Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung - Voice Seeping into Time - Of Thoughts Finding Form

“I am insisting on the voice as carrier of knowledge, a vessel that gives form to ideas, as a marker of spaces, the voice as container and content, the voice as space of resistance and insistence.” – Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung.

Borrowing its title from Forough Farrokhzad’s Only Voice Remains, Voice Seeping into Time asserts the power of the voice to claim not only space but also duration. Gathering a selection of speeches delivered during Ndikung’s first two years as director and chief curator of Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) between March 2023 and April 2025, the book expands his proposition that the voice is itself a form of publication. Articulated by a single speaker yet resonant with many perspectives, these texts trace the programmatic lines shaping HKW’s institutional outlook—an embrace of multiple cultures, epistemologies, sociopolitical positions, and spiritual imaginaries. Voice Seeping into Time offers a record of an evolving institution and of a voice attuned to plurality.