22nd April 2017
“Phonart” is a radio art / sound art project initiated by Mia Zabelka and Zahra Mani. Since 2010, Phonart has engaged on an experimental music level with the disappearance of marginalized languages and isolated modes of communication in Europe.
The current project is an artistic interpretation of the routes that refugees follow through the Balkans. The paths and roads provided the basis for a graphic score that will be performed by an ensemble put together for this project, with musicians from Austria, France, Germany and the Balkan countries. Fences, borderlines, chaos and camps resonate in the interpretative sounding of the migrant routes….
The radio network project will be performed simultaneously in Maribor, Slovenia and at Klanghaus Untergreith in the Austrian Steiermark (Styria) in cooperation with Internet Radio Waltl and the Slovene Radio Voice of Underground. The artists interact between the two locations in public radio space. Radiowaves supercede borders and boundaries. In the border zone between Austria and Slovenia, languages and radio stations merge.
The participants at Klanghaus Untergreith are:
Luise Volkmann, a yound German composer and saxophonist who also wrote the score for PHONART.
Jean-Marc Foussat, one of France’s best known sound artists and improvisers, who collaborates with musicians from all over the world and performs at international festivals.
Mia Zabelka, violinist, vocalist, sound artist, composer and director of the Klanghaus Untergreith.
The participatns at radio Voice of Underground are:
Zahra Mani, musician and composer from Pakistan and the UK who lives and works in Austria. Her long artistic and curatorial collaborations with Mia Zabelka include, amongst other projects, numerous border-crossing radio works.
Samo Kutin, one of Slovenia’s best know sound artists who develops sonic objects from unexpected materials that form the basis of his pieces and performances. His collboration with Zahra Mani in Maribor is their first performance together.
A group of refugees resident in Styria will cater the event in Klanghaus with multi-ethnic food. The meal for artists and visitors is an opportunity for personal exchange between the PHONART participants.
The performance will conclude with a meditation session led by Styrian sound artist Catherine Burggraf.
This event has been sponsored by the Cultural department of the State of Styria in the context of the 2016 call for border-crossing art and cultural projects “Traces of Friendship”.