FrauVonDa - The Å//A Universe

In 2024, FrauVonDa will resume its international anniversary project »THE Å//A UNIVERSE - HIDDEN SONGLINES OF THE BALTIC SEA« for two performances in Berlin and guest performances in Finland. The concert and the accompanying installation focus on the endangered diversity of life in the Baltic Sea and its colonisation by humans - and at the same time attempt to sensitise human perception and broaden the perspective for the environments of all critters.

The concert and installation event »BALTIC SONGLINES« at Villa Elisabeth is part of the project, which originally took place in various formats over several months. On the research trips, we dive, listen, marvel and ask: How much do we know about this sea, its inhabitants and their subjective environments? How do new transmedia narratives sound that place those who have not yet been heard and the previously untold at the centre of perception?
Together with our project partners from Finland, Åland, Germany and Iran, we researched the acoustic, tactile and visual phenomena and explored the philosophical and narrative possibilities of this youngest sea on earth. We combine research findings on the sensory perception of marine animals, the millennia-old sturgeon and the symbiotic community structures between bladderwrack, plankton and shoals of fish to create an idiosyncratic narrative of the Baltic Sea ecosystem as a »Terrapolis« worth living in. (D. Haraway).

The compositions by Tomi Räisänen and Amen Feizabadi take up the exploration of notions of diversity, resilience, and the idea of a community encompassing all critters in their commissioned works. The independently created cycles for percussion, double bass/E-bass, kantele, live electronics and two solo voices combine in the intermedial concert with free improvisations, nature writing written by Michaela Vieser and Isaac Yuen and visual art designed by Nicolas Wiese and Johan Karrento as ensemble partners to form an idiosyncratic artistic community.