Recollection of Displacement

Since the beginning of history, cultures and peoples have, for various reasons, sought refuge in new homelands. What happens to culture when people move – or, especially – are forced to move? How do the imprints of this culture change in the formation of a new identity and what happens when different cultures meet and cross with each other?

In its concert project Recollection of Displacement, the Hezarfen Ensemble opens a window to reflection on peoples who have suffered displacement due to war, colonisation or expulsion. is a thread running throughout modernity, and a profound characteristic of our own time, crossing boundaries of north and south; and east and west. Although cultural exchange between the Swedes in the north and the Byzantine Empire in the southeast began as early as the 9th century, with Sweden’s NATO application we are now faced with the fact that the relationship between Sweden and Turkey is more intense than it has been for centuries.

The Swedish festival Kontinent Dalsland has commissioned Katarina Barrukk, Mansoor Hosseini and Anne Pajunen to create ensemble works to portray the journey of artistic inspiration from a native identity to a new alien reality through vastly contrasting perspectives. In Recollection of Displacement, a pair of one hour-programmes features music originally commissioned for Hezarfen on the theme of Displacement over the past decade (Manos Charalabopoulos, Berkant Gençkal, Yannis Kyriakides, Nadim Husni, Bassem Alkhouri), as well as the three newly commissioned works by Katarina Barrukk, Mansoor Hosseini and Anne Pajunen. The concert project is made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

The composers of the commissioned works are associated with peoples forced to migrate; some of them (as well as some of the musicians of Hezarfen) have themselves been displaced. Recollection of Displacement will be premiered by Hezarfen Ensemble together with invited artists from the festival during Ingenmansland (No Man’s Land) at the Kontinent Dalsland Festival.

Further information:
hezarfenensemble.com

Date

September 14, 2024
Kontinent Dalsland Festival