Collages by Francesca Savoldi.

Public programme
March–June 2026

Developed in conjunction with Zahra Malkani’s forthcoming exhibition, Noorani Metal Sound, Auto Italia is pleased to present Metal on Metal, an extended public programme curated by researcher, writer, and sound practitioner Syma Tariq.

Comprising talks, workshops, playlisting and performance, the series explores and interrogates the conceits that assume listening as a mode of liberation. Through archival tracing, modes of improvisation, signal and movement capture, epistemic breakages and vocal versioning, Metal on Metal gathers at the sharp edges of memory and sonic materiality.

With: Zahra Malkani, Mariam Elnozahy, Elaine Mitchener, Nijjor Manush (represented by Fatima Rajina and Hajera Begum), Shortwave Collective (represented by Hannah Kemp-Welch and Lisa Hall), Zoe Samudzi, Fatima Lahham, Bint Mbareh and Syma Tariq.

Dr Syma Tariq is a researcher, writer and sound practitioner based in London. Drawing on feminist politics and theory, colonial a/temporality and audio archiving experiments, she is interested in the relationship listening has to time, violence, and knowledge systems both extractive and spiritual. She completed her PhD project ‘Partitioned Listening‘ at the Centre for Research into Sound Arts Practice (Crisap), UAL in 2023 and is currently working with ECHO, Free University Brussels. Her pedagogical work encompasses teaching, workshops, and talks in public, artistic and academic settings.

Syma’s artistic commissions include Delay Lines (Tower Hamlets Local Library and Archives, 2023) and A Thousand Channels (Colomboscope festival, 2015/2021–24). Partitioned Listening has been presented in The Contemporary Journal, World Records, BL79 Tunis and the anthologies Pakistan Desires (Duke University Press, 2023) and Bodies of Sound (Silver Press, 2024). She has recently co-written her first piece for theatre, Unheard: a live radio play, performed at the National Council of Arts, Islamabad in 2025.