Gallery Talk: Peter Adjaye

Peter Adjaye, aka AJ Kwame, is a Ghanaian-British conceptual sound artist, musicologist, composer, DJ-Producer, and musician. He specializes in cross-disciplinary collaborations, such as his recent work with celebrated Nigerian-American artist Toyin Ojih Odutola to design a soundscape for her monumental project A Counterveiling Theory, opening at the Hirshhorn Museum on November 19.

​Adjaye’s unique set of skills and vast experience led him to work closely with his brother, the award winning architect, Sir David Adjaye OBE, for over 15 years. Their collaboration culminated in 2016 with the release of ‘Dialogues,’ a limited edition vinyl album featuring compositions that Peter created for David’s buildings.

In 2020, Adjaye was commissioned to compose and produce a soundscape for the exhibition A Countervailing Theory at The Curve, a unique 90 meter gallery at the Barbican Centre, London. The resultant 12 channel immersive soundscape, “Ceremonies Within,” combines the authentic sounds of ancient African instrumentation with modern contemporary synths and strings. The sound installation, which has already received critical acclaim, is designed to accompany the narrative of the drawings and allows the multitude of sounds to ‘bleed’ into one another organically to evoke the landscape within which the story is set.

Adjaye will offer a brief introduction to ‘Ceremonies Within’ to celebrate the opening of Toyin Ojih Odutola: A Counterveiling Theory at the Hirshhorn.