Haseeb Ahmed
Alumni
Haseeb Ahmed: Pantha Rhei on the Rhine
Kunsthalle Basel
Sunday, February 15, 2026 at 3pm
Further information:
Admission: Event included in admission
Event Description:
Listening Session by Haseeb Ahmed (SMVisS ’10).
Pantha Rhei on the Rhine is an artistic and scientific research project by Studio Haseeb Ahmed. It will be presented at Kunsthalle Basel as a collective listening session and comprises three radio plays by Pablo Diserens, Diana Duta, and Flurina Mia Häberli. Starting from the Heraclitean dictum “Pantha rhei” (everything flows), the project understands the Rhine as a narrative system and traces the river’s path from its Alpine headwaters to its industrially shaped delta using sound. In collaboration with the performers Diserens (with ptarmigan), Duta (with the sirens of the Lorelei), and Häberli (with noise pollution), the project explores the origins, myths, dangers, longings, and future acoustic ecologies of the river.
Followed by a subsequent discussion with Diana Duta, Prof. Jannis Epting, and Haseeb Ahmed.
Funded by Synergies from Pro Helvetia, the project unfolds in a series of listening sessions at partner institutions strategically located along the Rhine. These sessions—at the Rehmann Museum near the source regions, at the Mesodrome in Antwerp for the middle section, and at the V2_ Lab in Rotterdam at the river’s mouth—traceive the Rhine’s transformation along its course. The session at Kunsthalle Basel, in close proximity to international borders, highlights Basel as a site of transition and underscores the project’s aim to connect narrative, geography, and sound.
Format: Listening Session
Participants: Haseeb Ahmed, Diana Duta
Haseeb Ahmed (b. 1985) is an American artist who lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. He produces objects, installations, and films. His work is often collaborative and draws from the hard sciences, blending art and aeronautics, myth and technology, to create new narratives.
Over the last 10 years Ahmed has structured his research-based artistic practice around fluid dynamics of wind and water. His focus is on what we can learn about our changing climates through the movements of the wind and the waters by what they carry, both physically and in terms of cultural associations throughout history.
His work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp, BE) and has been exhibited internationally at the Göteborg Biennial (Göteborg, SE), Museum Bärengasse, (Zurich, CH), The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, USA), De Appel (Amsterdam, NL), and the Frestas Triennial (Frestas, BR), amongst others.