Satruday, October 8, 2022
3:00pm CT
Streaming on YouTube
Inspired by the poem "A door in a mountain" by Jean Valentine, this concert series envisions a space that unites four intergenerational female, non-binary, and other underrepresented gender identity artists from different parts of the world, in different art mediums: writing, music & visual art.
Through this program, Camila connects artists throughout the globe in a virtual space where they collectively create an improvised piece together. Through this act, she is hoping to contribute towards creating a more decentralized, open, and accessible artistic world.
A Door in the Mountain is curated by Camila Nebbia as part of the 2022 ESS Curatorial Fellowship.
ARTIST LINE-UP
Shen Jie - Visual Arts (China)
Sharmila Seyyid - Writer (Sri Lanka/US)
Rayra Pereira Da Costa - Electronics, No Input (Brazil)
Cansu Tanrikulu - Vocalist & Composer (Turkey/Germany)
Door in the Mountain
by Jean Valentine
Never ran this hard through the valley
never ate so many stars
I was carrying a dead deer
tied on to my neck and shoulders
deer legs hanging in front of me
heavy on my chest
People are not wanting
to let me in
Door in the mountain
let me in.
Artist Bios
Sharmila Seyyid is a writer, a social activist, and a fearless social critic. Sharmila is from Eravur, in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province. She has worked as a journalist and a writer since 2001, As an activist, Sharmila interacts closely with minority Tamil Speaking women in the aftermath of Srilankan Civil War (1983-2009)
As a writer, Sharmila Seyyid interrogates themes related to women’s rights, children’s rights, humanitarian conflicts, youth activism, gender, and sexuality, and more.
Sharmila’s dedication to advancing gender equality has been met with several challenges. She has become a target of the very persecution she seeks to fight. Sharmila rapidly became a target of vitriolic criticism, harassment, and death threats because of her literary work and activism. In December 2012, as a result of massive backlash, Sharmila made the difficult decision to go into self-exile, traveling to India with her son, who was two years old at the time. Although this period posed immense challenges for Sharmila, she managed to use the time to grow as an artist. While in exile, she completed her higher education and published her first novel, Ummath, in 2014.
After living at the most threatening edges of society for four years in India, Sharmila returned to Sri Lanka in 2016 to continue her work as a human rights advocate and writer. Upon her return, she established Mantra Life, an organization that seeks to lessen the gender gap in Sri Lanka’s economic, political, and social spheres by helping women become financially independent.
Unfortunately, Sharmila continued to feel threatened in her home country. On Easter Sunday in 2019, a group of churches in Sri Lanka were bombed by National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NDJ), a militant Islamist group. Resulting in the death of hundreds, the Easter Sunday bombings were the most violent incident in Sri Lanka since the civil war, inciting suspicion, insecurity, and fear across the country. In the wake of this, authorities contacted Sharmila to notify her that she had been named one of the NDJ’s targets, likely due to her outspoken statements on gender equality and human rights. Feeling that her family was at great risk, Sharmila was again forced to go into exile and separate from her sons in August 2019. For two months, she was a resident at the renowned Art Omi residency in New York, and traveled from there to India and then Thailand, and Turkey.
In 2014, Sharmila Seyyid was awarded the "Inspirational Women" Award by Women in Management in Sri Lanka and her literary work has received awards including 'best novel of the year' for Ummath by the Tamil Progressive Writers and Artists Association in 2014. Ummath is available in English from HarperCollins. Two of her latest works will soon be published in English as well. After Ummath, Seyyid went on to publish nine books: fiction (1), non – fiction (2), poetry (2), stories (1) and volumes of articles (3)
Sharmila Seyyid was awarded a prestigious IIE-Artist Protection Fund Fellowship (IIE-APF) and placed in residence with UNO’s Leonard and Shirley Goldstein Center for Human Rights (GCHR) and UNO’s Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy.
https://wordswithoutborders.org/contributors/view/sharmila-seyyid/
Cansu Tanrıkulu is a singing multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and improviser based in Berlin. She collaborates with exceptional creatives and likes making shape-shifting music mostly based on topics that are hard to imagine as musical entities at first glance. Since 2018, she is one of the busiest young voices in the European Creative Music Scene leading/co-leading multiple international composition and performance projects. With her elastic singing, wide stylistic vocabulary and far reaching approach to melody and text-based improvisation Tanrıkulu became an in-demand vocalist in countless collaborations in a short time, actively performing in renowned platforms of Europe and USA with her bands next to projects she’s been supporting. In most of her bands she also plays synth, guitar and works with electronics as a part of her unique vocal language.
Her projects include: PILED UP by Tanrikulu (w. Lukas König, Nick Dunston & Simon Jermyn), Melez (w. Jim Black & Elias Stemeseder), MeoW (w. Jim Black, Liz Kosack & Dan Peter Sunderland) & Tanrıkulu feat. Greg Cohen & Tobias Delius, Pep Talk (w. Korhan Erel), Aşa (w. David August) and multiple other duo collaborations including clarinetist Carol McGonnell, guitarist & composer Jessica Ackerley and composer & multi-instrumentalist Nick Dunston.
She was born in Ankara, Turkey in 1991 and moved to Berlin in 2015 after finishing her degree in cognitive psychology. - She had her theatre composition debut in 2021 for “Krampus” in Maxim Gorki Theater/Berlin as a co-composer with Korhan Erel.
