Today, HUH, a global experiment exploring the connections between cities, announces their second project collaboration. In a season of increased separation, their ongoing series strives to bring creatives together from different parts of the world for collaborations that reflect the moods that define their cities. This time, they’ve set their focus on Lagos and Singapore to reflect how the cities (and many of us) might be feeling right now.
Multidisciplinary Nigerian-American artist Wavy The Creator composed a song reflecting on the mood of ‘disquiet,’ partnering with Singapore-based creative studio ‘Tell Your Children’ to bring the words to life in a visual experience.
This collaboration was conceptualized to address the disquieting impacts of violence in Nigeria and worldwide. The resulting song, ‘This War, This World’, is one of hope, meant to serve as a reminder to love and respect one another during challenging times. TYC designed the accompanying graphics to represent specific sounds heard in the song, allowing the audience to harmoniously experience the music with the visuals in an almost synesthetic way.
“This was a new experience, a new way of making music in collaboration with creatives across the globe. The song, which speaks of unity, understanding, and respect for one another, is synergetic to the visual theme created by Tell Your Children, as well as to the collaborative process facilitated by HUH. The common message is finding peace and beauty through working in harmony with each other.” — Wavy The Creator
HUH began to help us view our current reality during the pandemic as an opportunity rather than as a hindrance to creativity. As physical distance has become a norm, everyone worldwide has had to learn to communicate and collaborate exclusively in digital environments. The prototype was launched last fall as a pandemic passion project from the Toronto-based creative agency /Somewherelse/. Its first collaboration featured Toronto-based musician Luna Li and LA-based director Rosanna Peng. Together, they created a music video that explored their interpretation of the mood ‘ethereal’ from their respective cities’ perspectives.
“HUH started as a question about how we could make sense of our role as creatives in this new world. This second collaboration is putting the project on the map as a truly global creative platform—spanning continents, artistic mediums, and complex moods—without physical or geographical barriers. As we fill in more dots on our virtual map of the world, I feel increasingly hopeful in our ability to facilitate purposeful global connections in this challenging time.” — Anna Wiesen, creative director of /Somewherelse/ & HUH
In addition to facilitating project collaborations, HUH selects city curators — creatives and tastemakers from participating cities to hand-pick local content highlighting the people, places, and things that set the mood for their cities. City curators for Lagos include Jess’ Finesse’ and for Singapore, Yang Er Tran, Zac Tan, and Singapore Community Radio.
