histories to question the hierarchy of the senses and make audible sounds that have been censored and muted. Drawing on sound studies, art history, and curatorial studies, I argue that artworks offer new frameworks for knowledge-making through sound and propose creative and critical modes of refiguring or moving away from the colonial sound archive.

Research Area

Visual Arts

Publications

Book chapters

Zarza Canova, A. and Colmenares Gil, C. (In Press). 'Rhythms of Venezuela: the extraction and refinement of traditional music', in Critical Perspectives on Petrosonics. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Available at: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/critical-perspectives-on-petrosonics-9798765124574/

Journal articles

Zarza Canova, A. (2019). 'Soineko Paisaia / Dorsal Landscape', Papeles del CEIC, 2019(2):63, pp. 1–7. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1387/pceic.20611.

Curatorial publications

Zarza Canova, A. (2026). Notes on Curating Sound. In F. Notari & C. TSW (Eds.) Clipping 2: Sum, Parts. Through Sounds, Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Available at: https://san-serriffe.com/product/clipping-2-sum-parts/
Zarza Canova, A. (2021). 'The rhythm of the archive', The Contemporary Journal, 3. Available at: https://thecontemporaryjournal.org/strands/sonic-continuum/the-rhythm-of-the-archive.
Zarza Canova, A. (2020). 'Pathways Towards Decolonizing the Sound Archive'. In: InwardOutward Symposium. Available at: https://inwardoutward.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/InwardOutward2020_SymposiumPublication.pdf.

Reviews

Zarza Canova, A. (2026). Spatialising absence, silence and resistance in Hajra Waheed's Hum II at Fragmentos. Stir World. Available at: https://www.stirworld.com/think-opinions-spatialising-absence-silence-and-resistance-in-hajra-waheed-s-hum-ii-at-fragmentos.
Zarza Canova, A. (2026). Review of Anomaly Index by Nkisi. The Wire, Issue 505. Available at: https://www.thewire.co.uk/shop/back-issues/issue-505.2
Zarza Canova, A. (2025). Review of Works in Metal by Lamin Fofana. The Wire, Issue 501. Available at: https://www.thewire.co.uk/issues/501

Discography

Zarza Canova, A. and Kent, M. (2023). 'Vessels in July' [mixtape]. Good Morning Tapes. Available at: https://www.goodmorningtapes.com/products/gmt60-mana-records-vessels-in-july

Conferences

Presented paper 'Your Ears Later Will Know to Listen' at Postcolonial Hauntologies. Art in the Presence Absence of the Past, University of Amsterdam and Concordia University, 5, 7 and 8 March 2025.

Presented paper 'Audible Oil: Sonic postcards from BP Touring Service' at Crude Representations Seminar: BP and Audio-Visual Culture, University of Edinburgh and University of Southampton, 12 February 2025.

Talk 'Artists and Sound Archives: Renée Green's Import/Export Funk Office' at Music Department Research Colloquia Series, University of Nottingham, 26 November 2024. (more info)

Presented paper 'Encountering archival sound in exhibitions' within panel Sustaining Signals: Sounding the Curatorial at Congress 2024, McGill University, Montreal/Tiohtià:ke, 13 June 2024 (postponed by organisers).

Co-presented paper 'Rhythms of Venezuela: the re-materialisation of folklore' with Carlos Colmenares at Critical Perspectives on Petrosonics, Royal Musical Association (RMA) and British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE), King’s College London, 11 May 2023.

Public Engagement & Impact

Exhibitions

Co-curated Your Ears Later Will Know to Listen, a thematic group exhibition and associated live programme at Nottingham Contemporary (Nottingham, UK), 31 May - 7 September 2025. (more info)

Invited talks and guest lectures

Guest lecture 'Notes on Curating Sound' for MFA Sound Arts, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London (London, UK), May 2026.
Moderated 'In Conversation: Onyeka Igwe & Test Dept' as part of Assembly 2026, Somerset House (London, UK), March 2026 (more info).
Contribution to 'Research Night: Through Sounds - Clipping 2: sum, parts', Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), February 2026 (more info).
'Listening session & talk: Andrea Zarza Canova with Raheel Khan' as part of Memory Police exhibition at Goldsmiths CCA (London, UK), November 2025 (more info).
Guest lecture 'Curating sound archives' in MFA Curating workshop, Goldsmiths, University of London (London, UK), November 2024.
Walkthrough of exhibition Julian Abraham 'Togar': REꓘONCILIATION, Nottingham Contemporary, June 2024 (more info).
Listening session 'Plant the seed to harvest the song' as part of The Listening Affect, Galeria Municipal do Porto (Portugal), November 2023 (more info).

Radio

Produced radio series Your Ears Later Will Know to Listen for NTS Radio exploring the themes, artworks and artists featured in the exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary, May 2025 (more info).
Interview discussing research at Fonoteca Municipal do Porto (Portugal), November 2023 (more info).

Residencies and workshops

Workshops with Shieldfield Youth Programme as part of exhibition Resounding Diasporic Sonic Worlds, The NewBridge Project (Newcastle, UK), May 2025 (more info).
Residency at Fonoteca Municipal do Porto (Portugal), November 2023.

Other Research Interests

Energy Humanities
Philosophy
Ethnomusicology
Psychoanalysis

Memberships

Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association
The Paul Mellon Centre's Doctoral Research Network
ICOM UK (International Council of Museums UK)
ICTM (International Council of Traditional Music) Study Group on Sources and Archives for Music and Sound Studies