Annika Kahrs: L'Harmonie du Personnel

L’Harmonie du Personnel is both the title of Annika Kahrs’ first solo exhibition in France and that of her latest film, shot at the Peugeot Archives in Hérimoncourt in the Pays de Montbéliard with the musicians of the Harmonie de Sochaux in the spring of 2026. These few elements already offer some clues to an artistic practice that has, for several years, situated itself at the intersection of the visual arts, music, and a situated approach through which the artist, with a sort of irreverent elegance, breathes new energy into specific places or situations.

Since 2024, Annika Kahrs has been exploring the role of brass bands in Europe within various political, social, industrial, and demographic contexts. The project in Montbéliard brings this research to a close, taking the form of a trilogy of films accompagnied by archive material brought together here for the first time.

In Annika Kahrs’s work, music and sound function both as subjects and as pretexts. Subjects because they are omnipresent in her films, installations, and performances. Pretexts because they are the vehicles or instruments through which she brings together different communities, memories, histories, and societal codes each time: “in that sense, music can function as a kind of metaphor for social or political structures.”  Music, then, serves as a revelation of the invisible patterns that structure our spaces and ways of life. For it is not simply a matter of involving professional and amateur musicians, but also of showing how these forms “take root in specific communities” [1] and are an expression of a specific context and its influence on people.

When invited to work in Montbéliard, Annika Kahrs was therefore primarily interested in the region. She explains: “a place will spark my interest if it provides more questions than answers, and if it is undergoing a process of transformation—no matter what direction this will take it in” This moment of transformation, which she also describes as “potential,” is what the Pays de Montbéliard is currently undergoing. Starting from the exhibition venue itself, the 19, Crac, located in a former Peugeot repair shop dating from the early 20th century, she thus chose to focus—in contrast to her two previous films—on the working-class communities that developed in connection with the local industrial history and, more specifically, on a company marching band for the third installment of her trilogy. Annika Kahrs’ work thus captures the hum of the world with wit and generosity. The Work invites us to listen deeply, allowing us to “see and hear life as a great improvisation— [to] stay open to the world of possibilities for interplay in the quantum field with self and others—community—society—the world.” [2] —Adeline Lépine, exhibition curator

Annika Kahrs’ exhibition was made possible thanks to the support of Pays de Montbéliard Agglomération through the project Les couleurs de l’agglo for the production of the film L’Harmonie du Personnel, and IFA—Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen for the production of the exhibition; the Plan Fanfare program of the DRAC Bourgogne-Franche-Comté for its support through the close collaboration between composer Louis d’Heudières and the Sochaux Wind Band; and the Liebelt Stiftung in Hamburg for the entire project. The film L’Harmonie du Personnel also benefited from the generous hospitality of the Centre d’archives de Terre Blanche / Fonds de dotation Peugeot pour la mémoire de l’histoire industrielle in Hérimoncourt.

[1] Quote from Jeremy Deller about his project Acid Brass which began in 1997 as a collaboration with the the Stockport-based Fairey Brass Band and the composer Rodney Newton who created all the brass arrangements. Deller saw a connection between the Historical worker brass band form and the acid house from Detroit as “two authentic forms of folk art rooted in specific communities”. 

[2] In Pauline Oliveiros, Quantum Listening—Sounding the margins, 2010 first edition. Ignota.org, 2022