A Circle of Birds is a collective research project from Az Oor, Sofyann Ben Youssef, and Joachim Ben Yakoub that proposes recomposition as a method for engaging with memorial traces in artistic research. It questions the archival turn in the visual arts and its reliance on the archival aura of unearthed stories.

The research takes as its starting point the story of Ahl El Hijra, one of several art groups active in Brussels during the long 1970s. Inspired by the bird movements that shaped the group’s representation of collectivity, the project asks how an installation can become a transdisciplinary space where visual, sonic and poetic forms are woven together through recomposition.

Drawing on the circular form of al-halqa, the research explores storytelling as a method that allows a swarm of stories to remain in suspension. Rather than resurrecting Ahl El Hijra, it seeks to reactivate its immaterial dimension, obscured through subtle forms of historiographic erasure.

By bringing different forms, voices and temporalities into relation, A Circle of Birds explores how recomposition can open new possibilities for movement within movements, particularly at a moment when collective histories risk ossification under the pressures of the present.