“the public nature of performance art provides a forum for the social acknowledgement, respectful attention, and cathartic empathy essential to both private and public memory and healing”
-Michael Kilburn Professor of Politics and International Studies -Endicott College
As part of Oral History Victoria's inaugural group show, The Foundling Archive is proud to present Across the Water - An oral history performance for cello and electronics.
Across the Water is a musical composition for solo cello and electronics. It is a collaboration between cellist Stephanie Arnold and composer Dr Robert Davidson. It was made using oral history interviews between Ms Arnold and Melbourne-based asylum seekers which are heard during the performance through the use of the contemporary compositional technique of speech melody to recount their journeys and arrival in Australia. Join us for the premier performance of this important and moving composition, followed by refreshments and discussion around the nature of the interview, the role of music and the arts in providing an outlet for difficult discussions and how we as outsiders can learn to listen better.
While the issue of asylum seekers has had a substantial presence in national election campaigns, on media agendas and around dinner table discussions over the last 15 years, Australians collectively have not been very successful at engaging directly with asylum seekers. The conversation has tended to be about asylum seekers rather than with them. This 'about' rather than 'with' is problematic, as failing to acknowledge asylum seeker perspectives as part of the national discussion, takes away the control and authority they have over their story.
Across the Water attempts to support the agency of the asylum seeker within Australian discourse and aims to signify listening, understanding and respect.
Through this musical form of storytelling the project gives a space for the complexities and subtleties of emotion and expression behind the often unheeded words of asylum seekers to be heard, not through the noise of politics or media but on the terms and through the voices of asylum seekers themselves.
www.thefoundlingarchive.org.au/events
-Michael Kilburn Professor of Politics and International Studies -Endicott College
As part of Oral History Victoria's inaugural group show, The Foundling Archive is proud to present Across the Water - An oral history performance for cello and electronics.
Across the Water is a musical composition for solo cello and electronics. It is a collaboration between cellist Stephanie Arnold and composer Dr Robert Davidson. It was made using oral history interviews between Ms Arnold and Melbourne-based asylum seekers which are heard during the performance through the use of the contemporary compositional technique of speech melody to recount their journeys and arrival in Australia. Join us for the premier performance of this important and moving composition, followed by refreshments and discussion around the nature of the interview, the role of music and the arts in providing an outlet for difficult discussions and how we as outsiders can learn to listen better.
While the issue of asylum seekers has had a substantial presence in national election campaigns, on media agendas and around dinner table discussions over the last 15 years, Australians collectively have not been very successful at engaging directly with asylum seekers. The conversation has tended to be about asylum seekers rather than with them. This 'about' rather than 'with' is problematic, as failing to acknowledge asylum seeker perspectives as part of the national discussion, takes away the control and authority they have over their story.
Across the Water attempts to support the agency of the asylum seeker within Australian discourse and aims to signify listening, understanding and respect.
Through this musical form of storytelling the project gives a space for the complexities and subtleties of emotion and expression behind the often unheeded words of asylum seekers to be heard, not through the noise of politics or media but on the terms and through the voices of asylum seekers themselves.
www.thefoundlingarchive.org.au/events