TANKA FONTA – COMPOSER, VISUAL ARTIST & PHILOSOPHER

Tanka Fonta is a composer, visual artist, performer, philosopher and radio producer, whose creative journey unfolds across disciplines, dimensions, and modes of knowing. His practice merges sound, image, and inquiry to explore perception, memory, expressivity, and the nature of being—both human and of the cosmic.

With a path spanning over three decades, Fonta’s works defy geographic and cultural containment, speaking instead from the interior spaces of being, and to the shared sensibilities that bind all sentient life. His compositions, murals, writings, and radio transmissions arise from a deeply embodied relationship to the vast interconnectivity of existence, where time, form, and meaning are continuously reconfigured.

Fonta conceives of art as a living archive of perception—a site where the inner registers of experience, the metaphysical architectures of reality, and the symbolic dimensions of thought converge. His visual and sonic languages are simultaneously intuitive and reflective, forming multilayered dialogues that reach into the unspeakable, the unseen, and the unmeasured.

MAJOR PROJECTS & INSTITUTIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin
Commissioned to create “The Cosmogenic Interconnectedness: ‘How Did We Talk Before the Roman Alphabet?’”, a 130-meter mural rendered as a picto-sonic and poetic language across nine thematic movements. The work serves as a sensory passage into symbolic perception and intuitive understanding. An original orchestral anthem accompanied its unveiling, offering a musical guide through this immersive spatial philosophy.

Goodman Gallery, Cape Town and Johannesburg
Participated in the group exhibition “A Different Now is Close Enough to Exhale on You”, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. Fonta presented a series of works including African Market I–IV, Unfolding Orders I–II, Multi-Dimensions & The Idioms of Time I–IV, and Evolutionary Movements & The Unfolding of Identities I–IV. The exhibition explored themes of power, extraction, resilience, and the entangled nature of human and ecological histories.

SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin & Venice)
Contributed to exhibitions honoring Julius Eastman (“We Have Delivered Ourselves from the Tonal”), Halim El-Dabh (“Here History Began”), and Oscar Murillo’s Frequencies Project (“Frequential Reconfigurations”). These works investigated the political dimensions of sound, the residue of colonial time, and the possibilities of collective listening as a radical gesture.

Guest Lecturer at Academic Institutions
Guest lecturer examining perception, knowledge transfer, and the living transmission of sonic vocabularies across temporal and cultural dimensions. His teaching emphasized the listening mind as an organ of both intellect and intuition.

Radio Future Africa (2017–present)
Co-founder of this Berlin-based digital platform dedicated to philosophical broadcasting, sonic research, and trans-historical dialogue. Through series such as LABOR: Philosophies of Colour Indexing, Fonta explores perception and social constructs through the lens of sound, voice, and vibratory presence. The station serves as an archive of experiential thought and a platform for tuning into new understandings of being.

Fonta’s musical compositions are published by CWJEF Music Publications and distributed internationally through Theodore Front Musical Literature (USA & Canada) and Otto Harrassowitz (Europe), encompassing chamber, orchestral, and improvisatory works. His catalogue resonates with frequencies that speak not of styles or schools, but of consciousness and its inflections.

Whether working with walls, waves, words, or instruments, Tanka Fonta orients his artistic process around the unfolding mysteries of existence. His work is not a mirror of culture but a horizon of awareness—reaching beyond name, nation, or form, toward the shared intelligence at the heart of all things.