Serralves is presenting a major new exhibition by Canadian artist Stan Douglas (Vancouver, Canada, 1960), which marks one of the most significant moments in its programme for the first half of 2024, the year in which we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 25 April Revolution in Portugal.

Centred on the film ISDN (2022), initially conceived for the 59th Venice Biennale, the exhibition presents a vibrant dialogue between different cultures and social movements, portrayed through a fictional musical performance between rappers from London and Cairo, whose verses address fundamental issues such as race, class, love, identity and justice. ISDN is a large-scale two-channel video installation that explores music as a form of transcontinental cultural collaboration, named after a technology introduced in the 1980s, used to transmit high-quality digital audio over copper telephone lines. The video installation has two screens facing each other. It stages a fictionalised account of two musical collectives on each screen, taking place in 2011, one in London with rappers from Grime, Lady Sanity and TrueMendous, and the other in Cairo with rappers from Mahraganat Raptor and Joker, exchanging improvised verses (freestyle), supposedly transmitted over ISDN lines. While the London rappers exchange 16-bar verses, the Cairo artists listen and wait their turn to do the same - or so it seems, even though they were recorded separately and weeks apart in their respective cities. The viewer is positioned between the two screens, involved in this call-and-response cipher that unfolds across continents. In their verses, the artists highlight systemic social ills, directly raising questions about race and class in their countries of origin. The layers of sound beneath the vocals are mixed in an ever-changing configuration, in permutations that take more than four weeks to repeat.

In addition to the film, the exhibition also includes two large-format photographs inspired by crucial moments of social change in the turbulent year of 2011, which continue to reverberate today - such as the Arab Spring and the protests in London.

The exhibition is organised by the Serralves Foundation - Museum of Contemporary Art, with the support of the David Zwirner Gallery.