She made music on a scope of topics including televangelists, porn, neural structures, James Gandolfini & cats. - Her album “Kantoj de Fermiteco” with the trio (w Greg Cohen and Tobias Delius), inspired from the tableaux art of Edward Kienholz, was released on LowSwing Records in November 2021 premiered w. Marc Ribot as guest in Jazzfest Berlin 2021 and reached out to Taiwan, USA, Japan and all over Europe with reviews including the MINT Magazin, BR Klassik. The album was presented with a 60-minute long film made by Tanrıkulu and Daniela Imhoff.
She is a recipient of Jazz-Preis der Karl Hofer Gesellschaft for Soloist (2019), Elsa Neumann Stipendium - UdK (2021) and her projects are regularly supported by prestigious international institutions & residencies (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians 2022 founded by Jen Shyu & Sara Serpa).
She is always expanding her scope of projects as well as working as a recording artist/performer for established international artists (incl. Nate Wooley's Seven Storey Mountain VI 2021, Anthony Braxton’s Sonic Genome in 2019). Her collaborations include bands like Nick Dunston's SKULTURA, Max Andrzejewski’s Hütte & Guests Playing Robert Wyatt’s Music, James Banner’s USINE & Stine Janvin’s Chords for Calling and other outstanding creatives including Trevor Dunn, Sofia Jernberg, Matt Mitchell, Cenk Ergün, Dan Nicholls, Otis Sandsjö, Sofia Borges, Kaan Bıyıkoglu, Zeynep Toraman, Julia Hülsmann & Tomomi Adachi.
http://www.aysecansutanrikulu.com/
Rayra Pereira da Costa
Art teacher in the public school system and artist. I research electronic circuits, No-input and materials capable of generating noise. I work on projects Em Extinção (solo) and duos: Canção de Matar, alongside Talita Araújo de Jesus, O exílio with Olivia Luna and Cerne with André Damião. Some of the live performances include Audio Insurgencia, CIL (Free Improvisation Circuit), SP na Rua, FIME (International Music Festival Experimental), alternative music circuits, SESCs and in some Brazilian states. I took part in dance and theater projects. I have participated in national and international compilations, collabs and released some independent albums.
SHENG JIE
Born in 1975; based in Beijing China.
“Listen” and “Watch” are tow major element in Sheng Jie’s work, For make a circulatory system of perception in the space. Export by many form: experimental music, sound, video, painting, film, installation, compose, audio visual art performance etc.
2000, Diploma DNSAP from Ecole Supérieure Des Aat Décoratifs de Strasbourg in France. Currently lives and work in Beijing.
Founded Shan studio in 2010 . Manager of Maybe Ensemble and Founded DOT audio visual art laboratory in 2018.
Website: http://sgogoj.com/
https://gogoj.bandcamp.com/album/oviparity
Camila Nebbia is a saxophone player, composer, improviser and multidisciplinary artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina based in Berlin, Germany. Her artistic practice reflects the relationship between composition, free improvised music, film and mixed media creations, where memory and identity are some of the main resonances of her work. Her visual work includes super 8 film, archives, destroyed archives, expanded cinema & digital video.
She is co-creator and curator of the collective interdisciplinary group and improvised music series “La Jaula se ha vuelto pájaro y se ha volado”, the concert series “Guillotina Fest” and creator and curator of the streaming concert series called “The warmth of proximity” for womxn, & non binary experimental musicians presented at the Experimental Sound Studio of Chicago. Co-founder of the collective and independent record label based in Portugal “Habitable Records”. Played and recorded with many artists of the international scene such as Valentin Garvie, La Big Nant, Axel Filip Sextet, Nacho Szulga Quintet, El devenir del río, Julian Mekler sextet, Burka, Paula Shocron, Barbara Togander, Patrick Shiroishi, Paul Pignon, Christer Bothén, Vinnie Sperrazza, Katt Hernandez, Nicola Hein, Kenneth Jimenez, Lesley Mok, Violeta García, Susana Santos Silva, Tom Rainey, Elsa Bergman, l’ Arfi collective of Lyon, Joanna Mattrey, Flatter Ensemble, John Hughes, Lesley Mok, among others. Has released as a band leader and solo performer “A veces la luz de lo que existe resplandece solamente a la distancia” (Kuai 2017), “De este lado” (Club del disco 2019), Aura (ears&eyes records 2020),“Corre el río de la memoria” (ramble records 2021) and “Presencias” (Sound Holes 2021). Participated in many festivals around the world such as Winter Jazz Fest NYC co-presented with M3 (U.S), Buenos Aires Jazz Festival (ARG), Santa Fe Jazz Festival (AR), Lima Jazz Festival (PE), FRIM concerts at Fylkingen, Stockholm (SE), Diskurs Festival (DE), among others, and has assisted to several residencies such as SIM (NYC) Jazz & Creative Music dictated by Tyshawn Sorey and Vijay Iyer (CA), OMI (NYC), Konvent Zero (ES) UNCOOL (CH), Ensemble Evolution (US), CirkusVranen (SE), CCK with Tim Berne, Marilyn Crispell & Ben Goldberg (AR), among others.